Color photos from the forties.
Interesting detail, that apparently the Library of Congress has posted these on Flickr! I didn't see this coming.
(Does anybody know if one can set a different default picture size on Flickr? I want them big.)
Color photos from before the sixties are not common, and it gives the past a different life, I think.
Thanks to Mental Floss for quoting this wonderful exchange from the bygone comic strip Calvin And Hobbes:
Calvin: Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then?
Dad: Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It’s just the world was black and white then.
Calvin: Really?
Dad: Yep. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
Calvin: But then why are old PAINTINGS in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way?
Dad: Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
10 comments:
This is another good one. Almost on a par of that famous photo of Grand Central.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2178401341/
Those are all really cool. The weird way they're coloured makes them all look like Norman Rockwell paintings, though.
That's because in those days, we only had one set of vats for the colours, and they all came from one place.
And who the hell was "Norman Rockwell" anyway? (just kidding!)
Ray.
I'm not saying it looks bad. :) I think it gives them a very nice quality, with the accuracy and detail of a photograph, but with a kind of painterly quality to the colours. I wish I could get copies of some of these.
I'm also a big Rockwell fan, too, by the way. I dislike how art critics dismiss illustration as completely worthless.
I'm sure many art critics don't. Like, most outside NYC. :)
I dislike how art critics dismiss illustration as completely worthless.
It is worthless. It's not art. It's sublime graffiti.
Is that Warlord Billy Ray Cyrus? If not, I don't see why I should listen to you.
I have had to wear a labcoat in the last couple of years, but this was only in chip testing environments. I do take grounding precautions when needed too, that is anytime I have a new board that may be ESD sensitive, and first article chips.
I thought the shirt and pocket protector were passe (dah, wish I could put the accent there), but I work about 3 miles from Lawrence Livermore Labs, CA, and in the local restaurants at lunch you still see a lot of the old school clothing.
Isn't big blue still a dress code environment? The rest of the valley is pretty lapse though.
How did my reply to the XO dress code comments end up on the vintage photography thread?
Hey - we are reading Calvin and Hobbes chronologically, and just got to Oct '89, and there was that one. If you got the dosh, it's worth getting the collection. Luckily ours landed on the doorstep one Christmas.
Does Rosalyn (the baby sitter) ever smile?
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