About this picture
Young Ada leans over a luminous glass lightbox inside a quiet basement darkroom, holding a small silver eyepiece magnifier to check strips of 35mm negatives. Her beige trench coat sleeves are pushed up as white light illuminates her face from below. Behind her, black-and-white prints hang from a wire under the vaulted stone ceiling. A red safelight glows beside a vintage enlarger, and high cellar steps lead up toward the sunlit Paris street.
The story so far
This photo is part of The Mender of Lantern Street, a story told one torn photograph at a time. Mira assembled a lively afternoon at Café de Flore among Ada's photographer friends. Under an empty coffee cup, Ada had found an impossible drawing of their Lantern Street shop.
How to play
Drag a piece onto another square to swap them, or tap a piece and then tap where it should go. Hold Preview for a faded glimpse of the photo: enough to see where the sky and the street go, not the details. Pieces that belong together join up and move as one, and turn green once they are in the right place. You have 3:00 for these 25 pieces, and the clock keeps running if you leave the page. Each photo has three stars: one for restoring it, one for finishing with1:12 still on the clock without taking extra time, and one for doing it in 32 moves or fewer. Each episode starts with 2 hints and earns more along the way; unused hints carry over to later photos. Playing needs a free account, which keeps your stars and stamps on every device. Restoring photos earns stamps (more for more stars, and extra for whole episodes), which buy more time or more hints. Once the photo is restored, turn it over and look for the clue hidden in it. Photos open one after another and episodes in order; each new chapter opens once you have enough stars from the chapters before it.