Hand-colored photos are fascinating. They range from the pristine to the sloppy, the realist to the fantastical, each transcending the imperative to color in the lines. In this truly dynamic medium, the photographer gets a second chance to act upon the photograph to enhance, disguise, or transform.

The agency of the photographer has been much debated. Hand-colored photography adds another dimension of agency, allowing a sort of second composition. But one can only color the image on the page: this composition is just as dependent on the externally objective, uncontrollable subject as the first. The photographer-colorist can rail against this external reality, and in a fit of rebellion paint an orange green, but we, the viewer, look at it and unequivocally know when something is off. Photography is limited in a way that painting is not, and colored photography is thus even more limited, even as it adds depth.

Limits both contain and inspire. As Stravinsky rejoiced in the fruitful limits of the chromatic scale, so too can the photographer take joy from the objective properties of the photographed. Music captures pre-existing notes and creates with them. Photographs capture existing objects and create a story out of them. For the photographer, reality is both a shackle and a wellspring. The photograph exists at the divine juncture between limit and imagination. So, the limits of photography provide a safeguard against flailing, self-doubt, and dilettantism. Yes, there *is* an undeniable objective reality, now play with it.

But, lest we think photography is the dictatorship of realism…

The purpose, presumably, of hand-coloring, like its descendent, Technicolor, was to more accurately represent the reality of the visual world. But, as we denizens of a post-Oz world know, reality was swiftly abandoned for all the fantastic possibilities of color. Photographers were not content to merely mirror our drab surroundings – like the photographer creates a reality beyond that of the photographed, so too does the colorist further shape that world. It is this relationship between photographer, photograph, and photographed that becomes laid bare when coloring is introduced.

I have several hand-colored photos in my collection so far, revealing a range of experimental ideas, technique, and degree of interplay/cooperation between the photographed, the photograph, and the photographer.

Let’s look at some examples.

This one is beautiful. It comes from an Edwardian album chronicling the summer lakeside antics of an upper middle-class family. This coloring was likely done in the studio where the pictures were developed – the family had multiple cameras, and are responsible for the creative composition behind the photos, but this coloring was likely a professional edit. The goal here is clearly enhancement, realism, and aesthetic beauty. Light is re-introduced and refracted through the colorist’s skill. This photograph represents a perfect fusion of the external beauty of nature, the eye and skill of the photographer, and the talents of the colorist as co-creators in a work of art.

Now, in contrast, for some ridiculous oranges.

Look at those juicy oranges! They’re neon! Peel your eyes for the lone green orange. The harried colorist has cleverly used the natural B&W of the photo for the blossoms! And it’s a stereoview so you get to see it IN 3D!!!

This is obviously a more amateur work, and I like to imagine someone coloring this at home. The color alone adds this weird, hyperbolic suspension of disbelief to the most straightforward, boring subject matter. The color here plays the role of vaudevillian makeup, transforming the quotidian into the wonderfully preposterous.

{Sidenote – at the antique show where I found this stereoview, there was another, PERFECT, twin, featuring aristocratic oranges, naturally and tastefully colored, not bleeding all over the lines, imperious in their normalcy. I hesitated, but it was an easy choice. This one has so much more personality.}

And finally for now, the pinnacle of all artistic creativity, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

Splashes of color in the White City:

This one is another combination of professional and vernacular work. The already unnatural existence of a tropical taxidermy habitat within the industrial ecosystem behind is rendered even more outlandish by the added color. The result is a transporting flight of imagination that mimics the lived experience of the Fair itself. In that way, it’s a true souvenir – a microcosm of the ephemeral commemorated. Gosh, I’d love to actually look at this one through a stereoscope. I think that should be my major antique purchase this year.

Each of these images is fundamentally altered by the addition of color – whether to enhance, abstract, amuse, or transport, but always to create anew. To vernacular photographers and professional studios alike, hand-coloring offered an additional means of expression, a new vocabulary to interpret and transcend reality.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any really good examples in my collection (yet) of truly otherworldly, reality-warping hand-colored photography (always good to have a reason to go shopping). Stay tuned!