Simply adding colours to a black and white photographs can make you related to the subject more, in fact it gave it a palpability despite the fact it’s nearly 150 years ago that this portrait was taken.
Even thought I know that Abraham Lincoln is a very important and iconic man who, like others, changed the world and how we see it, it doesn’t appear authentic in it’s original black and white glory.
We’re exposed to colour photography in such a large scales since the beginning of the 20th Century, that black and white seemed rather like a novelty, fabled, a fictional motion picture to give it some kind of style, much like The Artist which were shot in colour and converted to black and white allowing greater control of the tones (red darkened the sky, blue lighten it, etc.).
It’s a shame that there are some amazing photography from the turn of the Century that are largely ignored because they don’t appear as interesting as colour photography.
