Colouring in the Time of Quarantine

How the 2020 Pandemic inspired my new creative past-time

Pandemic fashion, circa 1918

Over the past few weeks, my circle has gotten much smaller.

Restricted to the confines of my house – as most of us are during the COVID-19 pandemic - I have found solace in colouring black and white photos.

The process of colouring old photographs transports me to a different time. I like to think about the stories behind the photos and wonder about the people being photographed. I have questions like, what was it like being a woman in rural British Columbia in the early 1900s; and how did they navigate through muddy streets wearing corsets and fancy dresses? Also, why are there so many photos of women holding guns?

Colouring photos allows me to feel more deeply connected to my community. Recently, I began a new project colourizing old photographs of my hometown of Prince Rupert, British Columbia - aka: The City of Rainbows.

To do this, I locate digitized photos of the town from local archives, the BC Archives and the UBC Library, and use digital tools like Photoshop to “paint” the town.

As I’ve been working through the photos and posting them to my Facebook album, I’ve been touched by the stories and memories that my followers have begun to share with me and each other. It’s truly been an amazing feeling bringing new life to old photographs. and it’s so exciting that we too can now see early Prince Rupert the same way the first Rupertites did - in colour! Click here to visit my Prince Rupert blog.

Photo colourization has now become a passion of mine. I plan to colourize more photos of early British Columbia to share with you, so please, stay tuned.

More of my work can viewed on my blog at: photopainter.ca/blog