Enchanting Colorized Photos Breathe New Life Into History

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Enchanting Colorized Photos Breathe New Life Into History

History in Color

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1. Edgar Allen Poe

IMAGE: DANA KELLER

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BY BECKETT MUFSON1 DAY AGO
Dana Keller is resurrecting the shadows of history, one photo at a time. Keller, a graduate student at Simmons College, is studying to become a historical archivist. In his spare time, he casually took up colorizing family photo requests on Reddit as a hobby.

Now this hobby has exploded into a Facebook page with over 16,000 likes and a passionate community.

History in Color takes photos of famous historical figures, famous events, and even old family photos, and transforms them into some of the most realistic colorizations on the Internet. Mashable asked Keller a few questions about his craft, and the community that has gathered around it.

Mashable: How much time do you spend working on a single photo?

Dana Keller: Each photo is unique, and the complexity can vary quite a bit. A typical studio portrait with average detail will take approximately 45 min to an hour, while a family photo or an outdoor scene with a lot of background and subject detail can take 5 hours or longer.

What tools do you use when colorizing the images?

I use Photoshop for all of the colorization work (and restoration work if required), and a Wacom tablet. Basically there are many layers that are used to slowly build up colors, very much like painting.

Colorizing is not not as simple as laying a broad stroke of blue on a person’s jacket, or green on a field of grass. For example, there are many many colors just in the landscape of a person’s skin. Not just the spectrum of reds and browns, but there are elements of blues and greens and purples in the shadows, and in underlying veins visible through translucent skin.

What do you think color adds to an old photo you’ve restored?

I think there is an element of detachment that we have from historic black and white images, as if they are only shadows from a time too long ago for any of us to remember or relate to. With our modern eyes, we are somehow disconnected from the real and vibrant world those photos are actually portraying.

By taking the time to add color to these images of history, the viewer is brought a little closer to the reality in which they were taken. 

Color establishes a renewed familiarity with the past.

Color establishes a renewed familiarity with the past. It can force us to instantly see an old photograph with a new perspective, and truly make it seem as if the past it portrays wasn’t that long ago after all.

Man

Image: Facebook, Dana Keller

How do you choose which pictures to colorize?

Usually, I choose ones that make me wonder what these pieces of history would look like in real life. For example, what would Abraham Lincoln or the Hindenburg disaster have looked like to the photographer at that moment in time?

It’s tough to constantly come up with new ideas for colorizations on my own, so it’s been helpful to get suggestions from followers through social media. They’ll send pictures of events or people that are important or interesting to them, and that I may not necessarily familiar with. I’ll then get to research and discover new events and figures in history, and at the same time color and bring to life the photos for others that I wouldn’t have otherwise found!

Do you have a background in graphic design or did you just pick this up as a hobby?

Colorizing photos has been my hobby for about 9 months, and it has since become a fairly lucrative part-time job, mainly colorizing family photos for people. I have a background in graphic design and photography as well, which certainly helps with understanding the roles that light plays in color values. Right now, I’m a grad student studying archival science. There are endless amounts old photos in archives, and it’s always great to discover ones that would be perfect for colorizing.

War Is Hell

Image: Facebook, Dana Keller

How has your audience responded to the colorizations?

The response has been amazingly positive. I think it really clicked for me when I posted on Reddit a colorization of a tattoo parlor. I had quickly colorized that photo because I saw the black and white original earlier that day on the front page of Reddit, and thought it would be great to see in color. Though it’s not one that I would consider my best work by any means (it’s actually kind of sloppy), it’s still my top post. Reddit has been the main outlet until recently, and Facebook is where I currently primarily operate.

I remember one person saying about a colorization I’d done that they really forgot for a minute that they were looking at an artificially colored photo. It was a photo she’d seen a hundred times before, but suddenly it was real to her. 

It brought that moment of history to life for her.

It brought that moment of history to life for her. Which is awesome, and it’s why I love doing it.

There is some controversy though. Some people are adamantly against colorization and don’t hesitate to let me know what they think. Mostly, they feel as if it is a disgrace to the original, and I can see where they’re coming from. (As a studying archivist, it’s basically my job to preserve original images as they are, yet I love colorizations). I don’t think anyone colorizes photos in order to replace or improve upon the originals.

I do it because I want to see it from a different and new perspective, and to give others the chance to see it too.

tattoo

Image: Facebook, Dana Keller

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