Greta Garbo. Colorized by Lennie Liverwurst.
 

Lennie Liverwurst

Magical Portraits

  • Australia
  • 2018 - Present
  • Colorizer Pro

The works of Lennie Liverwurst, an amateur photographer from Australia, is notable for their “dreamy” colors. A couple of years ago, he made his first introduction to colorization. With CODIJY, Lennie has quickly mastered and innovated this fascinating digital art.

It would be no exaggeration to say that Lennie Liverwurst has revolutionized the colorization of photographs. He manages to be both realistic and original in his approach to the use of colors.

Photos colorized by Lennie Liverwurst.

You will never mistake Lennie’s work for other colorizations. While colorists strive to “reconstruct” a photograph, that is, to pick colors as close to life as possible, Lennie fills his work with bold, dreamy hues.

 
Norma Shearer. Photo by George Hurrell.  Vivien Leigh. Publicity shot for “Anna-Karenina” Colorized by Lennie Liverwurst.

The work our colorists publish to the CODIJY community inspired Lennie to purchase a copy of CODIJY and began his unique creative journey!

A fairy tale .Colorized by Lennie Liverwurst

Start of the Journey

Two years ago I came across the work of a famouse artist and, I was stunned by these work. I did some research and discovered that it was a very serious and well accepted art form. An art that with the right software could be learnt. With more research I discovered CODIJY.

The work of our colorists regularly posted in the CODIJY community inspired Lennie to purchase a copy of CODIJY and began his unique creative journey!

Family Portraits

“I’m an amateur photographer who has always loved  the Art of Photography. I learnt how to restore vintage black and white photographs four years ago as away of preserving our family history for future generations” the colorist wrote in one of his first posts.

New York circa 1920. “Enrico Caruso and family.”
A portrait made the year before the legendary tenor’s untimely death: Enrico his wife Dorothy Park Benjamin sitting behind while he is holding their infant daughter Gloria. Next to him is his son Rodolfo (by an earlier marriage) holding his two children with his wife sitting behind him.

The one thing that I was always drawn to were the framed studio portraits that sat on the tops of mantelpieces and cupboards. Codijy gives me the ability to replicate the colouring of the past so I can work on my old family B/W photos.

A wedding photo (1948) from the family photo album. Colorized by Lennie Liverwurst

Wedding image May 1948. My mums oldest sister Florence’s wedding. The bridesmaids were mums younger sisters, Lillian at left and Olive to the right

“This is my very first piece of colorizing. I purchased Colorizer Pro by CODIJY online last Sunday and started learning Monday. It was trial and error (and will be for a long time) but it has been immense enjoyable pleasure. I hope with practice, my work will measure up to all of your great work” Lennie shared with the fellow colorists.

Our old family photos are the keys to our past and, they and, the stories attached to them, must be kept safe and passed down for generations to come.

In a very short time, Lennie colored many family photos, perfecting his talent as a colorist and experimenting with colors that would soon become the foundation of his unique style.

Studio portrait of my late Uncle Ronnie aged nine in 1933. He married my mums sister Olive in 1948.

Soft Touch

I love the Studio portraits of this era. The images were very soft and often heavily retouched.

Mrs Astor 1912. Colorized by Lennie Liverwurst

” I do some preliminary “surgery”, before  the colourization of an image in CODIJY.” – describes the colorist his technique.

“I first import my chosen B/W image into Lightroom, where I will dodge and burn, de-noise, take down/bring up shadows. What ever it takes to get the image where I want it.”

After colourization in CODIJY , I then export the image  back into Lightroom.  I like to “soften” all  my images  to take away any hard edges or  sharpness in the photo that I find displeasing.  

Finding the soul in the image

You can't help but build an empathy for a beautiful or interesting face. You get further and further drawn into wondering what their lives were like. Colourizers with great care and thought will find the soul in an image.

Artists (and I include we colourizers) build a strong connection with the images that they work on. When you spend so long on a work you become incredibly attached to the person or persons in that work. We give our images life as we slow and meticulously resurrect the faces from the past.

Some of the portraits colorized by Lennie Liverwurst.