by Carla Caruso

When an image of the Adelaide Botanic Garden popped up on our Instagram feed, featuring women and kids in old-fashioned garb, with some regal-looking swans, we did a double take.

The photo, thanks to its colour, looked modern, yet not. It was almost eerie. The pic took us down a rabbit hole of discovery - and led us to interviewing Kelly Bonato, who has a fascinating passion project, A Colourful History. Here, we chat to her about her intriguing digital art and love of local history.

Hi, Kelly. Please tell us about your Facebook page, A Colourful History, and how you began colourising old photos. Why do you do it, and what do you enjoy about it?

During COVID, I was looking for things to entertain me at home, and I rediscovered some old family photographs from the 1870s that were given to me, in my twenties, after my grandfather passed away.

I’m now nearly 60, so they had been living in the garage in a box for quite some time. Sadly, the images had all the hallmarks of time – scratches and dust spots galore!

So, I taught myself how to use Adobe Photoshop and then shared the ‘fixed up’ images with my extended family. They, in turn, shared something so special and valuable with me – for the first time, I learnt my family history and discovered that my family goes back a long way in South Australia.

They were early pioneers and were part of the historic fabric of our great state. It all truly fascinated me, and I became obsessed with learning more stories about South Australian history.

In the meantime, my dear son, a software engineer, surprised me for Christmas by writing a colourisation program. So not only could I edit out damage and dust spots, I could also add a dash (okay, a lot of) colour to each photograph. For me, colour brings out the details within the photograph. It makes the image seem so much more real. 

When doing research for this interview, we happened across an SBS doco, Australia in Colour. Did this in any way inspire your work? Are there many other artists doing what you do?

I had never heard of colourising photographs until I started doing it. In all honesty, it just wasn’t something that occurred to me to do.

But since I started, I have become fascinated and obsessed. I follow and admire the work of a few other digital artists doing the same thing. While a few people are colouring historical photographs locally, several very talented artists that I follow are from the international community of digital artists. 

I would also like to add that, through my posting of colourised pictures, I have learnt that some people are passionate about not ‘fiddling’ with history and only want to see the unedited black-and-white image.

This is perfectly fine and exactly why I like to share both the edited and unedited photographs as part of my posts. I guess it’s important to remember that I ‘colour’ digital copies of a photo. The original picture remains untouched. 

In defence of colourised pictures, my research is that photographers have been adding touches of colour, some more successfully than others, since the 1800s. One of my photographs of my great, great-grandmother (c 1875) has a bunch of hand-painted coloured flowers in a plant stand next to her.

So, I am definitely not the first at adding colour to photographs, nor will I be the last. To me, it all makes perfect sense that some of us prefer colourised images because, as humans, most see the world around us in colour, not shades of grey like an old black-and-white photograph.

For me, a colourised image evokes my imagination, brings out the detail in the picture and makes history more real. 

How much work and research goes into each photo?

A photograph, on average, will take five hours to research, edit, and colourise. The more details in the picture, the longer it takes (some have taken me 12 hours).

My first step is to correct any issues with the black-and-white photograph. I then use the colourisation software, which is quick, but, oh, dear, can it get creative with its colour selection!

So, I like to research what the colours should be. For example, if a building is still in existence, it makes life easier as I can sample the colour of the building and then repaint the image in Photoshop.

Most of my time is spent repainting all those little pixels – it’s what takes me several hours as I want the photograph to seem realistic.

Once I’m happy with the edited and colourised image, the final stage is to prepare the information to accompany the post. This is where places like historical societies, libraries, various government departments, the National Trust, the History Trust of SA, Trove, and all the local researchers/historians/authors are amazing and valuable resources. 

What has the reaction been like from historical bodies, and organisations such as the State Library, who house the pics?

All the historical bodies have been super-supportive and are brilliant when it comes to answering all my questions.

We are very fortunate in South Australia to have such resources with dedicated teams. Special mention and a big thanks to Chris, a researcher from the State Library of South Australia.   

What do you juggle your hobby with? And where do you hope to take your passion next?

I am semi-retired, and my children are adults, so these days I have plenty of time on my hands.

My wonderful husband also has developed a particular interest in local history. He regularly tags along on my little history adventures, holding my camera bag and listening to all my annoying ‘did you know, back in the day…?’ stories. 

I feel truly blessed as A Colourful History is a wonderful hobby for me. I guess I want to keep learning, telling, and sharing the stories of colonial South Australia with likeminded people.

But, in saying that, I am interested in learning how to colour old black-and-white movies. Maybe that will be my next endeavour. How fascinating!

Do you have a favourite Adelaide Park Lands shot you’ve worked on?

Oh, my, that’s like asking who my favourite child is. I like the recently posted photograph at the Botanic Garden [in Park 11] with the ladies and the swans (SLSA - B17284).

But I did get slightly obsessed - well, very obsessed - with the photograph of the lovely lady sitting on the Victoria amazonica waterlily at the Adelaide Botanic Garden (SLSA - PRG 733/411).

I walk through the Botanic Garden most weekends, and when I saw that picture, I must have visited the Amazing Waterlily Pavilion five times, trying to figure out how one of those huge, beautiful lily pads actually held a lady’s weight!

My thoughts: [she] must have had a box or something underneath the lily that she sat on. It certainly intrigued me.

Seriously, I think all the historical photographs of Adelaide parks are stunning, and it’s quite amazing to see how much change there has been over the years.  

A number of Kelly’s photos can also be found on Instagram, but most of her edited and colourised images are on her Facebook page.