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Early 1900s in Colour
- jarek 16y agoIn related spirit, colour photographs of early 1900s tsarist Russia by Prokudin-Gorsky are also pretty amazing. Edit: and most if not all are in public domain. Sample: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mikhailovich_Prokudin-Gorskii http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mikhailovich_Prokud...
- ginkgo 16y agoI wanted to post the same thing. The quality of those pictures is incredible. You can find all reconstructed images here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/ http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
- spudlyo 16y agoThese photographs are over 100 years old, yet they still have someone's obnoxious copyright on them. Intellectual property makes me sick.
- stse 16y agoIf I'm counting correctly these photographs still retain copyright to the end of the year (in Sweden), as Albert Kahn died in 1940. Copyright in Sweden is generally uphold up until 70 years after authors death.
- julio_the_squid 16y agoWonderful pictures. It's so different in color. What I'm wondering is what was Obama doing in Spain as a young boy? http://citynoise.org/upload/42155.jpg http://citynoise.org/upload/42155.jpg
- dzorz 16y agoGetting tan?
- mynameishere 16y agoWhat makes pictures like these seem alien is the clothing. Back then, even farmers dressed better than people today.
- lenni 16y agoI was amazed by that, too. Goes to show that fashion-wise we live in a global and monocultural era.
- andyjdavis 16y agoIt is amazing how different everyone looks from one another. It can be pretty tough to pick where someone is from these days. Everyone's dress seems so distinctive.
- joss82 16y agoOr, getting taken in a picture was so rare than people dressed well for it.
- delackner 16y agoMost of us in our best clothes would not compare favourably to the richness on display by these average people in their best dress. However, I wonder how much variety of style was worn in previous generations. Certainly within the span of living memory the current period is the most vividly variegated explosion of unrestrained style, but that is only compared to the monotone conformism of post-war industrialism. Were there perhaps places and times before us with a similar or higher level of embracing stylistic inventiveness?
- JabavuAdams 16y agoYeah, but they only had two outfits. Notice how beat up and formless everyone's boots are.
- mburney 16y agoAmazing. The past doesn't even seem much like the past when it is in colour.
- chanux 16y agoThere was a time I thought the old world was black and white. PS: And I was happy to see a picture of my country (Sri Lanka) there :).
- lsb 16y agoIf you start to read Latin and Ancient Greek, you'll get a sense that human beings have had most of the same mundane concerns for the past thousands of years. Some of the love poetry of Catullus, for example, sounds like it could have been written by a precocious tween.
- chronomex 16y agoWell, it was written by a moody 22-24-year-old. :)
- mahmud 16y agoWhat about those of us who speak undead languages? 1000 year old Arabic reads like any other modern formal essay. It's really hard to let go of the past when it's so vividly present. We hold grudges against nations and tribes that no longer exist.
- JeffJenkins 16y agoThe first photo, of The Plaza Hotel in NYC is really stark compared to how it looks now. It's not even close to being the tallest building in that area now, but then it looks like it was two or three times as tall almost as anything else.
- Hexstream 16y agoThe phallic drive knows no bounds ;P
- adrianwaj 16y agoThose were the days when the sun never set on the British Empire.
- rywang 16y agoPart of what makes the pictures so striking is that I constantly have to remind myself these are not modern men and women in costume.
- darkAsPitch 16y agoCan anybody explain exactly what is happening in this picture from Mongolia? http://citynoise.org/upload/42145.jpg http://citynoise.org/upload/42145.jpg
- edj 16y agoThe 4th comment reads: "That picture appeared in the May '22 NatGeo with the caption 'A Mongolian Woman Condemned to Die of Starvation'"
- hugh3 16y agoWow, now that's cruel. I notice there's bowls around the ground -- did they place food where she couldn't reach it just for extra cruelty's sake?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- chaosmachine 16y agoHere's my favorite collection of old color photographs, The Cushman Collection: http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/browse/yearBrowse.jsp http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/browse/yearBrowse.js... "Charles Weever Cushman, amateur photographer and Indiana University alumnus, bequeathed approximately 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to his alma mater. The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time he extensively documented the United States as well as other countries." One of my favorites: http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/cushman/full/P02219.jpg http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/cushman/full/P02... The collection can be a bit overwhelming, but for a good overview, look here: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=142692 http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=142692
- joss82 16y agoAll the pictures from the Musée Albert Kahn are actually autochromes. I found the way of making those technically very interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome
- andyjdavis 16y agoIts sounds odd but I sometimes find it a little upsetting looking at old photos for what might be an unusual reason. I want to warn the people in them about stuff. For example when I got to the photo taken in Cambodia all I could think was "the poor bastards alive then had no idea the nightmare that was waiting for them and their children" meaning what happened under Khmer Rouge. The annoying one way nature of time bothers me. lol. think I might be going crazy.