In 2015, NASA released a trove of nostalgic photographs documenting the American-Soviet space race of the 20th century: beaming astronauts preparing for their missions, tense moments at the command center, engineers posing beside the Apollo mission software code. Among those sifting through the thousands of images online was Matt Loughrey, a photographer based in the sleepy, pub-filled Irish village of Westport.

"I remember being young and hearing stories from my dad about watching the space race," he recalls. "We had encyclopedias, and everything was monochromatic—it felt distant."

Earlier this year, Loughrey had taken a picture of his grandmother and colorized it. The resulting image pulled the subject out of the past and made her easier to reconcile with the modern world.

That prompted