Jordan J. Lloyd

British author, visual historian and Creative Director of Unseen Histories, bringing the past to life for The Times, LIFE and Unsplash.

Pinned post from April 3, 2021

About Jordan J. Lloyd

I am a British author and Creative Director at Unseen Histories, bringing the past to life for The Times, LIFE and Unsplash. My career in the field of colorization and visual history has allowed me to work with some of the world's largest publishers, media brands, museums, record labels and newspapers. I am currently working on a non-f...

April 14, 2021

🇳🇱 Nina Simone, 1965

Original negative by Ron Kroon, colorized by me. Taken 14th December, 1965, Netherlands (Nationaal Archief, CC0 License) Nina Simone had a notable relationship with the Netherlands during the course of her long career. During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Simone switched her record distribution to the Dutch owned Philips Reco...

April 13, 2021

🇯🇵 The shokunin mindset

I consider my unintended career in colorization as a craft, despite the wider public’s continued insistence that what I produce is art, or cultural vandalism depending on your perspective. Coming from a background in design, the question of what art is continues to elude me, though I have come to the conclusion that colorizing photogra...

April 11, 2021

🇰🇭 Some photographs should be left alone from manipulation

In a now deleted interview published by VICE titled, 'These People Were Arrested by the Khmer Rouge and Never Seen Again', altered photographs ostensibly showing smiling victims of the Cambodian genocide highlight the ethical predicament and the potential abuse of technology when working with original historical documentation. At first...

April 7, 2021

🇺🇸 Towards Los Angeles, 1937

Original negative nitrate by Dorothea Lange, colorized by me. Taken March, 1937, California, United States (Library of Congress) I've wanted to colorize this iconic shot by Dorothea Lange for a very long time. One of the few limitations of public archives is sometimes you don't have access to the best quality version of the original. I...

April 6, 2021

🇬🇧 Thomas Clarkson, 1788

Original oil on canvas by Carl Frederik von Breda (National Gallery / Public Domain) I remember being told about Clarkson by my grandfather in my formative years when I was beginning to learn about the abhorrent trade in slavery. He is, through my grandfather’s side, one of my ancestors, one of the original slave abolitionists, and bor...

April 5, 2021

🇺🇸 Smoking Boy, 1938

Original negative nitrate by John Vachon, colorized by me. Taken July, 1938, Baltimore, United States (Library of Congress) I originally did this piece way back in something like 2013 when I was just starting out, and another version of it appeared in my first book, The Paper Time Machine. In the years since the book was released, I've...

April 4, 2021

🇺🇸 Salk Institute, 1983

Original safety film negative by Balthazar Korab, colorized by me. Published 1983, California, United States (Library of Congress) Hungarian-American photographer Balthazar Korab spent much of his career photographing some of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century. This photograph is of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies ...

April 3, 2021

🇨🇦 The Roaring Lion, 1941

Original photographic print by Yousuf Karsh, colorized by me. Taken 30th December, 1941, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada (Yousuf Karsh Library and Archives Canada / Public Domain) Probably one of the most famous photographic portraits ever taken. Karsh himself named the portrait, 'The Roaring Lion'. I've been wanting to restore and col...