Colourisation of Joseph Rock's photos

 I've been busy colourising photos this last week, inbetween writing up my revisions for the book about my Yellow River trip last year. As well as Joseph Rock's photos Ive also been dipping into archives of other photos from southwest China of that era. There are some great collections by people like Carter Holton, who lived in Gansu in the 1930s, and Harrison Forman, an American journalist who travelled along the Yellow River and tibet in the 1930s and 40s. 

I might post some of their photos later, but for now here's a few from the Rock collection. 

 Animal collecting. 

Rock and other westerners at the Lijiang landing strip.

 Muli noble.

Drombo - the genial headman of Yulongxi, near Gonga Shan

 I recently revisited Yulongxi, where the descendents of Drombo now run a nice guesthouse.

Buddhist monk, Yongning, by Joseph Rock from 1925

 Colourised photos by Joseph Rock from 1925: this one is I think of a Buddhist monk with two armed bodyguards (to protect against bandits) who Rock encountered travelling from Muli to Yongning.

 This is the original:

Colourised photos of 1925 Yunnan and Sichuan

 I made a short video montage of the photos of Joseph Rock that I colourised. Theyre mostly from the Muli and Yongning areas, with a few from Yading etc.

 

Muli monastery now and then - in colour

 I colourised Rock's photo of Muli from the 1920s and it makes an interesting contrast to what I saw in the 1990s.

 And here's my photo from around 1995:

 The monastery was shut down before the Cultural Revolution, but with more destruction during that terrible era.

Joseph Rock's photos in colour

 I hate AI but was curious as to whether it could work in colourising black and white photos. To be honest I'm quite impressed with some of the results I've obtained with ChatGPT Imageand Rock's photos. Here are a couple of examples. 

Tibetan nomad near Koko Nor (Qinghai Lake)

Reincarnated Living Buddha Lu Zo at Yongning

I have done quite a few more colourisations of Rock's photos and also some of the photos of Sun Jingming, a Nanjing photographer who visited the Kangding and Batang area in 1939.