Earlier in the semester, I came across this article about
some Redditers who decided to color in American Civil War photographs: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-american-civil-war-photos-turned-into-glorious-color-2013-10
After reading this article, I decided to search for more photographs and came
across one man’s website, Mads Madsen, on Colorized History: http://twistedsifter.com/2012/12/colorizing-historic-photos-gallery/. A complete list of his work can be viewed here: http://zuzahgaming.minus.com/
These colorized photographs are very impressive to say the least, so let’s take
a second to discuss what these colorized photographs bring to the table. They
humanize the generals and soldiers in the photographs and make us feel
something on an emotional level. According
to an article by Darren Rowse, “Color can help tell us stories (visually) and
it can be used to communicate on an emotional level…I would go so far as to say
that color is the primary factor responsible for making a photo feel exciting,
lively, mysterious or perhaps melancholic or a little somber” (Rowse,
2006-2013). [1]
Whether or not you agree with that statement (I don’t
necessarily agree with it), I do think that color does add an emotional depth
to these American Civil War photographs. Being able to view portraits of Union
and Confederate soldiers and even our 16th President of the United
States, Abraham Lincoln
During the Civil War, Brady and his associates traveled throughout the eastern part of the country, capturing effects of the Civil War through photographs of people, towns, and battlefields. Here are some examples of photographs Madsen colorizes: This is a photograph of General Ambrose Burnside, commander of the Union army at Potomac. I did not get this information from Madsen's website, however. Madsen does little to describe the photographs in his online collection so I had to poke around for information about many of the photographs he has colorized.
Here is another photograph that Madsen colorizes. I am unsure as to what the title of the photograph is because of his lack of description but if I had to take a guess, I would guess that this is a photograph of the dead at Antietam. The color in this image really adds depth to the carnage of War, with the scattered bodies on the ground.
Let’s take a look at the process that Madsen uses to colorize these photographs in this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVf60pGsi9Q&feature=youtu.be
He speaks very quickly in this tutorial but you can almost
make out that he’s done some “limited research” on the generals he is
colorizing. This makes me a bit nervous because I would hope that he would do
extensive research on the characteristics and features of people and places
depicted in the photographs. However, it
is difficult to say to what he is basing the level or degree of saturation and
distinct coloring on, which in my opinion, makes some of these colorized photographs look fake. A juxtaposition of a few generals in black and white vs. color reveals this in my opinion:
I think my biggest problem with these color photographs is
the idea of authenticity. As these color photographs of the Civil War and
earlier eras become popular, more and more people are going to think that these
color photographs are the originals. Now, I know what you’re going to say: How can
people be that stupid? Of course they’re going to know that color photography
wasn’t around during the Civil War era.” But maybe not. When you color in these
photographs, you are essentially changing the history of taking photographs and
the history of the War.
Nowhere on these websites do they explain the art of
photography that Brady had to master during the Civil War era to take these
photographs. Processing these photographs involved many steps; Brady and other
photographers had to transport their supplies by wagon, mix their own chemicals
and prepare their own wet plate glass collodion negatives and develop these
negatives within minutes, before the emulsion dried. [2]
Nowhere on this website does it state what kind of person Brady was to be able
to take photographs of both Union and Confederate soldiers and Generals. While
many close relatives told Brady not to go, he decided to take a group of
photographers and aids, such as Alexander Gardener and Timothy O’Sullivan, to document
the war. While many of these photographs were attributed to him, they were not
necessarily taken by him. He was more of a project manager, preserving their
negatives and buying others from other photographers to add to the collection. He
not only preserved wet glass negatives of soldiers and leaders during the War,
he also documented the dead, which was not well received at the time but proved
to change the face of War for many Americans. He invested most of his fortune
into preserving this Civil War photograph collection, and it eventually led him
to bankruptcy. He eventually sold the
collection to Congress in 1875 for $25,000. In his final years, he reflected on
these photographs, saying: “No one will ever know what I went through to secure
those negatives. The world can never appreciate it. It changed the whole course
of my life.”[3]
These details are important, or should be important to the viewers,
and this information should be accessible for everyone looking at these
photographs. When you leave this information out, people begin to assume that
the color photographs are authentic, and that these Photoshoppers are the
creators, especially with younger generations who believe that if it’s on the
internet, it must be true. There is so much background and context to these
photographs that cannot be added by a simple coat of color pixels. The color
adds a new layer but the older layers should be addressed as well. These colorized
photographers like Madsen need to pay homage to the photographers that came
before; those who didn’t have Photoshop and who had to do the real thing from
scratch.
[1]
David Rowse. The Importance of Color in
Photography: An Interview with Mitchell Kanashkevich (Digital Photography
School, 2006-2013) http://digital-photography-school.com/the-importance-of-color-in-photography-an-interview-with-mitchell-kanashkevich.
[2] Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/civilwarphotos.html
[3] Library of Congress, Mathew B. Brady Biographical Note http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/bradynote.html
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