This volume is more or less a companion to The Arliss Archives,The Arliss Archives: or the Further Adventures of The Man Who Played God (Volume 1) which is a celebration of actor, author, playwright and film maker George Arliss (1868-1946). As the Arliss project evolved, I found that adding digital color to original black & white photographs sometimes produced startlingly good results. More importantly, the "cinemagraphic painting process" as I call it, brought a contemporary quality to these visions of long ago. Some black and white photos were obviously designed to exploit the beauty of light and shadows and those works I have preserved in their original greytones as the photographer intended.
Purists may contest this point, but the fact is that most studio photographs from old Hollywood used black and white film in a utilitarian manner because color film was either too expensive or unavailable. The studios themselves routinely converted B&W photos into color posters, lobby cards, and even colorized glass slides projected onto movie screens. So historically there is a long tradition of adding color to these images and we lose nothing by using 21st century processing techniques to render these wonderful vintage photographs into the spectrum. Instead, we gain an insight into that Golden Age to see the world just as the people who lived back then saw it. At any rate, this explains the rationale behind this book. Of course, we have included original color material as well as our digital creations, none of which should suggest that monochrome photography does not have an artistry of its own.
This volume is broadly focused with chapters devoted to Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney Sr., and even Rin Tin Tin, supplemented by "tours" of the major stars of the 1920s and 30s. Perhaps the most unique chapter reviews the forgotten radio broadcasts of some of Hollywood's top stars. Almost all images are scanned from 8x10 original stills or from work negatives. While color can transform an image to a certain degree, the underlying black and white media must be in top condition, especially the skin tones. I think you will find the images more than acceptable but any deficiency in the color process is due to the author's limitations.
Purists may contest this point, but the fact is that most studio photographs from old Hollywood used black and white film in a utilitarian manner because color film was either too expensive or unavailable. The studios themselves routinely converted B&W photos into color posters, lobby cards, and even colorized glass slides projected onto movie screens. So historically there is a long tradition of adding color to these images and we lose nothing by using 21st century processing techniques to render these wonderful vintage photographs into the spectrum. Instead, we gain an insight into that Golden Age to see the world just as the people who lived back then saw it. At any rate, this explains the rationale behind this book. Of course, we have included original color material as well as our digital creations, none of which should suggest that monochrome photography does not have an artistry of its own.
This volume is broadly focused with chapters devoted to Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney Sr., and even Rin Tin Tin, supplemented by "tours" of the major stars of the 1920s and 30s. Perhaps the most unique chapter reviews the forgotten radio broadcasts of some of Hollywood's top stars. Almost all images are scanned from 8x10 original stills or from work negatives. While color can transform an image to a certain degree, the underlying black and white media must be in top condition, especially the skin tones. I think you will find the images more than acceptable but any deficiency in the color process is due to the author's limitations.
