Bored Panda reached out to Sébastien and asked him some new questions about his work. This time, we were curious to know if there are specific eras or themes he avoids colorizing because he feels they work better in black and white. Here’s what he had to say: “I used to avoid dramatic events, or difficult images to watch because I used to think that colorizing should enhance the beauty of life, not the dark side. I changed a little bit of my point of view recently as I worked on images of the German occupation of France during World War II. As the colorizing process brings life to the images, it is still a powerful time machine, and going back to these dramatic events can be a precious lesson for the present day.

I try to avoid colorizing recognizable work from famous photographers. When the images are well known, the colorized version enters in conflict with the memory we can have of the image and it doesn’t work as well as for a more anonymous photograph.”

When we asked Sébastien de Oliveira about unspoken rules or myths in the colorization world that he’s intentionally broken to achieve a unique result, he responded: “There is no such thing as rules or myth in our colorization world. Everyone, as an artist, works with their ways, as they want. I work with my own background, as a former painter and photographer, and so my colorizations reflect my references that are maybe more pictorial and I didn’t search for a realistic result.”

The artist also shared with us what colorized image completely surprised him once it came to life: “One of my first true colorizations was a view of the Opéra Garnier in Paris, from 1889. I was not convinced, at that time, that a colorized photo could compete as a color photo, and then, something happened, a little bit by chance and by manipulation. I saw an old autochrome more than a colorized version of the image and I knew that I had something valuable in front of my eyes. That moment pushed me to continue to experiment and to find my way of colorizing.”

Lastly, Sébastien shared his thoughts on whether colorizing vintage photographs can sometimes romanticize the past or if it serves as a bridge for modern audiences to connect with history. He told us: “I think it makes the two things contemporary. By giving a colorful version, it romanticizes the past, not because it gives a false version but because it makes the scene more beautiful, vibrant, and at the same time it connects you more easily to the reality of the past.

The effect is powerful and the less people are confronted with black-and-white photos, and that is the case for the new generation with respect to mine (I’m from 1970), the more they will be touched by this effect.”