22/08/2026
Bringing Ken Farmer to life
Over the years I’ve restored thousands of historical photographs, and colourised many of them along the way.
But for me, the work doesn't necessarily finish when a photograph has been restored.
Part of my art practice at Past Colours is about taking some of those restored images further — experimenting with new ways of presenting them and creating different perspectives on the people and moments captured in them.
Today, I’ve taken one of those photographs of Ken Farmer of North Adelaide and pushed it a little further.
Farmer was one of Australian football’s great goal-kickers, and his remarkable career eventually produced the extraordinary figure of 1,417 goals.
So I wanted to imagine something different:
What if, for a few seconds, we could actually see Ken Farmer move?
Starting with the restored photographs, I’ve developed a short visual sequence that takes Farmer from his younger playing years, through the act of kicking, and into the mature Farmer associated with that remarkable 1,417-goal career.
It isn't an attempt to recreate a piece of historical film that never existed.
It is another way of interpreting a photograph that does exist.
That's an important distinction to me.
The original photograph remains the foundation. The restoration preserves the historical subject; the animation becomes a new artistic perspective on it.
Today, Ken Farmer is brought to life.
And perhaps that's one of the most fascinating things about working with historical photographs — sometimes there are still new ways to tell the story, even after the photograph has been restored.
Past Colours
Restoring the past. Reimagining the possibilities.
