Hand Tinted Work

The fifteen photographs that comprise this fine collection, by internationally acclaimed photographer Abraham Menashe, were originally made with black-and-white film then hand colored with the three primary food colors found in the baking section of supermarkets.


Hand-tinting is playful and poetic but can also serve as commentary. In a city where concrete is everywhere, nature sometimes survives only on walls as graffiti. We see a car tire whose desire is to be a flower, or scattered aluminum can tops as eye candy.


The accidental is also celebrated, as in the photograph of a children’s playground that seems surreal, or tread marks made by two cars backing up at the same spot, then turning in opposite directions, generating two hearts in the snow.


As the cover illustrates, selective coloring fuses fantasy with reality, asserting the imagination over the mundane. Hand-tinting awakens bland moments, as spice transforms food. Here are a few of the photographer’s dishes. Bring your lips close and taste!