WW2 photos in colour....

[marcus69x]

How do you get WW2 photos in colour? Colour cameras didn't exist then did they? Somebody told me they've probably been airbrushed or something.


Edit: if that's true, it must take some time to get all the texture right etc...

[Kyt]

Colour cameras and film was generally available from the mid-1930s.

However, I have seen a number of WW1 photos that have been hand coloured - usually portraits that have been coloured by relatives. I also remember my mother saying that when she was a kid, her sisters and she used to hand colour b&w photos for fun.

[marcus69x]

So what about all the colour photos in our gallery? Were they all original colour films or do you think any of them would have been hand coloured?

It's just something which has always had me thinking. I remember seeing a WW1 programme in colour, how would they have done that? Surely if hand coloured they would have had to do it frame by frame. That is mind boggling.

marcus

[Owen]

marcus
Have a look here
Color photography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[marcus69x]

Cheers Owen.

Quote, "The experimentation of creating photographs that mirrored the colors of real life began as early as 1896."

Learn something new everyday!

[the_historian]

As part of BBC 3's recent series The Edwardians they showed a series of programmes on Albert Kahn, pre-ww1 colour photo pioneer.
Beginning around 1900 Kahn dispatched one of his employees all over the world at various times to record life as it was, using actual colour negatives. This continued on an official basis during ww1, and all the glass negatives are now held in a dedicated museum in Paris(?).
Some of the early pictures covered peoples no longer in existence, so if the series gets repeated try and see it.

[marcus69x]

Cheers Gordon. Yeah I saw a bit of that 'Edwardian in colour' which partly prompted me to start this thread. never had much interest in that era though so I didn't watch too much of it.

Go into the IWM archives that Owen loves and have a search around, You can select B&W or colour searches. There is a famous one of Guy Gibson lying in a poppy field reading a book. As vibrant as anything today.
TR_001125.jpg
Here's the colour search for Guy http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/dbt...c/dbtwpcgi.exe

[marcus69x]

Cheers Kitty and gang. Don't you think it's mad that you can get some photos like that guy sat in the field which are actually quite good quality, yet there are other photos taken more recently in b&w that are nowhere near the quality. Some b&w photos I've seen, you can just make out what's going on.

That guy? LOL! Anyway, depends upon the photographer I think.