| In a city that changes as fast as Hong Kong, with little regard to the preservation of the built environment, photos of bygone streetscapes have a special value. In that context, OldHKinColour emerged as one of the key repositories of those images. The project, started five years ago by Loka Siu, helps restore and add color to historical pictures. And it has found a ready audience: Its Instagram page now boasts some 188,000 followers. We caught up with Siu, who by day is an assistant professor specializing in translation at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, about how he and his team of two volunteers go about the painstaking process. —Mary Hui What motivated you to start OldHKinColour?I started the project in 2020, driven by a growing sense of nostalgia amongst Hong Kongers. Over the past couple years, there were lots of people having more and more interest in the history of Hong Kong. They want to learn about the daily life, the architecture of the city. But I noticed that while interest in Hong Kong's history was really high, the resources were almost exclusively in black and white. This monochrome format, while historically important, can create a psychological distance, making the past feel abstract and disconnected from our modern and colorful world. I hope that I can establish this platform to help youngsters learn more about the history of Hong Kong. I also wanted to create an educational project that uses the latest AI technology to make history more immediate, immersive and emotionally connected with our contemporary audience.  The first City Hall, in 1868. Photographer: John Thomson/Wellcome Library  Image of the first generation of City Hall, which OldHKinColour restored with the assistance of AI technology. Source: OldHKinColour How do you choose which photos to work on, and where do you find those images?I source high-resolution digital copies of original monochrome photos from different archives, online databases and academic institutions, as well as government records. My selection focuses on images from the 1950s and 1960s that capture the city's unique traditions, architecture and daily life. Can you talk me through the process of colorizing a photo?There are four major steps. Step one is sourcing and selection. Step two is pre-processing, a kind of digital restoration, usually using AI-powered software developed in-house by my team. We also use manual techniques to restore the image, repairing physical damage like scratches and fading, and enhancing the image resolution and clarity to create a clean canvas. Step three is historical research. This is the most time intensive and is a critical phase. I conduct comprehensive historical research to ensure color accuracy, cross-referencing old newspapers, documents and even films. Sometimes I can't recognize all the objects appearing in the images, and I have to do intensive historical research to figure it out. The colorization process itself is a manual process of adjustments and judgment, done together with different kinds of AI models developed by myself. And lastly, step four. Over the past few months, we have tried to incorporate the latest AI animation model, and for some images we add subtle animation such as moving trams or blinking lights.  The waterfront of Central in 1868. Photographer: John Tomson/Wellcome Library  Image of the waterfront of Central, which OldHKinColour restored with the assistance of AI technology. Source: OldHKinColour You've got a full-time job and life is busy, but you're still devoting hours and hours to this project. Why is it important to you to do this?I think it's quite important for us to learn about the history of our city. I believe this is a mission for all educators. I hope that we can provide younger generations with a comprehensive understanding of the city without any bias, and simply provide the images and animations and let them learn the city's history through an immersive experience and exploration. That's one of the key reasons for me to keep doing this research project. How is all this funded?It's self-funded. I use my salary to support the project. We spend maybe HK$10,000 to HK$20,000 a year to pay for GPUs and computing power. What plans do you have for OldHKinColour?We hope to expand media formats, moving beyond still images to restoring and colorizing historical films or footage of Hong Kong. We're also in the early stages of developing an online database where users can explore photos with interactive maps, and maybe in the long term include features like AR and VR. Another major focus is creating a 3-D virtual tour, maybe of Central as it appeared in the late 19th or early 20th century, allowing users to walk through history. We would also like to publish a high-quality monograph and make the collection accessible to an audience that prefers physical media. | 
Mashadipati Location Hotel Clove is located in the heart of Bandung, in a ...
No comments