Historic Black and White Photos Restored in Color

Aug 23, 2013 6 comments

There is a long standing debate of whether black and white photos of the historic era should be colorized. Last year there was a media uproar when Swedish artist Sanna Dullaway started promoting her business as a photo restorer by coloring iconic black and white images of yesteryears. Now there is an entire group of talented photo artists who contribute their work to an obscure section on the social news website Reddit. Below is a collection of some of their most popular creation.

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Powerhouse Mechanic by Lewis W. Hine (1921)

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W.H. Murphy and his associate demonstrating their bulletproof vest on October 13, 1923. Original below.

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Unemployed lumber worker, circa 1939. Original below.

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'Old Gold', Country store, 1939. Original below

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Big Jay McNeely driving the crowd at the Olympic Auditorium into a frenzy, Los Angeles, 1953. Original below

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Kyūdōka, Japanese Archers c.1860. Original below

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Albert Einstein

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Daughter of a resettled farmer, 1935. Original below

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Manzanar Relocation Centre - Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry, 2 July 1942. Original below

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British troops cheerfully board their train for the first stage of their trip to the western front - England, September 20, 1939.

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Hindenburg Disaster – May 6, 1937. Original below

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Elizabeth Taylor – Giant (1956 film). Original below

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Pablo Picasso sits in front of his painting The Kitchen

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Young boy in Baltimore slum area, July 1938

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Audrey Hepburn

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Albert Einstein, summer 1939 - Nassau Point, Long Island, NY

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Abandoned boy holding a stuffed toy animal. London 1945

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Auto Wreck in Washington D.C, 1921

via Twisted Sifter

Comments

  1. The coloured pictures is making it easier to imagine how it was back then. Interesting.

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  2. This is spectacular. Congratulations to the painter/artist. Really touched me.

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  3. I feel too that the colorized photos bring us a bit closer to imagine what it really was like years ago. It lifts a kind of hazy veil of mystery off of the pictures and makes the people and places photographed much more "real" and relatable.

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  4. Very well done. I love black and white, as it is, but it's true that colorizing them brings the time closer to ours and helps us identify more with the era. More, please!

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  5. Really interesting and amazing work...

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  6. I recently interviewed an artist devoted to colorization of old photos. He makes the good point that it is not necessarily an either/or proposition. We can enjoy the impact of a fine colorization and still have available to us the original. Here is a subtle colorization from the Carney's collection, currently featured on my website. http://audiosparksforart.com/project/woman-in-red-dress-and-plumed-hat/

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