A thread on colourisation and photography
In a seminar with students last year the colourisation of historical photographs came up in a discussion about what I have termed the ‘faux materiality’ of digital images through filter applications. 1

I haven’t given the topic much thought since then but the publication of the colourised and manipulated photographs of Tuol Sleng victims have raised some interesting questions that require some exploration. 2

Firstly, colourisation has always been a problematic for photography. The photographic press in the 19thcC frequently reproduced debates on the colourisation of photographs ranging from the use of watercolour vs dyes to guides on colouring for commercial photographers. 3

I raise this because as photo-historian interested in photography as a social and cultural practice I am conflicted by what sorts of questions I think should be asked of the recent trend in amateur and commercial colourisation of historical photographs. 4

I share many photo-historians concerns over the colourisation of photographs; particularly with the claim that colourisation somehow enlivens or humanises the subject of history. 5

Mostly I am uneasy with how colourisation reduces the photographs disclosure of history to a hyper-aestheticised and technologized experience that conversely supresses the historical conditions of the photographic image as representation, and photography as a social practice. 6

In effect colourisation is an aesthetic and technological distraction of the historical conditions of photography and not a process that facilitates greater access to history as advocates of colourisation claim. 7

However, I am also curious as to how we got here; why has the colourisation of historical photographs become such a salient feature of image culture at this particular moment? Some thoughts; 8

Firstly, ‘digital colourist’ has emerged as a novel form of digital labour in the post-production creative industries. The colourist is thus part of a new class of post-production workers in film, broadcast and publishing industries; 9

Thus the inevitable rise of WWI and WWII in colour tv programmes on history channels and the colourisation of archival and heritage image collections etc. 10

The proliferation of colourised photographs is driven by this shift in digital imaging technologies and changing media labour practices instrumentalised by automated and algorithmic software and like many photographic careers is precarious and driven by the gig economy. 11

There is a job of work to be done here on the political economy of digital colourisation that could productively explore how colourisation is being levered by the neo-liberal management and monetisation of the archives of media and heritage industries. 12

Secondly, there appears to be a rise in amateur colourisation. Cheap or free software; Akvis, Algoritmia, Pixbim etc. have facilitated a new culture of post-production amateur photography. 13

The appeal appears to be driven by the dilettante mastering of technical skill, popular aesthetics or for those using stock historical photographs the re-imaging of popular visual images as cultural practices of historical nostalgia. 14

Again there is project here for a doctoral student to examine new cultural practices of post-image capture/post-production amateur photography and its relationship with the visualization of history. 15

As for the colourisation of the S-21 photographs? 16

Leaving aside the ethical issues of manipulating  atrocity images this is the inevitable outcome of the insatiable appetite of the media industries for novel digital content that celebrates the mastery of technology and technique over empathetic imagination. 17

As Susie Linfield recounts in Cruel Radiance of the S-21 photographs; ‘Illuminated by harsh light or flashes – which lends these pictures a stark, flat, weirdly “pure” look – faces of alarm, terror and exhaustion stare out at us.’ 18

It is precisely the photographic conditions of these images that registers their historical and political affects so evocatively and which have become erased through their colourised manipulation. 19