Familiar photo, unfamiliar reaction
A while ago my dad let me scan some photos he had of his family from when he was young. The one I always go back to from 1936 has the most people, most of them old enough that I can easily tell who is who. I ran the picture through a colorizing service full well knowing it would be only a best guess at what colors went where. The result evoked a surprisingly strong reaction. I thought it would be appropriate to share since tomorrow would have been my grandparents' 107th wedding anniversary.
This is the original photo (my dad in the coat and tie kneeling on the floor), and the colorized one is at the bottom of the post.
I am normally not a fan of colorizing, mostly because if something was shot in black and white, the result was the photographer's intent. I feel even more so with movies being colorized. The other thing is in most cases, the true colors can't be known, so it's up to interpretation.
That said, when I first looked at the result of trying to colorize the photo, I didn't expect to have the emotional reaction that I had. Literally welling-up strong. I'm very familiar with the picture and grew up with all but a few of the people in it in my life. Seeing it in color was like seeing them in person.
Embarrassingly, I don't remember which service I used. I think I found it again, but reprocessing the photo gives very different results. I think the algorithm of the original was pretty conservative with colors it picked, which resonates more with me than the stronger colors of newer services.
