The colorization of historical photos is an interesting trend, but I don't share the author's pensive dread. I certainly didn't see much ground for concern in h

The colorization of historical photos is an interesting trend, but I don't share the author's pensive dread. I certainly didn't see much ground for concern in his examples. The potential certainly exists for the addition of color to have some negative effects, particularly if the process introduces or perpetuates inaccuracies. But there is an inherent limitation to the scope of these anachronisms: even at their worst, they only affect the color of what is shown, so people who are exposed to the images are still consuming historical information that is mostly authentic. This drawback is trivial compared to the benefits that colorization offers. It is a great tool for popularizing history, both because it makes historical photos more accessible to lay audiences, and because the process itself is becoming a popular hobby. Better to have the next generation mix up a few colors than forget events altogether. Even someone like me with a lifelong passion for history can benefit from viewing colorized photos, because they allow a deeper level of immersion in the past. Try as we might to remember that our ancestors saw the same colors we do today, black-and-white photos subliminally distance us from a past that looks alien and unfamiliar. Colorization often transforms a mundane depiction of the past into a gripping portrait of what could be the present. It allows us to hoary intellectualism for the visceral horror of war, thrill of lust, and opulence of royalty. Even when the colors themselves are wrong, they may provide a more authentic replication of the visceral reactions experienced by the photographer's living, breathing contemporaries. Of course, there is still a place for black-and-white photography. Its appeal will endure among the intelligent, because the elimination of extraneous color differences allows the auteur to reduce a scene to only its essential components. But we delude ourselves if we think that many of the people viewing colorized photographs would otherwise be perusing the images black-and-white source material. The solution is normally to present the two versions of the images together. This decreases the risk that viewers will be misled, because it shows them which aspects of the photograph have been modified. The article asked what it will mean if Norman Seeff's original black-and-white photograph of Steve Jobs is surpassed in popularity by its colorized offspring. To history, it would mean nothing, not only because the pigmentation of Jobs' sweater is of no interest, but because scholars will rely on the originals whenever possible. However, it would reveal a lot about the image's aesthetic appeal — i.e., that it became popular in spite of, not because of, its restricted palate. This is another benefit of colorization: It opens up new vistas for art criticism. There is something significant about the fact that many black-and-white images are enhanced by the process, while others seem to lose their je ne ce quoi. Is this a real phenomenon? A cultural artifact/ A figment of our imagination? The only way to find out is to keep colorizing.