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There’s something about portraits, either taken or drawn by others or indeed self portraits.
Color portrait from an old b&w photograph
Not so many folks I suspect have painted portraits of themselves compared with the often dozens of photographs taken in your lifetime. And it IS amazing how many photographs you find of yourself when you look through old albums or embarrassingly visit your Mom and find yourself trawling dutifully through those “family” pics.
One of the challenges I take on these days is to take an old black & white photograph (this one was taken 60 years ago) and attempt to sketch it with some coloration basically as a painted, drawn or sketched portrait. For me it tends to bring the flat photo record to some kind of “life” and hopefully produce something that is so much more interesting.
I don’t know about you but I always find black & white images seem to take on a sort of anonymity, like an old news reel where everyone is portrayed and even dressed in the same drab monochrome tones – as if no color has ever brightened their lives or their environment. Even the surroundings, the buildings are the same and even the sea and sky – dull and gray and yet totally misleading.
Before the age of the camera the only record of people and events, visually at any rate were managed my painters and artists. Portraits were wonderfully colored, often bright costumed and with fabulous skin tones, often done flatteringly, were suddenly at the end of the 1800′s instantly and almost overnight, replaced and transformed into this monochrome industrial culture. Everyone was black & white or gray toned and dull.
So here I’m reversing the trend once again, this time with added color and importantly in my opinion, a hint of life – and that’s it I suppose – I’ve just typed the ideal description – I’m bringing an old photo to life – simple as that.
Interestingly some photographers prefer to shoot in black & white – for atmosphere, drama and effect I’ve heard say and I really don’t see it. I mean we don’t see our world in black & white – and it’s not that simple. We see in color, in fact an enormous spectrum of colors at that!
Color affects our feelings too and completely immerses our impression of what we really see – the eyes take in all this mass of raw information and the brain interprets and makes sense of it all – as I say – it ain’t simple and color represents a huge percentage of that data stream.
In a way the old black & white photograph is almost forcing us all to ‘see’ the same thing, devoid of impressions and feelings. A sort of flat one dimensional ‘snap’ of life?
I mean we all have to have a little color in our lives, don’t we?
That’s beautiful.
I understand the need to turn black and white photos into colour as I do this myself, though digitally not in paint. (I have done it with watercolour in the past, but prefer to leave others to do it that way now!) Your painting is very good – this one and the others I’ve seen so far in your blog, and I’ve subscribed.
Colour adds dimension that is often lost in black and white photos, or at least, that’s according to my perception. But these days younger people are finding that black and white brings into their lives the nostalgia of their parents or grandparents. Myself, I’m in my sixtieth year and I prefer to bring my past to life more!
I agree too that black and white whilst seen by many as pictures of the past are of course quite unreal. After all we see in color and our interpretation of life is in color. And whilst It has emotion and relevance I find that even a color photograph does nothing much for me today.
I need to breathe into it, some feeling, and for me no better way is by art interpretation, expressionism and impressionism, which ever means suits – but than I can “see” so much more of the subject because of it.
Of course black cars, black and gray clothing of the war days, which I experienced, just increased the retrospective images we see of that time perpetuating the misconception. But in the country where I lived there was always wonderful vibrant color, probably more so than today,
and for me I need to add perhaps the life that’s been lost over the years so I can feel the picture. . . .goodness me – you’ve got me going now. . . . .