History Through a New Lens: Adding Color to Photographs

Black-and-white photos are charming but remote, as though from another world. Artist Marina Amal brings them to life in a new book, The Colour of Time: A New History of the World, 1850-1960 (Head of Zeus). After careful research to determine accurate hues, Amal digitally colorized 200 iconic images: Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington, D.C., the D-Day invasion, this peaceful 1905 scene of the Jersey Shore. Historian Dan Jones tells the stories behind them. Viewed in color, the people in the images gain new substance; places, dimension; and events, gravity. Suddenly, these old photos come closer to home.

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