BW pictures colorized in book

[Rob Wick]

While this has nothing to do with Lincoln, I would like to get some reactions to something I saw that really bothers me. There is a new biography of Woodrow Wilson by Christopher Cox called "Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn." In the section of pictures, every photograph has been artificially colorized. Pictures of people like Charles Sumner that existed long before color photography was even possible. This really bothers me. I have no idea why it was even done, but it's dishonest, at least in my mind. The average person likely wouldn't care, but to me it is representing something that never existed and is historically false, not just inaccurate, but a historical lie. Am I overreacting?

Best
Rob

[Anita]

While this has nothing to do with Lincoln, I would like to get some reactions to something I saw that really bothers me. There is a new biography of Woodrow Wilson by Christopher Cox called "Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn." In the section of pictures, every photograph has been artificially colorized. Pictures of people like Charles Sumner that existed long before color photography was even possible. This really bothers me. I have no idea why it was even done, but it's dishonest, at least in my mind. The average person likely wouldn't care, but to me it is representing something that never existed and is historically false, not just inaccurate, but a historical lie. Am I overreacting?

Best
Rob

For me it's the black and white historic photo that is dishonest in the sense that it doesn't represent reality. The color technology didn't exist but history has always happened in color. Color doesn't change what the photographer captured but creates what he really saw through the lens.
As an older person who grew up with black & white photography, I like its sense of nostalgia and the artistic way it can create mood, atmosphere. I also like seeing the world as Lincoln would have lived it- in color.

[AussieMick]

Sorry, Anita... I disagree. We cannot see the same colours, (I'll use my tablet's suggested spelling rather than alter it),. Obviously we all see our own version of,say, blue but even so .... and there are many many variations of any colour .... presenting a colorised version as though "this" is what Lincoln would have seen is simply pretending. Who is to say which shade of blue or red is closest to the truth?
We know the black and white photo isn't an exact representation.... we are lucky to have it.

[Rob Wick]

For me it's the black and white historic photo that is dishonest in the sense that it doesn't represent reality. The color technology didn't exist but history has always happened in color. Color doesn't change what the photographer captured but creates what he really saw through the lens.
As an older person who grew up with black & white photography, I like its sense of nostalgia and the artistic way it can create mood, atmosphere. I also like seeing the world as Lincoln would have lived it- in color.

Anita,

I can certainly understand your point, and in a very limited way, I agree with you. It is interesting to those of us who are used to color photographs to see things in color, but when those photos were taken, the photographer was doing so in order to capture a moment in time. The German historian Leopold Von Ranke made the comment that Geschichte, wie sie tatsächlich passiert ist, or roughly translated, "we must study history as it actually happened." The same discussion took place when films in Hollywood were colorized. Did the colorized version change the feeling one got from the film? I think it did.

Plus, while I haven't read Cox's book yet, I don't know if he offered an explanation as to why the photos were colorized. I will have to see what he says.

Best
Rob

[Gene C]

I used to wonder about that myself

http://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.bl...k-and.html

[Dennis Urban]

I just cannot resist venturing my opinion on this issue. Colorization of old B&W photos is artificial and just another attempt to ram AI down our throats. No one can say what the colors of those folks clothing or backgrounds actually was. It's just a guess by manipulating what was real then. There is a certain nostalgia that is lost when viewing artificially colored images. Thinking about how it was back then has nothing to do with color but everything to do with the events depicted whether family or otherwise. Even with CW uniforms, of which we generally know their colors, we cannot know of the faded discolorization from the vigors of the campaign. I abhor this trend. A recent CW magazine created a colorized false picture of Grant and Lee standing side by side. This never happened. How long will it be before future generations accept this picture (which did not have a disclaimer across it) and the creation of others like it as actual. Folks can think what they will and I respect their opinions but I want none of it. I rest may case!

[David Lockmiller]

I think statues are a real problem.

Luckily for me, the statue of President Lincoln in front of City Hall in San Francisco is a really good one in my opinion.

[Anita]

For me it's the black and white historic photo that is dishonest in the sense that it doesn't represent reality. The color technology didn't exist but history has always happened in color. Color doesn't change what the photographer captured but creates what he really saw through the lens.
As an older person who grew up with black & white photography, I like its sense of nostalgia and the artistic way it can create mood, atmosphere. I also like seeing the world as Lincoln would have lived it- in color.

Anita,

I can certainly understand your point, and in a very limited way, I agree with you. It is interesting to those of us who are used to color photographs to see things in color, but when those photos were taken, the photographer was doing so in order to capture a moment in time. The German historian Leopold Von Ranke made the comment that Geschichte, wie sie tatsächlich passiert ist, or roughly translated, "we must study history as it actually happened." The same discussion took place when films in Hollywood were colorized. Did the colorized version change the feeling one got from the film? I think it did.

Plus, while I haven't read Cox's book yet, I don't know if he offered an explanation as to why the photos were colorized. I will have to see what he says.

Best
Rob

If you are looking at historic photographs in the form of the technology available at the time, then uncolorized photos capture that.

The demand for color photographs and attempts to color them started at the very beginning of photography. "The search immediately began for a means of capturing accurately not only the form but also the colours of nature."

"WHEN WAS COLOUR FIRST ADDED TO PHOTOGRAPHS?
In 1839, when photographs were seen for the very first time, they were greeted with a sense of wonder. However, this amazement was soon mixed with disappointment. People didn’t understand how a process that could record all aspects of a scene with such exquisite detail could fail so dismally to record its colours. The search immediately began for a means of capturing accurately not only the form but also the colours of nature.

While scientists, photographers, businessmen and experimenters laboured, the public became impatient. Photographers, eager to give their customers what they wanted, soon took the matter, literally, into their own hands and began to add colour to their monochrome images. As the writer of A Guide to Painting Photographic Portraits noted in 1851:

When the photographer has succeeded in obtaining a good likeness, it passes into the artist’s hands, who, with skill and colour, give to it a life-like and natural appearance."

https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk...hotography

[AussieMick]

Reading your Post, Anita, I was reminded of TV. I can recall being more than a little disappointed watching for TV in the 1950s (!).
The Lone Ranger was certainly addictive but how much better it would have been (I used to think) in colour ...

Recently I had a step-grandson (2 years old) here and I showed him one of my favourite shows from the 1950's that I watched as a very young child ... he was not !!!! impressed ... no colour!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6zNwBTLSWU

[Anita]

Reading your Post, Anita, I was reminded of TV. I can recall being more than a little disappointed watching for TV in the 1950s (!).
The Lone Ranger was certainly addictive but how much better it would have been (I used to think) in colour ...

Recently I had a step-grandson (2 years old) here and I showed him one of my favourite shows from the 1950's that I watched as a very young child ... he was not !!!! impressed ... no colour!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6zNwBTLSWU

Michael, I watched 5 minutes of Bill and Ben and have to agree with your step-grandson! Planting and watching flowers grow in various shades of gray, black and white ...

[David Lockmiller]

Reading your Post, Anita, I was reminded of TV. I can recall being more than a little disappointed watching for TV in the 1950s (!).
The Lone Ranger was certainly addictive but how much better it would have been (I used to think) in colour ...

Recently I had a step-grandson (2 years old) here and I showed him one of my favourite shows from the 1950's that I watched as a very young child ... he was not !!!! impressed ... no colour!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6zNwBTLSWU

Michael, I watched 5 minutes of Bill and Ben and have to agree with your step-grandson! Planting and watching flowers grow in various shades of gray, black and white ...

I watched three or four minutes of Bill and Ben, and I have to agree with your step-grandson and Anita!

[AussieMick]

You both deserve an award ... watching it for more than a minute now is like visiting the dentist.

Watch With Mother was on Monday-Friday (Bill and Ben was Monday, Wooden Tops Tuesday, Andy Pandy ? ....) .
It was widely criticised in the 60's for Bill and Ben's encouraging children to speak in 'gobble-de-gook' ("Ah-allo-lickle-Weeeeed") ... but actually I dont think (?) it did me any harm. Probably helped with a lead-in to afternoon nap.
I suspect there was some inverted snobbery from critics due to the lady story-teller's very very upper class accent.

(Apologies for this Thread veering from Lincoln ... I wonder what he would have thought of Bill and Ben? dropped off to sleep, maybe)

[Rob Wick]

(Apologies for this Thread veering from Lincoln ... I wonder what he would have thought of Bill and Ben? dropped off to sleep, maybe)

Mike,

Since it had nothing to do with Lincoln, no need for apologies.

Obviously, we all today live with color in our lives and the lack of it is a shock to our system, but I can't for the life of me think of a book that I've read where the photos were in black and white and took away from what I read. In going through the illustrations I hope to use for my bio of Tarbell, all the photos are in black and white, and I would never even consider colorizing them.

As for what Lincoln would think of Bill and Ben. Don Fehrenbacher was once asked what Lincoln would think of bussing. Without missing a beat, Fehrenbacher said, "the first thing he would say is 'what's a bus?'"

Best
Rob

[Steve]

Rob, I'm a little late coming to this conversation. I personally believe good color restoration help bring history alive in a more accurate way to the people who were alive then. Of course, ethically any colorization should be noted with the particular images.

I think the value is especially true of old silent films taken of people candidly moving about. Here's an example of what I'm talking about from a film dated 1900:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CtNQ_KDP64

With all that said, I do think it's a little odd that every photo in a biography of Wilson would need to be colorized.

[Gene C]

Great video. Thanks for posting.
There's even a lady wearing a shawl that looks a lot like the one I bought my wife for Christmas.