In living colour: Irish Civil War brought to life in new colourised collection
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It's a job most children dream about but the subjects photographer John O’Byrne has been colouring for more than a year are contained within a historic book.
Mr O’Byrne has been colourising black and white photographs for a new book, .
The photographs, some of which have never been published before, have been carefully selected from a wide range of archives and private collections.
His long-time co-author, historian Michael B Barry, researched and planned the book and sent images to Mr O’Byrne for colourisation.
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So how does it all work?
“Once I have my cup of tea and the computer open in front of me, I go off into my little world and colour away,” he said.
Mr O’Byrne breaks down each image into layers to focus on, such as background, people, buildings and so forth.
He strives for complete accuracy as much as possible, so will often jump onto Google Maps to check the colour of building bricks among structures that have survived to this day.
If there is an advertisement in an image in the background, he obtains old copies to make sure any colours are just right.
“The fashion is the hard bit,” he said.
While the uniformity of military dress is often easy to recognise and colour, civilian fashion requires analysing each person.
Mr O’Byrne trawls through old fashion catalogues seeking any details on the style of the day, and most importantly the colours in vogue.
“A portrait shot of just one person, depending on if they’re not wearing any extravagantly detailed clothes, could take about an hour,” he said. “Group shots can take a day.”
Some images take much longer, with one taking a week to colourise.
“There was one image from the top of Nelson’s Pillar looking down at the funeral of Michael Collins,” he said.
“It was a portrait shot looking down O’Connell Street. It’s a long street and there were thousands of little individual faces [to colour in].”
Mr O’Byrne sometimes adjusts the highlights and shadows using editing software “just to bring out a little bit more from the original image” but, for the most part, he tends not to manipulate the image at all.
"If there’s a bad crack on the original [photograph], I leave them in because that’s what the original photographer wanted.
"I’m not trying to manipulate their work; I’m trying to turn it into a coloured version.
“I think for younger generations coming up, if they see it in colour they realise, 'that’s 100 years ago, but 100 years ago isn’t that long’.
"Seeing them in colour, doesn’t bring them alive, but it's more realistic for the younger generations to think: ‘That man is dressed the same as daddy going to a wedding!’”
will be published on September 15 and will retail at €24.99