nathanonline

mikelahaye:

bikerfish:

These early 20th century color photos from Albert Kahn have been circulating around the web for the last couple of years, but I still find them utterly fascinating windows into the past. Maybe that’s why I like photographs so much.

It wierdly makes the people look like …people as opposed to objects from history.

It still kind of looks like old guys playing dress up for an old movie, which I would imagine is largely due to the over-saturated color. Still, badass

Ted Grant, author of Real Photographers Shoot Black and White… Sometimes Colour, said: “When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes.  But when you photograph people in black-and-white, you photograph their souls!”

When looking at old color photographs, I do get a sense of great historical accuracy (as if a reproduction) instead of underlying emotions. I’m not going so far as to say that the color detracts from the emotion, but it does shift the focus and the feel.

Of course, now that black-and-white is a style choice, the entire context has changed. Modern photographs, either black-and-white or color, will have a completely separate criteria.