About

I began colorizing black and white photographs completely as a self tought hobby. I’ve always been an avid history buff and spent hundreds of hours as a kid painting Civil War lead soldiers with my Dad. Lead soldiers evolved into a passion for living history and reenacting which lead me to serving my country in the military and as a professional firefighter for over thirty years. I first began colorizing old family images and would share them with family and friends. There reactions lead to a Facebook page with thousands of followers and now to the creation of the ljhayes.com website. I never seek to improve the original B&W image by colorizing it. I hope that by adding color to the past we are able see that history is more like the present.