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Rare color photos of Berlin from the 1930s to the 1960s
- jp_sc 11y agoThe one thing that bothers me more than it should, it's than the new photos are not taken at the same angle and/or distance than the original ones, making the comparison worse than it could.
- StavrosK 11y agoYou should keep in mind that getting the lens focal length right is very important here, and it's something that's rather hard to do if you don't know what the original focal length and film size was.
- Gravityloss 11y agoIt shouldn't be that hard if you have the original photo with you when taking the new picture. Simply look at the proportion of near and far objects and walk back and forth until they are the same as in the old picture.
- StavrosK 11y agoIt's pretty much impossible to get the two photos to match pixel by pixel just by looking at them.
- cmsmith 11y agoI recall a talk or possibly HN post I saw once, where they developed some software to warp photos like this to account for camera position and focal length.
- larrys 11y agoI actually don't like the sliders for that matter. I'd prefer side by side (especially because of the point that you are making).
- partisan 11y agoI completely agree. I find the sliders to be frustrating and detract from the experience of taking in the changes in their entirety. We aren't doing a pixel by pixel comparison so the UI shouldn't treat it that way.
- fit2rule 11y agoI'm a sucker for these kinds of photo comparison essays .. always great to see, and as a recent implant to Europe its been a decade now of looking at people's old pictures, before/during WW2, and comparing to how it is now in the modern age .. and I'm always struck by how modern things seemed to have looked in 1930's/40's .. The first two pictures in this article for example include buildings which to my modern eye look out of place "in the early part of the last century", as they are 'too modern'. But then I wander around these places now and see these buildings in their physical form, and I'm filled with even more wonder that they survived so long and still have a feeling of modernity to them. I wonder where this bubble came from and how it came to be that I cannot see the modern world for the centuries-long process it is, and only feel connected with 'modernity' formed in the recent decade or so. I think this is something that changes as one gets older and starts to care about these things - never in my youth would I have been concerned with the trivial meanderings of comparison with the then and now.
- tormeh 11y agoCapital-intensive things which age well, like buildings, are very stale in a way that is shocking when you are used to thinking about nearly anything else, but especially electronics. It was a startling realization for me as well.
- johnchristopher 11y agoI think the era we are born into define us way more than we'd like to admit and it includes our feeling of being at home in the architectural environment we grew up into. There is something along that line in Rice's vampire chronicles where she states vampires tend to prefer and retain the taste for what was considered beautiful or worthwhile when they were humane.
- BallinBige 11y agothis is amazing
- joca 11y agoFantastic - I really like this kind of documentary.
- POTUS 11y agoThe picture of the City Palace (Stadtschloss) is interesting. It looks like they accidentally swapped the old and the new picture. The building is complete in 1939 and far from finished in 2015. Upon further research (Ok, I wiki'd it) I found out the original building had been knocked down to make way for parking in 2008 and only 5 years later in 2013 they decided to start rebuilding it.
- oceanofsolaris 11y agoWell, there is a bit missing in this story. The City Palace was actually demolished during the GDR time and replaced by the "Palast der Republik" (the palace of the republic). This Palace of the Republic (which did not really look like a palace very much) was then torn down in 2008 to make place for a reconstruction of the pre-GDR building. I think it is a bit sad that Germany does not leave more GDR-era buildings standing. They might not always be the most visually appealing buildings (just like the GDR was not a very appealing state in many regards), but they still represent an important part of Germanys history.
- ibuildthings 11y agoThe site has an interesting history. The former Stadtschloss suffered serious destruction during WWII ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Berlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Berlin ) and the Communist East tore it completely down to build the Palace of the Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin and acted as the hub of DDR government. Once the wall fell, and DDR disintegrated, in 2008 DDR's Palace of Republic was almost completed demolished, and work on new Stadtschloss which very much resembles the original commenced.
- smazga 11y agoI hope they intend to add back the decoration. Comparing the photos the old building had character, but the new one is all blocks and smooth faces.
- rogerbraun 11y agoHow do you take photos that look like the old ones? They seem to have much more interesting colors.
- soylentcola 11y agoNot an expert photographer, but while there are plenty of more "authentic" ways of reproducing the older photos, there are also lots of post-processing tools for digital (Photoshop plugins and the like) that do a great job of simulating all sorts of film stocks. I've messed with these a bit: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ They're a step above your typical Instagram-type filters and you can tweak effect parameters and strength depending what you're going for. It can easily devolve into gimmickry and I'm sure a skilled photographer and editor can do more without presets/plugins but for the average or hobbyist photographer I've found them to be a good starting point.
- monitron 11y agoI'm not the greatest photographer, but my impression is that they mostly have very high contrast; the photographer let a lot of dark areas fall into shadow. To some degree you can accomplish this in editing, but one shortcut to interesting photos is to shoot when the sun is low in the sky which naturally creates strong contrast.
- jrockway 11y agoFilms behave a little differently than digital sensors. Films don't have perfect reciprocity characteristics (1/2 the exposure doesn't necessarily yield 1/2 the negative density, but digital sensors essentially count photons and obey the reciprocity law quite well), nor does slide film have the dynamic range of digital sensors, so the look tends to be different. I was recently taking some pictures around town with Velvia 50 and immediately thought "wow, this looks like it was taken in 1990". It really does give a distinct look. The sky gives it away: https://goo.gl/photos/ciawuX28bbBhnehc7 https://goo.gl/photos/ciawuX28bbBhnehc7 There are also other characteristics that come into play. With digital sensors, you're capturing colors as seen by the color matrix on top of the sensor; Nikon, Canon, and Sony make these differently. With film, you're physically activating dye, and the dyes are also chosen uniquely for each film. So the colors can end up looking different, both because of process difference and intentional changes of the color. (Velvia 50 does not provide what one would call accurate color, but the inaccuracy is quite pleasing. The same goes for the Kodachrome/Ektachrome which were very popular in their times.)
- takeda 11y agoWas the Google's self driving car based on the one from 60s? (last picture)
- danielam 11y agoIn Soviet-satellite East Germany, car drives you!
- atomwaffel 11y agoVery droll. That photo was taken in West Berlin and the car in question is a BMW 600[1], built between 1957 and 1959. (Oddly enough, I saw its little sister[2] not far from that spot a few days ago.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_600 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta
- simplicio 11y agoInteresting how much of the prominent architecture is still in ruins (presumably from WWII era bombing) into the 50's and 60's. I mean, I guess it makes sense, since there was a lot of stuff to repair and important infrastructure and industry was probably higher on the to-do list than Cathedral and Courthouse repair. But I hadn't really thought about how long the prominent war-time damage would've lasted.
- paublyrne 11y agoI think Berlin is unusual. Construction happens very slowly here. Things don't get fixed quickly. And there is a lack of desire to change the city too much, physically. As an example, the paving on the pathways is in a constant state of being repaired because the design is such that the little stone blocks pop out very easily. Many of the side roads are still cobbled (and a nightmare to cycle on). People don't worry about it.
- brightsize 11y agoAs an American, I think those cobbled streets are one of the most charming things about Berlin. IIRC, many of the sidewalks are of some stone-like construction as well, quite a delightful change from the flat, poured concrete that I have to walk on in the US. When there are sidewalks at all that is. It's almost as if it was all designed to lure one outside.
- SyneRyder 11y agoOne of my favourite advances between the 1963 / 2015 photos of Gedächtniskirche isn't the glass skyscrapers or even the restoration of the church, but just how many trees there are now lining the streets. Definitely more enticing to be outside.
- DKnoll 11y agoCobblestone is really nice until you have to walk on it for hours. My inferior North American knees couldn't take it.
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- udev 11y agoSurprising how they had much more street advertising back in the day compared to now.
- lordnacho 11y agoPerhaps there are more alternatives to neon signs now? TV, Internet, etc.