c1922 Rudolph Valentino by Laura Miniel of Brownsville, Texas

I'm excited to present our first colorized Foto entry from Laura Miniel who writes:

Out of nowhere I decided to try recoloring a photo. Maybe it was from watching your exhibit. Anyway, I found an old black and white photo of Rudolph Valentino the 1920's silent movie star. My grandfather used to tell me stories about Valentino and how when he died unexpectedly, both women and men committed suicide. Anyway, he was very famous and spent some time in San Antonio but died before color photography came into being, thus no color photos of him exist, only a few painted movie posters and things like that from the 20's. According to my grandfather his funeral was something of a riot with around 100,000 people tried to view the body, getting trampled and suicide attempts. He's wearing, I think, the infamous slave bracelet and the cursed ring. I wanted to see what he would have looked like in real life. It took a few hours to do this, but I thought maybe a fellow recoloring afficionado would like it! Here I'll attach the original B&W and my version. What do you think? I was surprised at how alive he looks in color. Like he could just turn away from the wall. So strange. Hard to believe he died over 100 years ago. Your hobby is kind of addicting and somewhat fascinating to see what you get back after recolor. Hope you like it smile emoticon

Laura Miniel Brownsvile, Texas 2015

c1915 Store With No Name (most likely not in Brownsville, Texas as once believed)

 from the Ruby Wooldridge Collection - Brownsville Historical Association

 Contrast adjusted

 Color mode removed

 Main areas usually filled in early

 Image search of vintage signs and beer bottle

 Signage colored / Store sign colors too loud

 

Fixin' some family fotos

1958  Mom and her cousin on E Elizabeth during Charro Days 

1957 Mom and Dad

1942 Charro Days parade band on E Levee and 13th Sts

Photo by Arthur Rothstein

Lead Belly

 Huddie William Ledbetter (January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an American folk and blues musician notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced.

Brownsville, Texas - E Elizabeth St. 1950s from postcard

I didn't clean the lines and other anomalies in the sky area and especially the fingerprint mark to emphasize how important it is to handle photos carefully and with gloves if you have them but no one needs a lecture more than that.

Early work

... not sure but I think this was done for Italo Zarate of Brownsville, Texas