BW pictures colorized in book

[Rob Wick]

Steve,

Thanks for weighing in (and also, thanks to everyone else). While I do enjoy watching films that have been speed-corrected, the addition of color doesn't appeal to me because the color always appeared washed out. I'm sure someone could point out that correcting speed is also a historical lie, given that the film was created by a certain method. To be honest, it doesn't bother me to watch a film that is not speed-corrected. I guess my whole problem is that when Mathew Brady took a photo of Lincoln, he had something in mind when he took it. I doubt he thought about someone adding color to it several years later, but even if he had and had no problem in doing so, it wouldn't have had the same historical truth because it was done with the materials that existed at the time.

As I've had time to consider my initial post, I accept that I'm probably making too much of this, but there's something distasteful about it in my mind. Guess that means if I am lucky enough to have my Tarbell biography accepted for publication, I will have to insist on not colorizing any pictures. I don't imagine I'll have much to worry about.

I'm editing this post in order to ask a question. I'm listening to Erik Larson's The Demon of Unrest. One thing I've noticed is that the audio censored the use of racial epithets when they appear in a historical document. While I abhor the use of the epithets, I also have a problem with their censorship in a document where they merely appear. The justification for such an edit is not the point I'm trying to make. Rather, it is that this changes the historicity of the document. Almost forgot my question. Is this the same as colorizing photos originally in black and white?

Best
Rob