Photographs taken with old cameras accustomed us to gaze at depictions of the past with a lack of color, until it seems that without our noticing, we thought that life used to be lived in black and white. But were the skies grey, and all the cars black, with everyone’s clothing monochromatic? Of course not! Naturally, people looking at old photographs complete the missing colors in their minds as they imagine the scene.
In the current exhibition, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael – Jewish National Fund restores the lost colors to historical photographs of Jerusalem, resuscitating the tones of light and shadow that were erased by Time. Through innovative colorization technology combined with historical research on culture and fashions of earlier times, we breathed new life into the hard-working stone dressers, the elegant people waiting for their bus on Jaffa Road, and the joyous figures of the IDF fighters after the bitter battle for Katamon during the War of Independence.
KKL-JNF Photo Archive contains a treasure trove of over a million photographs documenting the landscapes of Eretz Israel from the early 20th century to the present, the result of the work by leading photographers depicting the Land. The archive has a respectable amount of photographs of Jerusalem, a few presented in this current exhibition. Some of the photographs perpetuate the contribution KKL-JNF made in developing Jerusalem, such as acquiring the land of Mekor Haim neighborhood and the Bezalel school of art buildings, amongst many others.
Curator: Efrat Sinai, head of KKL-JNF Photo Archive
Asaf Cohen and Yitzhak Mizrahi – Black Box
Historical research, photo colorization and processing: Tamar Hayardeni
Graphic design: Ohad Hadad
