Wrong?...or right?

[DaveD]

They likely weren't in the colours they're being changed to either.

Assumption, I think. Grass is green.

...and clothing, especially uniforms, can be researched.

[Jason]

What shade?

[Jason]

It's like if someone where to rework the Giza pyramid with a gold pyramidion and install limestone around the rest claiming it made it more 'real' or if the cave paintings at Trois Freres were repainted because the colours have faded and it would look more like it did originally.

It's not like that at all, as in those examples the originals would be irreparably damaged. The photos being digitally coloured still exist in their original form.

True, if you would have continued reading I also said they're bad examples for another reason. You have, however, missed or ignored my point.

[DaveD]

It's like if someone where to rework the Giza pyramid with a gold pyramidion and install limestone around the rest claiming it made it more 'real' or if the cave paintings at Trois Freres were repainted because the colours have faded and it would look more like it did originally.

It's not like that at all, as in those examples the originals would be irreparably damaged. The photos being digitally coloured still exist in their original form.

True, if you would have continued reading I also said they're bad examples for another reason. You have, however, missed or ignored my point.

Do you mean this:

It's more like reworking the Mona Lisa to be more masculine because many suppose the model was a man.

The same objection applies; if the original is undamaged, where's the harm?

Or perhaps you mean this:

Who is so intellectually limited that they need a paint-by-numbers photograph (however imaginative and skilfully performed) before they appreciate the reality of the scene?

If photos were just an extension of technical drawing you'd have a point, but most photos are evocative and intended to be so. Some photos are more evocative in black & white, some in colour. It is for the viewer to decide for him- or herself which is preferable, the atmosphere that B&W often provides, or the immediacy of colour.

[JimC]

Well, that's why I prefer the original - they evoke the times for me effectively...

They invoke your memory of the times. The actual events were not in b&w.

No, they evoke the consciousness of the people of those times as they viewed the original photographs. The events were of course in colour, but there was a stretch of years where the media itself was a black and white phenomena, and people expected to see such images - that is the evocation of that I gain, when seeing old black and white photos...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, that's why I prefer the original - they evoke the times for me effectively...

They invoke your memory of the times. The actual events were not in b&w.

No, they evoke the consciousness of the people of those times as they viewed the original photographs. The events were of course in colour, but there was a stretch of years where the media itself was a black and white phenomena, and people expected to see such images - that is the evocation of that I gain, when seeing old black and white photos...

That's what I said.

[pErvinalia]

That's what I meant by a "cultural phenomenon". This belief of some people is only based in cultural context. But in a scientific physical sense, ALL photography is interpretation.

Actually, it's all physics and chemistry.

And how does that address anything? The selection of the chemistry involved (in film photography and chemical printing) is part of the interpretation process, as I explained further above. People need to drop this quaint, but thoroughly naive, idea that taking a photo is capturing reality, and that any modifications to that photo is somehow bringing in a false interpretation.

So by re-interpreting an interpretation of reality we're getting a more accurate facsimile of that reality? That's absurd.

Not that I am saying that, but how is it necessarily absurd? What I am doing is pointing out the absurdity of people who claim that re-interpreting an interpretation is somehow less accurate than the original.

I might as well say that a photocopy of a photocopy has more verisimilitude to the original than the first photocopy or that a third hand account of an incident is more accurate than a second hand account or that a tertiary source is more reliable than a secondary source. Rubbish.

Perhaps you need to get a better handle on what is actually being said before commenting further?

[pErvinalia]

What shade?

Well, not a shade of grey, that much is for sure.