February 14, 2005

Eerie and informative colour photos of WWI I have come across only a few colour images of WWI (sic). These images used the autochrome method. Developed by the Lumiere brothers, autochroming was the only industrial colour photography method available until 1935, when it was largely replaced by the system developed by Kodak. These pictures can completely change one's perception of the War. They are far different to the monochrome images of the trenches and the wounded that I am most familiar with.
posted by dj 19 years ago
  • Obviously, quite a lot of the images are hand-coloured, but the one's that aren't are very striking.
  • Great post, dj. The images of the ruins of Rheims are so striking. I hesitate to call them beautiful, because of the devastation they represent, but the colors are just so delicate.
  • dj -- did you not see the series SBS were running just a few weeks ago? Same as this, but moving images.
  • Great photos. Some of the poetry is pretty good, too.
  • Only a very small part of it unfortunately. Just been checking my e-mail. Sorry about the failure to communicate, I missed your message amongst a plethora of crontab messages. Hope you had fun, would not have been unable to come in any case. I missed the previous link, so thanks uhmyang. I can make a blog post out of the two. When you're used to seeing everything about WWI in black and white, the colours are exceptionally striking, and I think add quite a lot to our understanding of the conflict - skin colour differences, the continuation of outdated uniform colour schemes, the contrast between life and death produced by flowers, etc.
  • Thanks so much for posting this, dj. Two of the (many) photos that really struck me were Entrance to the Chateau on page 7 (terrifying), and Zeppelin on page 2. The latter is practically an editorial cartoon, with its gigantic, slightly nose-diving dirigible hovering above a flock of oblivious sheep. Wow. Great find.
  • It's interesting how the more modern looking colour pictures draw you in and give you a feel for the moment, whereas the b&w and others just look like 'history'
  • This French website has tons of autochromes. Not the best interface in the world though - you'll have to click on the links under "acces aux images", and then browse away.
  • Nice.
  • I could look at these all day. I have to get the hell away from here.
  • dj, this si a tremendous site, I've been wholly engrossed by the pictures and text for almost two hours. )))!!! Growing up with black and white photos and snapshots -- they don't seem like history to me for that reason, I suppose. Sometimes they can be more powerful visually than colour photographs.
  • I am 99% certain that this is a repeat from a week or 2 ago...
  • Theres even a picure of Mata Hari! Her and my ex girl, would have got along real well.
  • Neat pix. If it's a repeat, I missed the first time around. I was kind of hoping there would be some pictures of Haller's Army, in which my great-great uncle served. (Many thousands of Polish immigrants to the U.S. & Canada went back to fight for Poland's independence during WWI as part of the French Army.)
  • Yeh..I meant for me obviously. Photos and film from now are going to be someone elses history when the next thing comes along.