Sometimes, I become obsessed with black and white images of people, wondering what colour their hair and eyes and clothes really were and how they might look different. I kept staring at this one of Thoreau this week, thinking about how blue his eyes must have been. They just looked so washed out.
Eventually, it occurred to me to pull it into photoshop and see for myself.
I added some rugged, sunburnt colour to his aging skin, and some light brown hightlights in his unbelievably messy hair. (Was that the style back then, or did people just not bathe enough, or did he just not care for such things as grooming?)
Then I looked at more images of him, and I wasn’t quite as convinced that he had such pale blue eyes. Maybe they were even brown. I’m sure that something I could look up.