Color History

in the early morning on Saturday, the 26th of February 2005 by Chad

It seems to be the day for photography. Old photography. In Color!

Not many people know that color photography has been going on since around 1900. Most people are of the opinion it started in and around WWII. Well, thats color movies.

Several sites over the past few days have been linking to some absolutely amazing color photographs from WWI and before. This site, thanks to Vodkapundit, has French WWI photographs of troops. None are in combat, but what I find so interesting is the color of the uniforms. The detail is very nice, and shows troops, doctors and nurses, and others in various scenes, including one with a trooper visiting the head.

Michael Jennings posts on photographs taken before WWI in Russia, commissioned by the Tsar, by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. Prokudin-Gorskii took pictures with a 3 color camera in black and white. While astrophotographers still know that technique, what it means is that he took three pictures, one with a red filter, one with a green, and one with a blue. When displaying them back, he would have three projectors, each also with filters. This would display on the screen similar to the old video projectors of about 10-20 years ago, which had three picture tubes.

This process produced absolutely beautiful color pictures. Absolutely incredible. Russia is a beautiful country. These pictures must be seen. And they are roughly 100 years old. Some look like they were taken yesterday.