Cool color photographs from WWI

[cosine]

http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/index.html

[Manedwolf]

Bet the German snipers loved those French uniforms. Not exactly subdued...?

[mtnbkr]

I remember those from a few years ago.  I think they were posted here or on the Roundtable at THR.  Anyway, I like 'em.  I've always liked the look of less saturated photos like that.

Chris

[MicroBalrog]

Bet the German snipers loved those French uniforms. Not exactly subdued...?

Manedwolf, that was indeed an issue at the time. Tuchmann describes it, I think.

[K Frame]

I'm not finding any of the traditional French uniforms, the Pantalones Rouge, that were a mark of French soldiers for nearly 150 years.

The blue gray (Horizon Blue, IIRC) uniforms that many of the soldiers are wearing in those photographs were adopted in 1915/1916 when it became painfully apparent that the red pants were getting a LOT of French soldiers killed, and that the German gray-green uniform was very effective at helping the Germans blend in.

Ah, here we go. A picture of the pantalones rouge uniforms that were in use in the early stages of the war...

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

Wonderful pictures.  It's easy to forget that the world was in color back then.  All we see is black and white, and the brain, at least my brain, thinks on some level the world was black and white.

[cosine]

Wonderful pictures.  It's easy to forget that the world was in color back then.  All we see is black and white, and the brain, at least my brain, thinks on some level the world was black and white.

Me too. It's amazing to see sunlight in some of those pictures, and to realize that the world was a colorful then as it is now. The black and white photographs seem to lend a air of gravity to the conflict, at least that's my reaction to seeing black and white WWI photographs, and seeing these color photographs reminds me that these were real people who lived and laughed and celebrated and weren't just somber solders all the time.

[Manedwolf]

Wonderful pictures.  It's easy to forget that the world was in color back then.  All we see is black and white, and the brain, at least my brain, thinks on some level the world was black and white.

[K Frame]

Wonderful pictures.  It's easy to forget that the world was in color back then.  All we see is black and white, and the brain, at least my brain, thinks on some level the world was black and white.

Wow.

You clowns need to reacquaint yourselves with some, hell ANY, of the great artists of the past few thousand years...

And NOT Calvin and Hobbs version of it, either! 

[coppertales]

I like the Calvin and Hobbs version much better...............................................chris3

[Tuco]

I remember being 3 or 5 yrs old and asking my granny "Was the world black and white...?"

Granny just smiled and said "No, it was in color"

[French G.]

Wonderful pictures.  It's easy to forget that the world was in color back then.  All we see is black and white, and the brain, at least my brain, thinks on some level the world was black and white.

I grew up reading Civil and WWII history. As a kid it seemed like some distant grainy past, but to see the color pictures of WWI and WWII really drives home to me how modern and close to us much of those conflicts were.

[Manedwolf]

Here's some even more dramatic 1909 photographs in VIVID color, through the use of a filter process. Guy was way, way, way ahead of his time.

Color film was non-existent in 1909 Russia, yet in that year a photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii embarked on a photographic survey of his homeland and captured hundreds of photos in full, vivid color. His photographic plates were black and white, but he had developed an ingenious photographic technique which allowed him to use them to produce accurate color images.

He accomplished this with a clever camera of his own design, which took three black and white photos of a scene in rapid sequence, each though a differently colored filter. His photographic plates were long and slender, capturing all three images onto the same plate, resulting in three monochrome images which each had certain color information filtered out.

Sergei was then able to use a special image projector to project the three images onto a screen, each directly overlapping the others, and each through the appropriately colored filter. The recombined projection was a full-color representation of the original scene. Each three-image series captured by the camera stored all of the color information onto the black and white plates; all they lacked was actual tint, which the color filters on the projector restored.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mikhailovich_Prokudin-Gorskii





Those are from 1909!  The colors of the second one are what really stuns me, the colors of the robe. It's not even the washed out color of early processes, it's modern film/digital color.

[seeker_two]

Reminds me of the photos in the intro to "The First World War" series....beautiful and a little haunting.....

People don't realize just how much that time period had (and still has) on today's events.....in a way, we're still fighting that first World War..... 

[K Frame]

In a lot of ways people on this board are still fighting the Civil War! 

[seeker_two]

In a lot of ways people on this board are still fighting the Civil War! 

That's "The War of Northern Aggression", Mr. Yankee....

[K Frame]

In a lot of ways people on this board are still fighting the Civil War! 

That's "The War of Northern Aggression", Mr. Yankee....

No, that's the "War of Southern Stupidity," Mr. Loser...

[roo_ster]

MW:

Those images are better than most I see today.

From 1909.  One damn sharp Rooskie.

[mfree]

Prokudin-Gorskii took such dazzling photos because he sidestepped the whole color processing problem. His film is still black and white; what you're seeing is a recombination of three B&W plates taken through strong color filters.

He basically instead of taking a direct photograph took the "physical" equivalent of an RGB data stream, with luma information for red, green, blue.

[seeker_two]

In a lot of ways people on this board are still fighting the Civil War! 

That's "The War of Northern Aggression", Mr. Yankee....

No, that's the "War of Southern Stupidity," Mr. Loser...

Only because we let the Virginians run it......the Yankees never set foot in Texas until after Lee surrendered....and we're still wary of them today....(that's why we forced them all to settle in Austin)....

[K Frame]

"the Yankees never set foot in Texas until after Lee surrendered"

Is that what the Texas schools teach in the way of history?

I guess the bigger question is... do YOU actually believe that?

I wonder if Union Navy Commander W.B. Renshaw believed that after he ejected the Confederate garrison from Galveston, Texas, in 1862?

I wonder if Confederate Gen. John McGruder believed it when, in 1863, he attacked the Union-held city of Galveston and retook it, ejecting the garrison troops, who were natives of Massachusetts?

Nah.

[seeker_two]

"the Yankees never set foot in Texas until after Lee surrendered"

Is that what the Texas schools teach in the way of history?

I guess the bigger question is... do YOU actually believe that?

I wonder if Union Navy Commander W.B. Renshaw believed that after he ejected the Confederate garrison from Galveston, Texas, in 1862?

I wonder if Confederate Gen. John McGruder believed it when, in 1863, he attacked the Union-held city of Galveston and retook it, ejecting the garrison troops, who were natives of Massachusetts?

Nah.

Congratulations....the Union captured the island....but they weren't able to move onto the mainland and ended up losing even that foothold. But, to give credit where it's due, the Union did keep up the blockade even with the nearest port being New Orleans.....

(BTW, my wife & I spent our 4th of July vacation on Boliver near Galveston. Lovely place...as long as you avoid the beach crowd....)

Now, can we get back to the other war?..... 

[K Frame]

What, the island isn't part of Texas?

Since when?

Apparently the Confederates thought so, they were trying to defend the city and the harbor...

And yes, McGruder recaptured the area occupied by the Union troops.

Then there were also the two battles of Sabine Pass, where Union troops did make it from the barrier islands to the Texas mainland on numerous occasions...


"Now, can we get back to the other war?....."

I thought for you Rebels, 1861-1865 was the ONLY war. Everything else was just a misunderstanding? 


You're the second person I know who has vacationed on Bolivar Peninsula and who speak highly of it.

[seeker_two]

What, the island isn't part of Texas?

Since when?

Ask me around Spring Break time..... 

Apparently the Confederates thought so, they were trying to defend the city and the harbor...

And yes, McGruder recaptured the area occupied by the Union troops.

Then there were also the two battles of Sabine Pass, where Union troops did make it from the barrier islands to the Texas mainland on numerous occasions...

Couldn't hold the territory......or did they need repeated bathroom breaks?...... 

"Now, can we get back to the other war?....."

I thought for you Rebels, 1861-1865 was the ONLY war. Everything else was just a misunderstanding? 

Nah....everything else the South had to win for the Union (look how many generals/admirals came from Southern states in both world wars....  )

You're the second person I know who has vacationed on Bolivar Peninsula and who speak highly of it.

Is that a good thing?..... 

[S. Williamson]

In a lot of ways people on this board are still fighting the Civil War! 

That's "The War of Northern Aggression", Mr. Yankee....

No, that's the "War of Southern Stupidity," Mr. Loser...

Only because we let the Virginians run it......the Yankees never set foot in Texas until after Lee surrendered....and we're still wary of them today....(that's why we forced them all to settle in Austin)....

"the Yankees never set foot in Texas until after Lee surrendered"

Is that what the Texas schools teach in the way of history?

I guess the bigger question is... do YOU actually believe that?

I wonder if Union Navy Commander W.B. Renshaw believed that after he ejected the Confederate garrison from Galveston, Texas, in 1862?

I wonder if Confederate Gen. John McGruder believed it when, in 1863, he attacked the Union-held city of Galveston and retook it, ejecting the garrison troops, who were natives of Massachusetts?

Nah.

Congratulations....the Union captured the island....but they weren't able to move onto the mainland and ended up losing even that foothold. But, to give credit where it's due, the Union did keep up the blockade even with the nearest port being New Orleans.....

(BTW, my wife & I spent our 4th of July vacation on Boliver near Galveston. Lovely place...as long as you avoid the beach crowd....)

Now, can we get back to the other war?..... 

What, the island isn't part of Texas?

Since when?

Ask me around Spring Break time..... 

Apparently the Confederates thought so, they were trying to defend the city and the harbor...

And yes, McGruder recaptured the area occupied by the Union troops.

Then there were also the two battles of Sabine Pass, where Union troops did make it from the barrier islands to the Texas mainland on numerous occasions...

Couldn't hold the territory......or did they need repeated bathroom breaks?...... 

"Now, can we get back to the other war?....."

I thought for you Rebels, 1861-1865 was the ONLY war. Everything else was just a misunderstanding? 

Nah....everything else the South had to win for the Union (look how many generals/admirals came from Southern states in both world wars....  )

You're the second person I know who has vacationed on Bolivar Peninsula and who speak highly of it.

Is that a good thing?..... 

I wonder if anyone had any ideas or methods for taking color pictures in the first decade of the 20th century...