Ada Paresky Education Center of the Bennington Museum

Tim Wager’s series of books of colorized historic photographs have been taking Bennington by storm. How does he do it? How long do they take? How accurate are they really?

Callie Raspuzzi, Collections Manager of the Bennington Museum has been working with the Museum’s photograph collection for nearly 15 years, cataloging and digitizing the vast collection, one of her major accomplishments during that time. For the past year, she has been working closely with Wager to provide high quality images which he has then colorized.  This has spurred new research into and surprising information about Bennington’s history.

Raspuzzi’s presentation describes the step-by-step process that begins with glass plate negatives and ends up in a fantastical riot of color. Colorizing black and white images is not a new art, but one that brings new life and meaning to the photographs. Her presentation also includes examples of contemporary hand colored images and compares them to Wager’s digital work. We will also look at some historic pieces from the Bennington Museum’s collection that illustrate the actual colors found on the streets of Bennington in the early 1900s.