These pictures are part of a huge collection assembled by the banker Albert Kahn: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_(banker)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_(banker)</a><p>Other pictures (about 1200) from the Albert Kahn collection, from other parts of the world: <a href="http://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.net/archives-de-la-planete/mappemonde/" rel="nofollow">http://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.net/archives-de-la-planete...</a><p>There are some wonderful pictures in that collection. My preferred are the ones with people living in a way that doesn't exist anymore like the ones from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), Ireland, Benin and South East Asia.
Russian version: <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_c...</a><p>The photographs were taken on three black and white plates with RGB filters in front of them, and could only be seen projected on a screen.<p>This is an article describing how the original images were composed to create the color version <a href="http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html</a> this is about the russian guy, Prokudin-Gorskii, but the process he used to take the pictures was the same.<p>On the LOC website you can see the originals and composite <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/prk2000000200/" rel="nofollow">http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/prk2000000200/</a>
I'm amazed at how the color changes the emotional response I have for these kinds of pictures. My mental image of 100 years ago seems very abstract, as if events and people from that time have the same reality of Sherlock Holmes. Somehow the color drives home the reality of where and who these people were. It makes me wonder what effect color pictures, or even better - color movies, from hundreds or thousands of years would have.
Cool photos. Thanks for the comments pointing to the set of photos of Russia in the Library of Congress collection posted a while ago here on Hacker News.<p>For this set of photos of Paris, especially cool is to post a link to<p><a href="http://www.paris1914.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.paris1914.com/</a><p>(a multilingual website) on the basis of the Hacker News guideline<p>"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."<p><a href="http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>
Beautiful. Similarly, Prokudin-Gorskii travelled Tsarist Russia in the decade before the revolution, taking fantastic color photographs with three plates and color filters: <a href="http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/" rel="nofollow">http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/</a>
Everytime I look at historical photography my first thought is "All of those people are dead." And yet, here we are with as many humans as ever and the world is still alive and ticking.<p>Startup/business takeaway: don't underestimate humankind's ability to transition into and out of roles while keeping the machinery moving.
The comment "It is extremely astonishing to look at the world now long gone, the world which you are used to see in black & white images and often with poor quality." is a bit off the mark. Black and white pictures, by and large, were excellent quality. eg look at Atget's pictures of Paris from the same date (although done on much older equipment) <a href="http://www.googleartproject.com/en-gb/artist/eug%C3%A8ne-atget/4132599/" rel="nofollow">http://www.googleartproject.com/en-gb/artist/eug%C3%A8ne-atg...</a> or <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Eug%C3%A8ne_Atget" rel="nofollow">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_E...</a>
This was right on the Eve of World War I. Sad to think that many of the young men in uniform probably died in the trenches at Marne or Verdun over the next several years.
This one [1] is hard to believe as it's a low-exposure night shot. I was under the impression they lacked the technology to do that even in B/W back then, no?<p>[1] <a href="http://i.imgur.com/IHt7ypS.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/IHt7ypS.jpg</a>
Black and white photos make the past seem so much further away. The colors truly make them feel real. Its hard to believe it was so long ago with such vividness.
Paris (France). If I could snap my fingers and change one thing about how Americans communicate, it would surely be to stop them saying Paris, France. Or London, England. Or Moscow, Russia. Or ... many similar examples. Please abandon this whole meme. Normal people know where the great cities of the world are.