Growing up in a military family I have always had an interest in American History, particularly anything to do with the US Military. Having lived near a few battlefields I was really interested in learning more and loved to look at the images from the period in books. I started collecting stereo cards in the late 1970's when I was a teenager and was stunned to find out that much of the Civil War was photographed in 3D! Over the years I collected hundreds of general interest stereo cards, but could never really afford the Civil War ones.
In 2008 I got a book on Photoshop that had a one page description and example of how to colorize a black and white image. I started playing with family pictures and then wondered just how well this would work on older images. I started looking for really old images in 2009 and realized that the Library of Congress had uploaded their entire collection of Civil War negatives including over 2,000 stereo cards (2,000 images for the left eye & 2,000 images for the right eye). I downloaded a few and begin tinkering.
My first ones the color was OK, but it was not researched, so it was more like what I thought it should be. Also there was some bias for what I
knew was right. For example when I would colorize a Captain's uniform I would leave the officer insignia in silver since that is the correct standard today vs. the gold bars correct to the period.
I created the site
Civil War In 3D.com toward the end of 2009 and began showing off some of the home made stereo cards I had made. I immediately got great response from people interested in purchasing them (which I had not expected) and I got a lot of people telling me that I had this or that wrong. I began to research the correct period colors and planning visits to battlefields. One of the first trips in 2010 was to Gettysburg where I met Bob Zeller who has authored several Civil War photography books. During the same trip I met William Frassanito, author of "Gettysburg, a journey in time" and other CW photography books; Garry Adelman VP with Civil War Trust; and a few other people that have been key to my growing interest.
Bob Zeller did a presentation on Civil War stereo images and I showed him my colorized stereo cards that I had been making. He asked me to do a demo at an after hours session later that week, which I did.
From there my knowledge and contacts quickly grew. I started finding that I was meeting people with the types of knowledge that you are mentioning (single focus on the Civil War area such as artillery, cavalry, infantry, etc.) and I was able to leverage that knowledge to get more accurate colorized images.
The more of these I did the easier I found it to be able to reach out to a museum or "specialty expert" and ask questions about there area of knowledge. I found that most of these people are craving people that want to learn more about what they have spent a lifetime learning.
Currently I have a number of contacts at museums, universities as well as private citizens that can answer almost any question I have regarding color. I have been fortunate that a number of them have actually scanned copies of research material and sent me things to get the right colors.
I have one gentleman in New York that had a reproduction of Lincoln's chair at Ford's Theater made by the same company that produced the original. He saw my colorization and sent me a sample piece of cloth so I could get the color right!
A professor at a university is currently working on a book of Civil War uniforms and has a very large private photo collection of original period uniforms. He shared a large portion of his unpublished work so that I could be more accurate on my color.
For a colorization of Lincoln's Funeral train I found a retired professor that had managed to get a paint sample from the original car and he sent me the notes of the exact color choices for the car.
The curator for the museum at West Point reviewed all of my swords for one image to give me advice on how the original swords differed type by type.
The official biographer for one of the Lincoln conspirators sent me transcripts from the trial that showed what color clothes he was wearing so that I could match it on my colorization.
As I got more into stereo images I joined the National Stereoscopic Association and started show my images there. People began to request me to speak. I started speaking at local Civil War round tables, but soon was invited to make presentations at the Center for Civil War Photography and the Surratt House (among others).
Since I colorized my first Civil War image in 2009 it has grown to a small business with hundreds of images and products (see
here). We have expanded beyond Civil War stereo cards and now offer images from 1840 to the present. The heart and core continues to be Civil War images with more than 350 completed (many of these are stereo images that have two sides so actual colorized images is closer to 600-700). Our images have been seen in a number of books, magazines and TV shows and we have been producing an annual calendar since 2010 that can be found in Civil War gift shops as well as calendar shops around the country.
As I was colorizing these images my wife started researching the story behind the images so that she could tell the story behind the image. At the beginning of this year I was contacted by the new owner of
Civil War News asking if I could write a monthly article on Civil War photography. Since my wife had actually been writing much of the descriptions we use the job was offered to her and now we are both involved.
This is still more of a passion than a profession. We are not making a living from the work, but it helps to cover some of our expenses and it is always nice to share that passion.
This was not the plan I had expected when I did my first colorization in 2009, but have been thrilled to find people that also share a passion for history as I had done for the last 35 years privately and since 2009 on a more public basis.