Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by growlist 2089 days ago
'“The problem with colourisation is it leads people to just think about photographs as a kind of uncomplicated window onto the past, and that's not what photographs are,” says Emily Mark-FitzGerald, Associate Professor at University College Dublin’s School of Art History and Cultural Policy.'

Why do these academics always want to complicate things and dictate how we feel? Nobody put them in charge!

'“There's something that's gained, but there's also something that's lost,” says Mark-FitzGerald. “And I think we need to have a conversation about what both of those things are.”'

I'm guessing that would be a pretty one-way 'conversation'.

Edit: looking at the Leeds video it's clear to me the processed version adds a great deal - you can even see clearly how much fun they are having by the smiles on their faces, which is pretty hard to spot on the raw footage. It's charming to think of them fooling around in the garden with new technology, 132 years ago this month.

2 comments

They're not dictating anything. They're giving their opinion. Just as you are.

> Edit: looking at the Leeds video it's clear to me the processed version adds a great deal - you can even see clearly how much fun they are having by the smiles on their faces, which is pretty hard to spot on the raw footage.

I mean, isn't that exactly the issue that the critics are pointing out? The algorithm is inserting something - the behaviour of people - into the source material that may not have been there. It may be biased towards falsely making the past look like the present because that's what the algorithm has been trained on.

I really don't think it added the smiles etc.
> we need to have a conversation

I'm not sure how they envisage such a "conversation" (whatever that means in this context) taking place.