Debunking myths.

When Ted Turner set to colorizing sacred Hollywood movie classics, the experts rose up in arms. They conveniently overlooked two facts. First, those movies were made in monochrome for the simple reason that color film was either unavailable or too expensive. Second, people loved them in color. I recall watching many and have yet to think of one which was not better in color, though I do confess that maybe Carol Reed’s The Third Man might not gain from the exercise. No indication that Texas Ted got around to that one.

Let’s see, what was the last successful box office take for a black and white movie? Oh! yes, that would be Woody Allen’s Manhattan made in, ummm, 1979 …. yeah, black and white is really going to roll in the dollars.

So it’s with considerable joy that I came across the work of Swedish colorist Sanna Dullaway who has had the gall to colorize untouchable icons, not least Dorothea Lange’s migrant Nipomo mother:

The colorized picture is better in every way than the original.

Even that cultural icon, a picture which transcends its original photojournalism genre, becoming one of the great anti-war images of all time, is not spared her paintbox:

Again, the colored version is superior, heightening the sheer banality of the surroundings while the horrendous murder takes place, making the act that much worse.

My fond wish is that Ms. Dullaway sets her paints to work on the over processed oeuvre of that most overrated of American photographers, Ansel Adams. Now a pretty colored version of his crappy Yosemite snaps would finally grace the real estate it deserves. The top of a tin of cookies.