My limit was hit when I saw the picture of the young 13 year old child in Auschwitz (the one in your blog thumbnail) was colorised and animated using AI. The colorisation wasn't the problem it was the animation , it was not approirate to make her smile , the child was clearly suffering in the photo, the whole context of it and fact that we know she was ultimately murdered by the Nazis, this seemed a total disrespect to me. Of course some where not bothered by it.
A beautifully written analysis. I recently found your work and seeing colorized photos has always given me a hesitant feeling though I didn’t really know why.
I’m a photographer, mostly capture Crows in the PNW. I have from time to time toggled the B/W button on an image just to see what a “classic” treatment would do. And I always revert back to color thinking it’s just missing the one thing that connects me to it...
That odd feeling I have when seeing colorized photographs is the same as when that company used AI to animate old photos,..watching 80 year spouses see their long lost loves alive again if only for a brief 5 sec loop (which is simply magic imo..) it somehow makes that which was unaccessible real.
This piece explains the complexity of how I feel so well. Light into corners I didn’t know I had.
I really appreciate your heart in your work bringing the past back and allowing us to see the life that once was.
It’s so relatable it feels existentially wrong for some reason,..like as if we discovered timetravel and I could go back and see my parents watching TV together before I was born. Should I witness that? I don’t know, but I want to.
Thank you for such a thoughtful piece, I’m really glad I found your work. Can’t wait for the doc!!
Thanks for the exploration of the hazards involved in colourizing photos. I always think of my now good friend the illustrator and reporter Richard Johnson. Rich had visited my team in Afghanistan, and I wanted to have illustrations of each of my team members. It wasn’t enough to give him a photograph of them, but he wasn’t reproducing an image, but a person. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years.
I see that in your process. You’re not a bot or an algorithm adding colour to photographs, you’re reproducing a time, place, or person. As best you can. I think that’s where the Khmer Rouge colourist cross the line, betraying the subject and the time.
Everyone has their own limits.
My limit was hit when I saw the picture of the young 13 year old child in Auschwitz (the one in your blog thumbnail) was colorised and animated using AI. The colorisation wasn't the problem it was the animation , it was not approirate to make her smile , the child was clearly suffering in the photo, the whole context of it and fact that we know she was ultimately murdered by the Nazis, this seemed a total disrespect to me. Of course some where not bothered by it.
A beautifully written analysis. I recently found your work and seeing colorized photos has always given me a hesitant feeling though I didn’t really know why.
I’m a photographer, mostly capture Crows in the PNW. I have from time to time toggled the B/W button on an image just to see what a “classic” treatment would do. And I always revert back to color thinking it’s just missing the one thing that connects me to it...
That odd feeling I have when seeing colorized photographs is the same as when that company used AI to animate old photos,..watching 80 year spouses see their long lost loves alive again if only for a brief 5 sec loop (which is simply magic imo..) it somehow makes that which was unaccessible real.
This piece explains the complexity of how I feel so well. Light into corners I didn’t know I had.
I really appreciate your heart in your work bringing the past back and allowing us to see the life that once was.
It’s so relatable it feels existentially wrong for some reason,..like as if we discovered timetravel and I could go back and see my parents watching TV together before I was born. Should I witness that? I don’t know, but I want to.
Thank you for such a thoughtful piece, I’m really glad I found your work. Can’t wait for the doc!!
Thanks for the exploration of the hazards involved in colourizing photos. I always think of my now good friend the illustrator and reporter Richard Johnson. Rich had visited my team in Afghanistan, and I wanted to have illustrations of each of my team members. It wasn’t enough to give him a photograph of them, but he wasn’t reproducing an image, but a person. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years.
I see that in your process. You’re not a bot or an algorithm adding colour to photographs, you’re reproducing a time, place, or person. As best you can. I think that’s where the Khmer Rouge colourist cross the line, betraying the subject and the time.