Colour Photographs from Before and During WWI

[Pietro_Mercurios]

These links to photographs taken before and during the First World War, from Russian and French photographers, give us a glimpse of the times in colour and in their way are rather wonderful.

French photographers used the Autochrome to take amazing colour photos on the battlefields of the First World War:
http://www.poiemadesign.com/wwi/

Russian photgrapher, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, used the Digichromatography process, to take, technically even more amazing, photos of Tzarist Russia before the First World War!
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

A different World, not just in scratchy b&w, or sepia. :)

[L'Etranger]

Wow, these images are indeed remarkable. Some I already knew from researching a certain matter (which lead to nowhere because the American bought up all rights and options), but I never came across such masses.
The great and terrible conflict that tore our continent into a whirlpool of sorrow and chaos, in part still felt today, comes in colour.

Thanks for the pointer, Androman!

[lemec]

Those are very impressive and rare. I watched some of the WWII in colour, but that was a little more common, I never really saw a whole lot of B&W photos from WWI, let alone ones in colour, that is wonderful.

Thanks for posting them! :D

-Lemec

[David Mosley]

Some years ago on British TV there were a series of documentaries celebrating 100 years of cinema, and the first episode managed to get hold of some colour cine-footage which dated from around 1910 - if not a little earlier. It was mostly, iirc, footage of military/royal processions and parades, which I suppose is the sort of thing you would use rare colour stock for. It was as other people have noted quite remarkable to see scenes we normally only know in monochrome in 'glorious colour'.

[L'Etranger]

Some years ago on British TV there were a series of documentaries celebrating 100 years of cinema, and the first episode managed to get hold of some colour cine-footage which dated from around 1910 - if not a little earlier. It was mostly, iirc, footage of military/royal processions and parades, which I suppose is the sort of thing you would use rare colour stock for. It was as other people have noted quite remarkable to see scenes we normally only know in monochrome in 'glorious colour'.

I know of some colour footage of a pre-WW1 parade in Berlin to celebrate the Kaiser's daughter's marriage to the Duke of Somethingduchy. They used a technique with three cameras, each with a differently tinted film stock. Really astonishing stuff. Used in this documentary which was made for theatrical release:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205245/usercomments

[Grey Mouser]

Incroyable!

Would make great subject for a potential PX article perhaps.

[lemec]

just wait for the next twenty years or so and we will be saying.'I would have loved to have a Holographic 3D Image Recorder back then!' :lol:

something I always thought would be great to do if you had a time machine, go video record in colour all the battles of the ancient world, great events in all the countires and nice recordings of all the wildlife.



-Lemec