Japanese Hand Coloured Photography

thomas · 22 Apr 2023

This is an interesting article series by Kjeld Duits, long-term resident of Japan, journalist, photographer, and also a JREF member:

Empire of Color (1)

How 19th century Japanese artists mastered the art of hand colored photography. PART 1: How photography reached Japan.

www.oldphotosjapan.com

Some people think that I colored the vintage photos in my collection. They were actually tinted by the studios that published them in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Experienced artisans added the color to monochrome albumen prints. Their work was often meticulous and masterful. Using transparent water colors to keep the important details of each photo visible, they applied slightly different hues to create intricate shading. Often, artists did not cover the whole photo with paint. Many tried to only add color where it made a significant difference, a practice first explored by ukiyoe woodblock printers. By the late 1800s Japan had become world famous for the magical quality of its hand colored photographs, a stunning synthesis of modern Western technology and traditional Japanese artisanship. This artistry did not just happen. It took Japanese photographers several decades to master the required skills.

Old Photos of Japan

Multilingual photoblog and online photo archive of Japan between the 1860s and 1930s.

JREF
8 Mar 2008
Views: 552
Category: Photography

johnnyG · 22 Apr 2023

Not a lot, but I remember when I was a kid that there were people (artists) who hand colored portraits, perhaps better results than color films at the time? Maybe a painted/colored image was considered to be better--more like having a portrait painted than being photographed? (Kind of like Vermeer and others used a camera obscure when doing paintings?)

Lately, the local paper seems to run a lot of photos from long ago--that appeared maybe in the '50s-70s. Here's the front page of this evening's paper, 1958:

Japanese Hand Coloured Photography

thomas

Unswerving cyclist

Empire of Color (1)

Old Photos of Japan

johnnyG

Sempai

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