“History In Color”: 30 Beautifully Colorized Historical Photographs

"Photography can definitely be a powerful tool in understanding history," Jo Romero, a writer, sketcher, and founder of the blog called Love British History told Bored Panda. "It gives us that link between us and people in the past — we can look into the person's eyes in a photograph and it creates that human connection between us."

After all, exploring historical events is far more than just memorizing a string of names and dates. It is about how people lived back then, and how they molded our society. It is about understanding their dreams, hopes, and fears, and what pushed them to take action and create inventions that they did. "From a photograph too, we can see body languages and poses within a group of people or the way a scene is laid out and this is much more than we could ascertain from reading a book," Jo added. "Photographs help make history seem more real. They're like a viewfinder into the past!"

The blogger pointed out that history is an extremely varied topic. "We have so much we can learn from the visual evidence that we have, whether that's a portrait of a person or a snapshot captured of a group or scene," she said, adding that visual media helps make the past seem more accessible and that we can see photos like we see historical artifacts. "They add interest and give us context."

"It's one thing to read about your great-great grandfather on a page but then to see a colorized photograph of him and look into his eyes, it's completely different," Jo told us. "I think that colored photos of people or scenes evoke a much stronger emotional reaction, and it's great that they can be used alongside written sources for context. Not everyone wants to learn just by reading, and using different visual sources can help keep our interest and curiosity up and make the topic a lot more engaging."

Jo personally loves to see old photos restored in color. "There's just something about seeing a black and white photo and then looking at the colored version that brings it almost to life," she explained. "We establish a connection with not only the subject but also the photographer, so we see exactly what they saw through their lens that day as if we're seeing it now and are part of the scene in a way." The history lover added that discovering the past through high-quality colorized historical photographs simply makes it seem "much more relatable to us and we want to discover more."

We also got in touch with Sanna Dullaway, a Swedish colorization artist living in Belgium, who was kind enough to have a little chat with us about photo colorizing and the whole process behind it. Sanna revealed to Bored Panda that she has been coloring both public and private photographs and turning black and white memories into vivid colors for over a decade now.

"When I started, I was not aware of anyone else doing this online. It's something I figured out for myself by playing around in Photoshop,” Sanna told us. The idea came to her while she was listening to Rage Against the Machine one day and saw the album cover of a song — it was a photo of the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức who set himself on fire in protest of the South Vietnamese government persecuting other Buddhists.

"The photo was in black and white, and I remember thinking the fire and the rest of the photo would have much more impact if it was in color," the artist mentioned. "I had a big interest in Photoshop at the time and loved playing around with the software so I simply tried coloring the fire by selecting it, and then applied a gradient to the fire within 'Color blending mode'."

"The result looked so amazing that I realized I could probably do the rest of the photo using the same technique, and I posted the result on Reddit," she told us, adding that it immediately hit the front page and stayed on there for nearly two days. After her work went viral, people all over the world started reaching out to her, asking if she could color their photos too. "I realized this was something I had a talent for and loved to do, so I simply continued! Now, ten years later, I still work with this full-time, coloring photos for magazines, museums, and people's own family album photos."

We were curious to learn more about the process of colorizing black and white photos itself. Sanna revealed she always starts by restoring the original image if it has any damage like scratches, spots, or the wrong exposure.

"Next, I mask and layer every single object in the photo, starting from the foreground working my way back in the background," the artist continued. "Locking these layers allows me to precisely color them without any bleeding issues. They are all set in Color blending mode — this mode allows the luminosity of the photo to stay intact as you give it color. This technique is easily available to anyone and hasn't changed since the day I started coloring."

One key characteristic that sets her colors apart from others is her many years of experience that allow her to make educated guesses, Sanna pointed out. "Natural colors are easy to guess the color of, trees, sky, earth, skin — these things looked the same 100 years ago as they do today, so are easy to reference."

However, she stressed that when it comes to man-made items, the process can become a bit more complicated. "[Objects] that change through time like textiles, building materials, cars, are all things that vary greatly from decade to decade and even year by year," Sanna explained. "You will have to research these as best you can using sources such as online collections from museums to more accurately pinpoint the correct color of the era."

Moreover, there are always moments when Sanna can’t find the needed information about the specific item or place she’s trying to restore, "and that's where you have to make your best guess."