Incredible facts
When we think of old photographs, we primarily think of black and white pictures, but as these stunning photo early 20th century, color photography was much more advanced than one might think.
Before 1907, if you wanted to get color photograph, a professional colorist had to paint it using different dyes and pigments.
However, two French brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumière, made a splash in the field of photography. Using colored potato starch particles and a light-sensitive emulsion, they could take color photographs without the need for additional coloring.
Despite the difficulty of production, as well as the high cost, the process of producing color photographs was very popular among photographers, and one of the world's first books on color photography was published using this technique.
First color photos
Thus, the brothers revolutionized the world of photography, and Kodak later took photography to a whole new level by introducing Kodakchrome film to the market in 1935. It was an easier and more convenient alternative to the invention of the Lumière brothers. Their Autochrome Lumiere technology immediately became obsolete, but still remained popular in France until the 1950s.
Kodakchrome, in turn, also became obsolete with the advent of digital photography. Kodak stopped producing film in 2009. Digital photography is the most popular form of photography today, but modern advances in photography would not be possible without the hard work of pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière.
Now let's look at a collection of amazing photographs from a century ago, taken using the innovative technology of the Lumière brothers.
1. Christina in red, 1913
2. Street flower seller, Paris, 1914
3. Heinz and Eva on the Hill, 1925
4. Sisters sitting in the garden making bouquets of roses, 1911
5. Moulin Rouge, Paris, 1914
6. Dreams, 1909
7. Mrs. A. Van Besten, 1910
8. Girl with a doll near soldiers' equipment in Reims, France, 1917
9. Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1914
10. Street in Grenada, 1915
11. One of the very first color photographs, made using the technology of the Lumière brothers, 1907
12. Young girl in daisies, 1912
13. Two girls on the balcony, 1908
14. Balloons, Paris, 1914
15. Charlie Chaplin, 1918
The very first color photographs
16. Mark Twain's Autochrome, 1908
17. Open market, Paris, 1914
18. Christina in red, 1913
19. Woman smoking opium, 1915
20. Two girls in oriental costumes, 1908
21. Van Besten painting in the garden, 1912
22. Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1913
23. Woman and girl in nature, 1910
24. Eva and Heinz on the shore of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, 1927
25. Mother and daughters in traditional clothes, Sweden, 1910
26. Neptune's Fountain, Cheltenham, 1910
27. Family portrait, Belgium, 1913
28. Girl in the garden with flowers, 1908
Just some 30-40 years ago, a significant part of photographs, films, and television programs were black and white. Many people have no idea that color photography appeared much earlier than it became widely used in life. This post is about the development of color photography.
In fact, attempts to obtain color photographs began in the mid-19th century, shortly after. But the inventors faced many technical difficulties. In addition to simply getting a color photograph, there were big problems with correct color rendering. It was precisely because of various technical difficulties that the widespread introduction of color photography into life lasted for more than a hundred years. However, thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts, today we can see fairly high-quality color photographs of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
“Tartan Ribbon” is considered to be the world's first color photograph. It was shown by the famous English physicist James Maxwell during a lecture on the characteristics of color vision at the Royal Institution in London on May 17, 1861.
However, Maxwell did not take photography seriously, and the pioneer of color photography was the Frenchman Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron. On November 23, 1868, he patented the first method of producing color photographs. The method was quite complicated and involved shooting the desired object three times through light filters, and the desired photograph was obtained after combining three plates of different colors.
Photographs of Louis Ducos du Hauron (1870s)
In 1878, Louis Ducos du Hauron presented his collection of color photographs at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.
In 1873, the German photochemist Hermann Wilhelm Vogel made the discovery of sensitizers - substances that can increase the sensitivity of silver compounds to rays of different wavelengths. Then another German scientist, Adolf Mithe, developed sensitizers that made the photographic plate sensitive to different areas spectrum He also designed a camera for three-color photography and a three-beam projector for displaying the resulting color photographs. This equipment was first demonstrated in action by Adolf Mithe in Berlin in 1902.
Photographs by Adolf Miethe (early 20th century)
The pioneer of color photography in Russia was Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky, who improved Adolf Miethe's method and achieved very high-quality color rendering. At the beginning of the 20th century, he traveled around the Russian Empire, taking many excellent color photographs (about two thousand of them have survived to this day).
Photos by Prokudin-Gorsky (Russia, early 20th century)
Still, getting one color image out of three was inconvenient; in order for color photography to become widespread, the method had to be simplified. This was done by the Lumiere brothers, the famous inventors of cinema. In 1907, they demonstrated their Autochrome method, which produced a color image on a glass plate.
Some of the "autochromes" (early 20th century)
Over the next 30 years, Autochrome became the primary color photography method for the masses until Kodak developed a more advanced color photography method.
When and where did the first color photograph appear?
May 17, 1861 English physicist James Clerk MAXWELL, * 06/13/1831, Edinburgh, Scotland; † November 5, 1879, Cambridge, England, produced the first color photograph using the so-called additive method. http://tmn.fio.ru/works/72x/311/hist_col...On May 17, 1861, Maxwell was offered the high honor of giving a lecture in London in front of the Royal Institution - an institution glorified by the names of Rumfoord, Davy and Faraday. The topic of the lecture is “On the theory of three primary colors.” And it was at this lecture that James decided to give the final, already indisputable proof of his three-component theory.
When he approached one of the most sophisticated photographers of the time, the editor of Notes on Photography, Thomas Sutton, with a proposal to take a color photograph, he was amazed. And, of course, he refused. It took Maxwell a lot of effort to persuade him.
It was decided to photograph a bow tied from a three-color ribbon, placed against a background of black velvet. Photographing was carried out in bright sunlight and was carried out three times. The first time the bow was photographed was through a transparent flat vessel filled with a solution of copper chloride. The solution was bright green. The other solution through which the second negative was exposed was a copper sulfate solution - it was bright blue. Another negative was obtained through a bright red solution of iron thiocyanate. All these negatives were then printed on glass.
Not without anxiety, on May 17, 1861, James Clerk Maxwell entered the multi-columned mansion on Abermarle Street, Piccadilly, where the Royal Institution was located. Carriages arrived, transporting the important and the infirm; the younger and unmerited people hurried off on foot, with and without wives.
There are three magic lanterns installed in the hall, and heavy glass positives at the ready. In front of the lenses of each flashlight are the same filters that were used when shooting - red, blue and green.
James explains to the assembled ladies and gentlemen the essence of the three-component theory, insisting that the primary colors with which all others can be obtained are precisely these: red, blue, green.
Need proof? Please! James instructs Sutton and his assistants to set fire to bars of calcium carbonate - Drummond's light for magic lanterns. The bars flare up, giving a bright white, slightly bluish light.
The red rays of one lantern cut through the darkness of the hall, then green and blue rays appear in the air of the lecture hall. Three color images are projected onto a white screen so that they coincide, and then... Everyone sees a colored, completely natural image of a bow made from a multi-colored ribbon, as if created bright colors artist. This is completely different from the usual products of a primitive device, which produces a black and white image, like a bad engraving.
This was, of course, a complete triumph of the three-component color theory. And no one then understood that the main significance of that day was not at all in the triumph of the three-component theory, but in the fact that in the process of proving this theory, color photography was demonstrated to the world for the first time!
Photographer of the Tsar Proskudin Gorsky - color photographs of Tsarist Russia
There are many iconic photographs in history that were taken by chance. An amazing story of coincidences also contributed to the appearance of the first color photograph. "Tartan Ribbon" or "Tartan Ribbon" is a multi-colored image taken by physicist James Clerk Maxwell and photographer Thomas Sutton - blue, green and red - and demonstrated during a lecture on color vision at the Royal Institution of London on May 17, 1861.
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Publishing house "Science"
Moscow, 1968
James Maxwell is known for his work in the field of electromagnetic theory, but the scientist was also interested in color theory. In particular, he supported Thomas Young's idea of three primary colors and their connection with physiological processes in the human body. A joint experiment between Maxwell and the inventor-photographer Thomas Sutton was supposed to strengthen these assumptions.
Scientists sequentially photographed a knotted ribbon of Scottish fabric with a traditional checkered (tartan) pattern through multi-colored filters. By then illuminating the negatives through the same filters, it was possible to obtain a full-color projection of the image. As was shown almost a hundred years later by employees of the Kodak company, who recreated the conditions of Maxwell’s experiment, the available photographic materials did not allow demonstrating color photography and, in particular, obtaining red and green images.
R.M. Evans, who conducted this experiment, explained the appearance of colors in the Sutton-Maxwell photograph as follows: “It is clear that our film, like Sutton's, is sensitive only to extreme blue and ultraviolet. The fact that the images were obtained not only with blue, but also with green and red filters indicates that all solutions transmit light with wavelengths shorter than 430 µm (micrometers). In other words, the only radiation affecting the emulsion was light from the extreme blue end of the visible spectrum and even shorter invisible radiation in the ultraviolet. Our lens, which is similar in many ways to Sutton's, transmitted ultraviolet light up to 325 µm. The wavelengths transmitted by the lens and the three solutions (diluted) are shown in the spectrographic curves.
It's immediately clear that the three filters quite clearly divide the blue and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum into three separate regions, although the green is contained within the blue. Quite by chance, it turned out that the filters Sutton chose to separate the visible spectrum acted similarly in relatively narrow area light with a short wavelength. When looking at these curves, remember that with the green filter the exposure was 120 times greater, and with the green filter it was 80 times greater than with the blue filter. These coefficients were not taken into account when constructing the curves.
It can now be understood how blue was separated from other colors and how true green can be separated from blue. But it would immediately seem that everything painted red is completely indistinguishable. It turns out that many paints reflect not only the light we see as red, but also a lot of ultraviolet light. Therefore, a red object can give a clear image on a “red” plate not because it is red, but because it is more ultraviolet than those objects that we perceive as green and blue. We do not know, of course, what red color the ribbon photographed by Sutton was painted in. Moreover, there is no description of its color at all, which means we cannot be sure that the sections of the tape that Sutton turned out to be brighter on the red plate were truly red and not some other color with high ultraviolet reflectivity. It seems incredible, however, that Maxwell would have shown the photograph if the red spots were not in place. If so, then they were created by ultraviolet - red coloring of the tape - a happy accident that neither Maxwell nor Sutton could have foreseen."
Additive methods
The additive method, or the method of adding colors, based on the three-color theory of vision, makes it possible to obtain all colors and shades by mixing (adding) in certain proportions of three primary colors: red, green and blue. So, if you simultaneously project three differently colored light streams onto the screen: red, green and blue, then by appropriately selecting the brightness of these streams you can get any color.
Practical techniques for additive color photography
Digital photography
The reincarnation of the almost forgotten method of color raster photography occurred with the advent of digital cameras, in which the photosensitive element is a monochrome electronic matrix, individual elements which are covered with color filters. Light filters are arranged in a certain order, which is called the “Bayer filter” and usually consists of three colors - green (there are twice as many of these elements as the rest, which is associated with the peculiarities of human vision), red and blue. And, although some companies are experimenting with adding filters of additional colors (for example, blue), the three-color scheme is used in the vast majority of devices.
Subtractive methods
With the subtractive method of color photography, color separation, or the production of color-separated negatives, is carried out in the same way as with the additive method; color reproduction with the subtractive method, in contrast to the additive method, allows you to obtain an image on paper. This is explained by the fact that with the additive method, the sensation of color is achieved through the optical addition of colors, and with the subtractive method, by subtracting colors or mixing paints. In the first case, we are dealing with primary colors: blue, green and red, the mixing of which gives the feeling of white, and in the second - with additional colors to the main ones: yellow, purple and cyan (blue-green), the mixing of which gives the feeling of black.
To obtain the desired colors, filters are used, colored in a complementary color to the main color: cyan, magenta or yellow. These filters absorb rays of the primary colors, red, green and blue, respectively, and transmit rays of the remaining 2/3 of the spectrum.
In practice, a color image is obtained as follows: from black-and-white color-separated negatives, black-and-white color-separated positives are printed in the usual photographic way, which are colored in an additional color to the color of the filter of this negative, and then the colored positive images are combined according to their outlines on a white paper substrate or on transparent film. The result is a color image whose colors are close to the original. The relative simplicity and some other advantages of the subtractive method have led to its widespread adoption in photography.
Practical methods of color photography using the subtractive method
Literature
- A short photographic guide. Under general ed. V.V. Puskova. 2nd ed.- M.: “Art”, 1953.
- K. L. Mertz Color photography // Photocinema: Encyclopedia / Chief editor E. A. Iofis. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1981.
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- Tsar bomb
- Flowering
See what “Color photography” is in other dictionaries:
COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY- obtaining multi-color images on special materials. The most common color photography is on three-layer film and paper, each emulsion layer of which is sensitive only to a certain range of the visible spectrum (blue,... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
color photography- obtaining multi-color images on special materials. The most common color photography is on three-layer film and paper, each emulsion layer of which is sensitive only to a certain range of the visible spectrum (blue,... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Color photography- a section of photography that combines methods and processes for obtaining color photographic images. The first (1861) to point out the possibility of photographic color reproduction (See Photographic color reproduction) was J. C. Maxwell. Based on... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
color photography- spalvotoji fotografija statusas T sritis fizika atitikmenys: engl. color photography; color photography vok. Farbenphotography, f rus. color photography, f pranc. photographie en couleur, f … Fizikos terminų žodynas
COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY- see Color photography... Chemical encyclopedia
Color photography- Already the first researchers of the chemical action of light noticed that silver chloride receives different shades, depending on the color of the operating light and the method of preparing the photosensitive layer. In 1810, the Jena professor Seebeck noticed ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron
