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Christina In Red: Rare 1913 Color Photos Show How People Lived 100 Years Ago
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Christina In Red: Rare 1913 Color Photos Show How People Lived 100 Years Ago

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We imagine the past in black-and-white, but Mervyn O’Gorman was taking colorful photos using glass plates coated in potato starch in 1913. The technical name for this process is autochrome, and O’Gorman used it to take beautiful photos of his daughter Christina wearing red in the British countryside. As the vintage photos contain little to give their era away, they seem to be from no specific period; in fact, they almost weren’t taken at all.

These historical photos and the technology behind them are both curious side projects, neither of them being the primary invention or occupation of their authors. Autochrome was patented in 1903 by the Lumiere Brothers in France, who were most famous for their work with cinema; Mervyn O’Gorman, the one who took these old photos, is best known as a motoring pioneer and one of the greatest British aeronautical engineers of his time.

Mervin died in 1958. No details remain of Christina’s life, but Mervin’s 1913 historical pictures remain a beautiful example of what can happen by accident.

(h/t: petapixel)

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    Dainius

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    SusannaVesna
    Community Member
    9 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    These r beautiful photos, showing how natural & modest girls used 2b!

    SusannaVesna
    Community Member
    9 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have a black&white photo of my great-great-great grandmother from 1907 Russian Empire! Ill never know the colour of her dress! :(

    DanielaBlueMoonBoal
    Community Member
    9 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I can't do it but maybe you can find someone to work on that photo for you. Search the internet, there are ways to find the colour in b/w

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    SusannaVesna
    Community Member
    9 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    These r beautiful photos, showing how natural & modest girls used 2b!

    SusannaVesna
    Community Member
    9 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have a black&white photo of my great-great-great grandmother from 1907 Russian Empire! Ill never know the colour of her dress! :(

    DanielaBlueMoonBoal
    Community Member
    9 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I can't do it but maybe you can find someone to work on that photo for you. Search the internet, there are ways to find the colour in b/w

    Load More Replies...
    Load More Comments
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