Photos taken 100 years ago in COLOR

[Dao]

Russia in color, a century ago - The Big Picture - Boston.com

I am amazed by the photos. And they really don't looks like photos taken 100 years ago.

 

[Scatterbrained]

Good find. It's amazing that those are all three exposures.

 

[PenguinPhotoWrx]

Those photos are amazing! The thing that is slightly unnerving about them is that they don't appear to be 100 years old. They look like they were taken recently. The quality is amazing.

When we see photos from a long time ago, we expect to see generally poor focus, washed out colors, imperfections all over the place- and mostly B&W.

The quality of these throws your perception of time way off.

 

[Garbz]

Just goes to show we have come full circle. The film of the time was grey scale, it was what 50s? 60s? Before colour film came out? The pictures here were taken by doing 3 exposures through red green and blue filters and combining the result.
Fast forward to the late 80s when digital cameras were born and the result was still grey scale.

The solution to the digital grey scale problem is still used now, 4 pixels red, green, blue, and green laid in a pattern, combining the results through beyer interpolation, not too unlike what is happening here.

 

[skieur]

Kodachrome 25 colour slide film was out by the early 1950s in Canada.

skieur

 

[SageMark]

wow, a picture is worth a thousand words

 

[Dominantly]

Awesome. It's like a brief time machine.

 

[usayit]

Absolutely Stunning..

One thought.... will our photos taken today on this "media" of bits survive as long?

I recall reading a Smithsonian article many years ago regarding their desperation to preserve artifacts of recent years in our "age of plastics and synthetics" all of which are degrading thousands of times faster than traditional raw materials of preview decades (wood, metals, stone etc...). One particular example was the Apollo space suite that was worn on Man's first moonwalk. It is literally turning to dust and melting. Another was their collection of "Barbie" dolls. Many are melting as the rubber used to make them begins to degrade.

It would be ironic that decades from now we will have more surviving artifacts from 1000s or years ago than 100s years ago to show future children. Classic cars by today's standards restored but classics of tomorrow literally "unrestorable".

Maybe the "Age of Plastics" should have been more accurately described as "Age of Trash" or the "Disposable Age".

 

[ghache]

its sad that most of pictures wont make 100 year of history.
they are going to be forgotten on hardrives and dvds

 

[Aayria]

These are just amazing. Eerie and breathtaking all at once. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Gruen Photo 7 Design]

Thanks for posting Dao! Great images!

 

[Garbz]

its sad that most of pictures wont make 100 year of history.
they are going to be forgotten on hardrives and dvds

What makes you think that they wouldn't have been forgotten 50 years ago on film?

The only thing that keeps us remembering a picture is the novelty of the content of the process. In this case it's the process. Here we have remembered pictures from 100 years ago in colour. What about the countless other pictures taken 100 years ago, who's remembering them?

On a similar note if I was taking a photo of the president just as he got shot, and that photo was published in news papers around the world, in 100 years that photo will likely still be remembered.

The medium has nothing to do with it.

 

[Vinny]

Amazing photos! In photo #23 there were power lines in the scene ... even had to worry about that 100 years ago!

 

[PenguinPhotoWrx]

Amazing photos! In photo #23 there were power lines in the scene ... even had to worry about that 100 years ago!

Son of a gun- good pickup Vinny! I looked at that photo ten times and didn't see the power lines.

 

[usayit]

The medium has nothing to do with it.

Is it really a factor of whether or not certain mediums will be "remembered"? Or a factor whether or not the medium survives?

I have an 8" and 5.25" floppy disk that has files (I kept it out just to say I have it). I don't have a drive to read it... don't even know if its readable. A problem with technology and its quick to obsolete. 50 year old negatives can still be viewed and printed even thought the format may have long stopped production.

I would've liked to know more about the medium on which these photographs travelled through the years in such great condition. These photos are timeless in so many respects... medium.. artistic.. technology (how he did the color photos)... culture.. etc..