Hepburn, Hitler and Einstein as you've never seen them before: How modern computer techniques have brought new life to black and white images from the early days of photography
- Images from before the dawn of colour photograph have been enhanced by American artist Dana Keller
- Some of the most recognisable figures from the black-and-white era are brought up to date
It is often said that the past is a foreign country - but in these vibrant images it comes one step closer to reality.
The original scenes they show - captured only in black and white at the time due to technological restraints - have been reimagined and given new life.
These coloured scenes were created from original archive photographs by artist Dana Keller. Some, such as Albert Einstein, Audrey Hepburn and the famous crash of the Hindenburg Zeppelin in 1936 are instantly recognisable, while others, such as portraits of Adolf Hitler and Virginia Woolf, give a new perspective on some of the best-known figures of past centuries.
The images were coloured, using digital techniques, by Mr Keller, 27, who lives in Boston. The images can take anywhere from a few hours to straightforward shots to days for more complicated scenes.
Class in colour: Film star and style icon Audrey Hepburn is pictured in her kitchen preparing breakfast in the original to the left, and again to the right in detailed colour
Catastrophe: The Hindenburg, an airship filled with flammable hydrogen, is pictured in an iconic photograph to the left crashing in flames on May 6 1937 - but the flames look even more vivid in the coloured version to the right
Genius move: Artist Dana Keller spends hours - sometimes days - painstakingly adding colour to the old images, such as this 1921 picture of physicist Albert Einstein
He said: 'The addition of colour can help connect people to history. With black and white photos, people tend to feel distant and disconnected from the real and vibrant world those photos are actually portraying.
'By adding color to these photos, it makes them seem more familiar, and the viewer is brought a little closer to the reality in which they were taken.
'What I do want to make clear, however, is that colorizations are done out of a respect and reverence for history. They are not meant to be replacements- the originals are still here for us all to see and enjoy and preserve for the future.'
Relic of art: Claude Monet is pictured above in First World War France, next to a panel of his famous Water Lilies series
Coloured in: The representation of the works, which now sell for millions and are displayed the world over, has been rendered more vividly in colour
Fuhrer: The photograph, left, of Adolf Hitler in an unusually relaxed pose - as he receives news of German territory expanding - looks even more human thanks to colour. Ms Keller says her process makes pictures 'seem more familiar'
Flying ace: Baron Captain Manfred von Richthofen, pictured left in 1917, was better-known as The Red Baron. The First World War fighter pilot can be seen with more sharpness and detail too in the coloured version
Legendary pilot: Continuing the aerial theme, Mr Keller also coloured a photograph of Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly non-stop across the Atlantic in an areoplane
Dustbowl: The above black-and-white photograph of an Oklahoma farmboy came to symbolise the effects of the Great Depression, - and looks even more arid and bleak in colour
A look of one's own: Author Virginia Woolf, left in the 1902 original, is another of the historic figures who has benefited from Ms Keller's treatments
Neverland: Peter Pan author J M Barrie is pictured above in a drawing, which was then reimagined as a photograph with much smoother detail
Native land: This 1908 images show a Native American chief - Red Hawk - on horseback in South Dakota
Beauty: The vast wilderness of Red Hawk's land is easier to see and appreciate when the sepia tones of the original are removed
A song of himself: Walt Whitman, the revered American poet, died before the turn of the 20th Century, but is imagined above in colour from an 1887 portrait
Criminal: Bound in wrist irons, would-be assassin Lewis Payne, a Confederate soldier in the U.S. civil war, strikes a chilling figure in his coloured 1865 mugshot, taken after he was captured for attempting to kill a U.S. Secretary of State
Nobel project: Ms Keller has also coloured this portrait of groundbreaking French physicist Marie Curie, who won a Nobel prize
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