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Photo colorization enthusiasts bring history to life
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Living color: Sadam, who goes by his online alias "Mazzini", is particularly proud of his work in colorizing this historical photograph of a girl in London in 1940. (Courtesy of Sadam) (Personal Collection/Courtesy of Mazzini)
Two colorization enthusiasts are restoring life to old pictures in a bid to get people talking about and learning from history.
In a bid to allow everyone to see the vibrancy of the past, enthusiasts of historical photographs are colorizing old black-and-white photos.
Among those colorizing old monochrome pictures is Sadam, who prefers to go by his online persona “Mazzini” and uses the @mazzini_gsp handle on Twitter and Instagram.
"I have been colorizing historical photos since early 2021. I first colorized an old photo to accompany my piece about history on Twitter. I ended up colorizing old photos until today because it turns out it’s addictive," he said.
While Mazzini might be new to the colorization scene, 40-year-old Bandung native Heru Iswanto is more seasoned. The police officer, who posts as @tukangpulas_asli on Instagram and as @tukangpulas on Twitter, has been offering viewers a way to travel back in time for a little over five years.
"Colorizing black-and-white photos has been my hobby since November 2016. I think this is a unique hobby, and the techniques for colorizing photos are not very well known," he said.
Heru added that his aim was so netizens could "get in touch with the past and learn more about history".
