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Russia in color, a century ago

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Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#51

Post by kalleboo »

keiferski wrote: post #42
thematt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Why do you suppose? In 50-100 years, I can easily see us having a permanent presence on another planet, fully automated vehicles and a Terminator like military comprised completely of robots. That world (if true), technologically, would look amazingly different than how we live today.

Okay, maybe a better word choice would have been "certain" technologies. Seeing photographs of the 50s in 2050 won't seem all that amazing.

Unless we figure out how to create realistic full-color 3D holograms, or at least highly-improved glasses-free stereographic displays. In that case, anything pre-stereography will look very "flat", and the relatively few stereographic photos taken today could have the same impact as these color photos from the article

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#52

Post by ollysb »

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

The amount of smiling varies a lot between cultures, you can't correlate smiling with levels of happiness. Russians are known for not being big on smiling http://blog.properrussian.com/2011/05/why-russians-are-not-s.... From that article:

>> There is a popular Russian saying, “A laughter without a reason is a sign of stupidity”

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#53

Post by duck »

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

You might find this interesting: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2375633

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#54

Post by elteto »

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

I read somewhere that getting a photograph in those times was considered of great importance. The closest that you had back then to something like this was commissioning an artist to draw a portrait of yourself, very expensive and out of reach for common people. These are pictures mostly of rural folks, and even the ones with some kind of position like the emir were probably very poor. Therefore when somebody comes along and wants to take your photograph, you put on your best clothes, sit in a dignified pose and take it seriously, because it is a big deal.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#55

Post by felipemnoa »

ollysb wrote: post #52
mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

The amount of smiling varies a lot between cultures, you can't correlate smiling with levels of happiness. Russians are known for not being big on smiling http://blog.properrussian.com/2011/05/why-russians-are-not-s... . From that article: >> There is a popular Russian saying, “A laughter without a reason is a sign of stupidity”

There is a huge difference between smiling and laughing. Yeah, laughing out loud with no reason will seem stupid to anybody.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#57

Post by ollysb »

I've always found it interesting that people's perception of history is coloured(couldn't resist) by having only seen it in black and white. You almost have to remember that the world wasn't actually in black and white 100 years ago. It's fascinating to see photos from that far back in colour, it somehow makes it easier to empathise with the people in the shots.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#58

Post by MichaelApproved »

vhf wrote: post #36
dkroy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, even those in the link are impressive to me. Just think of where technology was at that point in time, and what ingenuity it took to create pictures of this quality.

I wouldn't call it "technology". It's more of a successful experiment than technology, to me. Color separation cameras came two decades after, and this was really a technology : making one camera capture at the same time 3 pictures on negative. (Where those very impressive pictures shown in the link are taken using the color separation process but without a color separation camera, and not on negative.)

This is indeed technology. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technology

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#59

Post by akkartik »

ollysb wrote: post #57

I've always found it interesting that people's perception of history is coloured(couldn't resist) by having only seen it in black and white. You almost have to remember that the world wasn't actually in black and white 100 years ago. It's fascinating to see photos from that far back in colour, it somehow makes it easier to empathise with the people in the shots.

http://www.freewebs.com/calvin-hobbes-org/dadbandwandcolour....

Makes the world back then seem more modern, forces me to take it more seriously. The past is a different place, not stupider or more primitive, just different.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#60

Post by ollysb »

felipemnoa wrote: post #55
ollysb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of smiling varies a lot between cultures, you can't correlate smiling with levels of happiness. Russians are known for not being big on smiling http://blog.properrussian.com/2011/05/why-russians-are-not-s... . From that article: >> There is a popular Russian saying, “A laughter without a reason is a sign of stupidity”

There is a huge difference between smiling and laughing. Yeah, laughing out loud with no reason will seem stupid to anybody.

Joining the dots a little bit for you, here's another quote leading up to this point.

>> Russians need a particular reason to smile. You've heard good news and you smile to show that you consider this news as good.

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