Russia in color, a century ago • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#61

Post by knowtheory » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 3:53 AM UTC

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.)

I don't think the distinction you have made is valid.

Experiments are a kind of technology by any common definition. Just because this never rolled out into mass production doesn't mean that it wasn't a systematic application of scientific/engineering principles.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#62

Post by georgemcbay » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 4:05 AM UTC

rjurney wrote: post #31

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?

Russians don't walk around smiling, unless something good happens to smile about. In fact, smiling Americans look stupid grinning all the time.

As an American, the only time I see Americans grinning all the time is in stock photos. IRL we don't sit around eating salad and laughing all day.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#63

Post by gigantor » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 4:13 AM UTC

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?

Photos required a very long exposure back then and a smile is hard to keep for what amounted to minutes. Keeping a neutral expression minimized movement and consequently blur resulting in an expensive re-shoot.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1118/Louis...

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#64

Post by cek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 4:18 AM UTC

alecperkins wrote: post #23

I was first amazed at the quality, then surprised that these were taken more recently than I expected, in 1910. Then, I realized that, duh, that was 102 years ago. It's strange how even 100+ years ago is getting more and more recent. (Obviously, that's how it works. But perception lags quite a bit.)

> It's strange how even 100+ years ago is getting more and more recent.

I think you are absolutely right with this. As the rate of change increases (and it has been rapidly increasing for the last 150 years) it makes sense that history would compress too. Fascinating!

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#65

Post by georgemcbay » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 4:19 AM UTC

verelo wrote: post #56

This makes me realized how amazing it will be having tools like Instagram, having captured millions of photos, in around 100 years from now.

I have mixed feelings about that.

Millions of recent GPS tagged photographs floating around in the cloud have some incredibly cool technical potential when combined with something like PhotoSynth, but culturally I think ubiquitous photos actually weaken the historical impact.

To loosely stick with the Russian theme, a peek into a single moment in the life one person 100 years ago is fascinating, but a million peeks into a single moment in the life of a million people 100 years ago is just data.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#66

Post by xbryanx » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 4:54 AM UTC

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?

And then, there's always some folks who like to deviate from the norm:

http://www.retronaut.co/2010/06/smiling-victorians/

I dare ya to scowl at these cheshires.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#67

Post by acomar » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 5:16 AM UTC

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #24

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 think smiling for a photograph must be some sort of social training that humans either take to or don't. I, for example, still find it very difficult and unnatural to smile for photographs unless I am already smiling about something else and the picture is just a candid moment caught at that time. I would imagine that this old picture taking process (3 separate pictures with different filters each time) took quite…

Some of the pictures would have been impossible if the camera wasn't automatically swapping the filters very quickly. You can actually see the distortion is things moved around in the images and the colors separated, and there's even a sense of how fast they were moving. It seems to me that the pictures were taken in rapid succession indeed.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#68

Post by robbiep » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 5:37 AM UTC

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #24

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 think smiling for a photograph must be some sort of social training that humans either take to or don't. I, for example, still find it very difficult and unnatural to smile for photographs unless I am already smiling about something else and the picture is just a candid moment caught at that time. I would imagine that this old picture taking process (3 separate pictures with different filters each time) took quite…

reminds me of the story (not sure if it is true or not) of how the telephone revolutionised the world - prior to that, you had to be introduced to someone by a third party before you could speak to them; subsequent to the telephone the word 'hello' was invented. Or so the story goes

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#69

Post by keyle » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 5:40 AM UTC

I did see that, in 2010. And the title misslead me to think of something new. Could we please tag titles appropriately? ie. (2010)

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#70

Post by ilamont » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 5:40 AM UTC

I love the fact that these photos capture a landscape without cars. It is especially striking in the shots of cities. Imagine what it would look like if a photo of the same locations were taken now -- more pavement and cars, fewer trees.