Marina Amaral, a Brazilian Artist, uses Photoshop to add color to black and white photographs. The process involves hours of research to ensure the accuracy of each colored image. The new images which are full of color give a unique point of view on history and allow the viewers to understand the story in each photo. Amaral is very careful to preserve the accuracy and detail of each picture and often collaborates with expert historians to ensure that the color of materials and clothes is as accurate as possible.
Amaral’s work range from portraits of important historical figures to famous journalist photos which capture the essence of historic moments. The artist joined a leading British historian, Dan Jones to create a captivating book named, The Colour of Time: A New History of The World 1850-1960.
From the coffee table book charts, the rise and fall of empires, the achievements of science, industry and the arts, the tragedies of war and the politics of peace, and the lives of men and women who made history. The book has more than 200 color images which bring the history to life. Dan Jones is a historian, broadcaster and award-winning journalist and the author of award-winning books including The Plantagenets, Magna Carta, and The Templars. He used his extensive experience to create a historical story which shows the world-changing events from the reign of Queen Victoria and the US Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and also the beginning of the Space Age.
The colorful images of Amaral have brought back to life some of the world’s most important events like the Nuremberg trials. Between 1945 and 1949 the Nuremberg trials were conducted with the purpose to bring the Nazi war criminals to justice. The defendants including the Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers, German industrialists, lawyers, and doctors had such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. The leader of the Nazi party, Aldof Hitler, committed suicide before the trials began. The trials were controversial at that time but now they stand as an important milestone in the development of the international criminal court.
Amaral has captured the tension and the formality of the trials with a portrait of Hermann Wilhelm Goring, who was a political and military leader of the Nazi party which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. Several other amazing portraits include a candid photograph of Lewis Powell who was a conspirator with John Wilkes Booth. Lewis Powell was the one who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. He also attempted to assassinate the US Secretary of State William H. Seward on the same night as Lincoln’s death. He fought for the Confederates and was wounded at Gettysburg. He was also a part of an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Lincoln before the assassination plan was executed. After the arrest, he was sentenced to death and was executed at the Washington Arsenal.
