Art from the Archives
Looking Back Through Time in Color
Colorizing old photos is not merely about adding color. It is an interpretive act that exposes how human beings mentally construct reality from incomplete information. We do it every day. We’re doing it right now. As soon as I employed that construct to add color to old photos, creating art became almost spontaneous.
For millennia memories were transcribed and preserved as the written word or some graphic language like hieroglyphics. Only in modern times have moments of time been preserved visually. Black-and-white photos were limited by the technology of their day, leaving us intriguing monochromatic traces of the past. Modern technology allows us to reimagine and experience this past in living color offering us an imperfect but more contemporary view of people and places making the past more relatable and realistic. It’s like a time machine bringing the past into the present. Try it. You might like it. I call it my accidental super power.
Recent publication: The Colorizing Pro - Art, Nostalgia, and a Theory of Visual Cognition
Available at DayOldArt.com.
Education
Ph.D. UCLA
MLIS UCLA
Casinos and Clubs on Fremont Street #2, Las Vegas, 1948
