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The German front in rare color photos, 1914-1918
- pmoriarty 6y agoAlso see [1] and [2]. The rest of that rarehistoricalphotos.com site is well worth browsing for many more amazing photos. [1] - "Rare pictures of London in Dufaycolor, 1943-1945" - https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-pictures-london-dufaycolor-1943-1945/ https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-pictures-london-dufayc... [2] - "Rare color pictures from Russian Empire, 1905-1915" - https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-color-pictures-russian-empire-1905-1915/ https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-color-pictures-russian...
- sb057 6y agoProkudin-Gorskii's photograph of a simple railway bridge has always struck me the most of any early color photograph. The quality is such that it could have easily been taken today with a good camera. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prokudin-Gorskii-25.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prokudin-Gorskii-25....
- strogonoff 6y agoThe shot was created in 2004 using software to combine digitized negatives. IMO it is hard to say exactly how much of that impression is to be attributed to software capabilities, the colors in the Wikipedia version are definitely touched up. (Great shot though, hands down.)
- Aardwolf 6y agoThe ones from the Russian Empire are much higher resolution (stunning!) than the WW I photos, any idea if this has to do with the original photos themselves, or the scanning process?
- hnick 6y agoI'd assumed it was due to the 3-step process (taking 3 photos quickly with red, green, and blue filters). Rather than have it all together on one colour film which was still quite new. It's interesting you can see the effect this has on moving water, where it has an oil-slick rainbow sheen.
- Hayvok 6y agoThat shot of the men lining the trench... with cloth hats. No helmets. Imagine the constant artillery bombardment above you - shrapnel and rock everywhere - and you’re wearing not much more than a baseball hat. Truly an incredible time in history - these old armies colliding with a new type of war.
- vmh1928 6y agoI noticed that too, no doubt posed, as the story said, due to the slow exposure required. Probably in a rear training area or perhaps 2nd or 3rd line trench. The trench with the men aiming rifles didn't look like it had ever been shelled so unlikely they were facing the French or British.
- lrem 6y ago> didn't look like it had ever been shelled Ah, that's the "flaw" I couldn't quite point my finger at. Thanks.
- toohotatopic 6y agoDo helmets significantly reduce casualities or are they more like a courage device that makes the wearer feel less vulnerable?
- mnky9800n 6y agoWW1 helmets are as effective as their modern day counterparts https://scitechdaily.com/shocking-results-when-wwi-helmets-were-compared-to-modern-military-designs/ https://scitechdaily.com/shocking-results-when-wwi-helmets-w...
- lrem 6y agoThat's only against overhead shockwaves and states in the article that serious advancements have been made to protect from other types of damage.
- chmod775 6y ago
- crazygringo 6y agoWow. For some reason what gets me most is the... blue skies. I've always had decent imagination to turn black and white people into color, and the same with buildings, etc. But somehow I always mentally kept the skies as gray... as if the death and destruction of the war warranted overcast dreary weather, for years on end. The idea that WWI was fought on many days that were brilliantly sunny somehow makes it even more depressing in a way.
- alexott 6y agoDeOldify is going quite good job on old photos: https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify
- xixixao 6y agoI love all these colorizations, especially videos (easy to find on YT). One thing I've been wondering about: Is it possible that the ML algo turns the faces into more "modern" faces because it's presumably trained on later color footage?
- qayxc 6y agoIt's an inherent problem of all ML systems to extrapolate from training data only. You can get dramatically different results depending on your training data set. The only real issue with that is treating any of the outputs as "realistic" representations in terms of "close to the original scene". It's just a modern interpretation and the viewer needs to keep that in mind at all times.
- simonbarker87 6y agoTo be fair to you, northern France, like the UK, will have many more grey and cloudy days than it will clear blue skies so in the main your imagination is probably right more often than not.
- moomin 6y agoI remember visiting Auschwitz (1) on a beautiful summer day. It's actually quite pretty. (That's assuming you filter out the gates, the wires, the interiors.) Hell is what was done there, not a cinematic filter. Birkenau (Auschwitz 2), on the hand, was purpose built (Auschwitz 1 was a repurposed barracks) and that really does look like Hell, even on a nice day. Every last part of it screams "this was designed for obscene purposes".
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago> World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural, economic, and social climate of the world. Prior to WWI, Western Europeans saw themselves as the God-ordained masters of the world. They carved up Asia(including China and Africa into zones of influence. They were typically the senior military partners in any alliance they entered into. After the horrors of WWI, it was over. WWII was just the final chapter of WWI. Now, Instead of being the senior military partners, they would be the junior partners (see NATO and the Warsaw Pact). They would lose their colonies. They would at best, be one region of the world among many in terms of global power.
- blargmaster33 6y agoWWI destroyed all the wealth created by the industrial revolution och tog be replaced by fiat currency and ever growing government power. It was an end to the Humanities golden age of freedom.
- 082349872349872 6y agoI am always amazed that Brave New World is taught as dystopic. Maybe it's over the top in its anti-reactionary elements, but considering that everyone except for a single suicidal (not saying it's because he was viviparous, some of my best friends have been born viviparously...) misfit has a pleasant life, one would think utilitarians should be as fond of Huxley as others are of Rand.
- nxc18 6y agoI strongly agree with you. Brave New World is a utopian novel desperately trying to appear dystopic. With just a few small changes, to account for the existence of automation/robots/computers, the darker aspects (e.g. the population of deltas) stop being plausible within the universe. The TV show had to invent a lot of extra nonsense to introduce conflict. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Brave New World is that things are so stable, human needs are met so consistently, that life ceases to be a struggle; without a struggle, life becomes meaningless. That interpretation is alluded to in the TV show, but I won't spoil it. We should be working as hard as possible to move society closer to brave new world and further from 1984.
- Oricle 6y agoGreat people, fought for freedom and lost to the Jews. Now they own everything and play the world like a fiddle! Wrong side won everytime. Book written in 1871 explains all you need know about ww1, ww2 and the current ww3 we're in! Educate yourself! No one else will or can
- gvv 6y agoWhat a complete waste of human lives, that will only set the scene for an even more horrible war afterwards. For what...
- jdmoreira 6y agoa lot of things changed as a consequence. The USA definitely came out on top. A lot of colonies were "liberated". For the most part Europe became democratic (which it clearly wasn’t before) Are the deaths justified? Of course not. But the world would be very very different.
- ssalazar 6y agoIts true, basically all of the old European and Eurasian empires were dissolved. As for democracy, the period between WWI and WWII was quite the opposite with the rise of fascism across Europe. Modern European democracy largely came later after WWII. WWI was a net boost to colonialism with European powers given nominal control of the former Ottoman empire; European colonialism was still going strong (and arguably still is) well through the middle of the 20th century. US influence in Europe was only drastically increased after the implementation of the Marshall Plan after WWII, and obviously only in Western Europe.
- jdmoreira 6y agoAgree with everything. And I meant WWI + WWII since the second was unavoidable given how Germany was treated in the end of WWI.
- garmaine 6y agoFor Europe at least, WW1 was worse than WW2. Arguably it's just one 31-year war with a generation-long cessation of hostilities in the middle to mature more cannon fodder for the meat grinder.
- watwut 6y agoI guess this depends on your definition of "Europe" and "worst".
- rbinv 6y agoSomewhat related, there have been some impressive ML-powered video remasterings recently (colorized and upscaled to 4K at 60 fps): - Footage Of The First Flying Machines 1890-1910: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_G1YbItY9o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_G1YbItY9o - A Trip Through New York City in 1911: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1OgQL9_Cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1OgQL9_Cw - Views of Tokyo, Japan, 1913-1915: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8
- kubanczyk 6y agoThe New York 1911 is amazingly well done.
- agumonkey 6y agoI'm quite speechless to imagine all the human energy involved in all of this
- redis_mlc 6y agoI study WW2, and at the start you're unsettled by the number of casualties (in the realm of 70 million through 1945.) But over time you also realize the entire industrial output of the Allies was used to defeat the Axis, and you become completely disgusted at the monumental waste. Historians agree that the Axis never had a chance of winning in the longterm (aside from extreme luck), and WW2 was a result of US isolationism. Had the US promised to send 2 million troops to Europe as in WW1, Germany would not have bothered with most of their adventures. We've had relative peace since 1945 thanks to US military investment, but one passive speech from the Whitehouse can undermine that deterrent, as Jimmy Carter did before.
- agumonkey 6y agoI can reflect on war on a system theory level (things may need to crack to restructure and they will if no one accepts to let loose) But I'm happy that you share the disgust. If only people could unite so much for positive creations.. I guess nature was optimized for survival first and not art or harmony.
- nradov 6y agoThe US didn't have 2M active duty troops available to send to Europe in 1939. We were still in the Great Depression. Even if there had been political will to oppose the Axis Powers at that time, the funding and materiel simply didn't exist.
- redis_mlc 6y ago> The US didn't have 2M active duty troops available to send to Europe in 1939. Pedant. The US is a sovereign nation and can print any money they need for war. If they wanted to train 2 million troops, they would have, as they eventually did. The problem was that US politicians were on record as being isolationist, which emboldened Hitler. According to Dr. VDH, almost all wars are started for emotional reasons, not statistical ones. Deterrence is largely a feeling, not a scientific comparison.
- zvrba 6y agoWhat strikes me the most are how short the soldiers are. In most photos with standing soldiers, they look to me as not fully grown children.
- fiftyacorn 6y agoIts interesting the impact of child hood malnutrition on the British soldiers which resulted in the officers being a taller than the men so we're easy to pick off
- aaron695 6y agoEveryone was shorter 100 years ago. Bad nutrition stunts height and IQ. https://time.com/4423803/how-tall-100-years-height/ https://time.com/4423803/how-tall-100-years-height/
- zvrba 6y ago> Everyone was shorter 100 years ago. Yeah, I knew that. But it's one thing to read about it and see the numbers and another to see in real photos. :)
- perl4ever 6y agoBad nutrition or just less protein? I say this because I was just looking at another thread where people were arguing about whether a vegetarian diet is suitable for humans. And I vaguely remember reading about how average height increases in a given society as meat becomes more available and less of a luxury.
- watwut 6y agoPlenty were quite young. Not children, but teenagers (15 even 14 sometimes)
- philliphaydon 6y agoI feel like when I look at these photos in colour, they are more impactful. Like when it’s in black and white I think that’s Long time ago. But in colour I feel it’s not so long ago.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoI thought 1917 was a pretty good representation of what it must have been like. If you remember, it was filmed as if it was a long, continuous shot, and the way the actors would walk from what was a (literal) “hellhole,” to a beautiful, green, field, was jarring. The thing that struck me, was the quality of these trenches. It’s possible the photos were propaganda, so they only took pictures of the “good” trenches, but every picture you see of allied trenches looked like ditches. That said, a quick shufti at the casualty figures[0] shows that the absolute worst place to be, during the war, was in a German trench. [0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
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- stan_rogers 6y agoThere was a huge difference between the German and British trenches. The idea on the British side was that comfortable (read "liveable") trenches would suck the fight out of the men. Even the officers' dugouts were rather crude. The Germans, conversely, realised early on that aerial reconnaissance combined with poor mobility, unbelievable amounts of artillery and machine guns meant that the trenches were going to be a thing for a good long time, and you might as well settle in and be as safe as you can until the next spell of horror.
- jeffdn 6y agoThe Germans were also rather deep inside France, and thus more content to build systems of defensive fortifications. The British and French were of the mindset that the next offensive would have them making territorial gains, and so whichever trenches they currently occupied were only temporary.
- stormdennis 6y agoYes this is what I understand to be the case also.
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- iwasakabukiman 6y agoFor anyone that hasn't seen They Shall Not Grow Old, I highly recommend it. Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) spent years working with the British government to digitize and colorize their old footage of World War I. They also added in sound using the actual military equipment that was used in the field during the war. They also hired lip readers to figure out what each person was saying and added in dialogue. It's really incredible and makes the war (which was only 100 years ago) feel much more modern than old black and white footage. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrabKK9Bhds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrabKK9Bhds
- hex12648430 6y agoI would also recommend the documentary series Apocalypse: World War I which also contains colorized footage and dubbed sound effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse:_World_War_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse:_World_War_I
- lqet 6y agoThe audio comments made by soldiers throughout the film are also actual comments from veterans, taken from old BBC interviews. The film is a masterpiece.
- RickJWagner 6y agoSometimes when I'm feeling a little blue I'll remind myself I am not crouched in a foxhole (in freezing or burning weather) with people across the field trying to shoot me. Usually makes whatever's bothering me seem insignificant. Photos like these remind me that scenario has been real for many, many people.