40 Stunning Colorized Historical Photos That Offer A New Perspective On History, As Shared On This Twitter Page

The Colorized Twitter account was launched in December 2020, and it’s already amassed over 8.2k followers who can’t get enough of its stunning colorized photos. However, Colorized is much more than purely a Twitter account. That’s only one facet of the online presence of Colorized's website, which allows anyone from around the world to upload their own black and white pictures and have them revived with vibrant colors within seconds.

According to their site, “Colorized is a brand that represents a community passionate about bringing colorful optimism to the darkest parts of humanity through unique and high quality storytelling.” It was created in 2020 by childhood best friends Justin Levine and Will Gwyn, who previously founded HistoryDaily.org and GroovyHistory.com.

“We owe the inspiration of Colorized to our loyal following who engage with our history content every day,” the founders explain on their site. “The positive feedback on colorized history photos on GroovyHistory and HistoryDaily has been unprecedented. And to meet the excitement of our readers for the colorized history content, we have created Colorized.com.”

Colorized also has a mission of giving back to the community, as their website states they are “committed to bringing colorful optimism to the darkest parts of humanity through conscious capitalism”. “By combining social responsibility with business growth, we create a sustainable impact that enhances the lives of our team members, our partners, as well as people around the planet,” the founders write.

“The more readers we reach, the stronger our community becomes and the more real and measurable difference we’re able to make. Through increased contributions to meaningful charities, we are working to solve some of the world's biggest challenges.” They also note that they are focused on supporting life-saving clean water projects, hunger initiatives, mental health research, poverty abatement projects, animal rescue, Cancer and Alzheimer’s research and much more.

To learn more about the world of colorizing vintage photos, we reached out to Peter Shafron, founder and owner of PhotoFixRestore, a photo restoration and photo colorization company located in Southern California. Peter was kind enough to open up about his personal story and share with Bored Panda how he got into photo colorizing in the first place. “My Dad was in WWII (a soldier in the Soviet Army) and a prisoner of war of the Germans. My uncle was also a soldier (Australian Army), killed and cannibalized by a Japanese soldier in WWII in the mountains of Papua New Guinea,” he shared. 

“My three great uncles were in WWI fighting in Europe, a whole world away from sunny Australia. So I was surrounded by dramatic and deadly history growing up. I started colorizing photos thirty years ago using paints and pencils, now I use Photoshop. I have done work for private and public galleries and museums and even did a campaign for Coca Cola colorizing WWII soldiers.” 

“When I was young, I would stare at all the old family photos and want more!,” Peter shared with Bored Panda. “What were these people like, not as static monochrome memorials, but as people?  Adding color brings the people and the surrounding items back to life with an immediacy and an impact that can be truly stunning. Colorizing old photos really is a way to make them come alive. You feel like you might have known them.”

We also asked Peter what he loves most about colorizing photos and why he finds it so special to see black and white photos brought to life. “To see an old black and white photo carefully colorized is always an emotional experience because it makes us realize that we are really like those people, separated by years but not by our humanity,” he told Bored Panda. “Seeing old soldiers, for example, no matter what side they fought on, colorized and real again creates a connection and a kind of understanding. They were just young men caught up in events much larger than themselves and powerless to do other than serve. It helps me to understand and even forgive those enemy soldiers who took a toll on my family.”