Autochrome Photography

[milk]

I really want to get a book of autochrome photographs. It’s almost like the more cumbersome and impossible the process, the more interesting the results! I know that’s not true. We gain a lot through the ease of technology. Anyway, these ARE beautiful and they contain some ordinary blokes with their trusty pipes.
Beautiful color photographs of England during the 1920s - https://dangerousminds.net/comments/beautiful_color_photos_of_england_during_1920s
These 18 Autochrome Photos Will Transport You to Another Era - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/autochrome-photography-archive-vintage-history
Explore a collection of America’s first coloured photographs - https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/america-first-coloured-photographs/

 

[TheIronMonkey]

There are a number of books that focus on autochrome photography:

Color Mania by Catlin Langford

The Lumière Autochrome: History, Technology, and Preservation by Bertrand Lavédrine and Jean-Paul Gandolfo, with the collaboration of Christine Caperdou and Ronan Guinée

The Art of the Autochrome: The Birth of Color Photography by John Woods

I’ve only seen pictures online and have been fascinated by the images. At some point, I’ll probably track down one or more of the above titles.

 

[milk]

There are a number of books that focus on autochrome photography:

Color Mania by Catlin Langford

The Lumière Autochrome: History, Technology, and Preservation by Bertrand Lavédrine and Jean-Paul Gandolfo, with the collaboration of Christine Caperdou and Ronan Guinée

The Art of the Autochrome: The Birth of Color Photography by John Woods

I’ve only seen pictures online and have been fascinated by the images. At some point, I’ll probably track down one or more of the above titles.

Thanks so much. I was just searching for this very thing. This makes it easier. I see there’s a new one too, focused on early America. ETA: now I can’t locate the new one I thought I came across earlier.

 

[pappymac]

I really want to get a book of autochrome photographs. It’s almost like the more cumbersome and impossible the process, the more interesting the results! I know that’s not true. We gain a lot through the ease of technology. Anyway, these ARE beautiful and they contain some ordinary blokes with their trusty pipes.
Beautiful color photographs of England during the 1920s - https://dangerousminds.net/comments/beautiful_color_photos_of_england_during_1920s
These 18 Autochrome Photos Will Transport You to Another Era - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/autochrome-photography-archive-vintage-history
Explore a collection of America’s first coloured photographs - https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/america-first-coloured-photographs/

As an old, retired, military trained photojournalist, I agree with the above sentiment. I retired in 1993, just before digital photography became mainstream. While there is no doubt some exquisite digital photography being done, I still have the belief that most of what goes into good digital photography is good computer work.

Sure, we had to work harder using film and developers but it was the extra knowledge and work that made the photo great. Computers and digital cameras have made it easier. I have come across a lot of "professional" photographers who are really no more than hobbyists posing as photographers. If they had to use a non-digital camera, I doubt that they would understand the nuances of getting a perfect exposure.

Sorry, I'm ranting and rambling.

 

[Egg Shen]

I really want to get a book of autochrome photographs. It’s almost like the more cumbersome and impossible the process, the more interesting the results! I know that’s not true. We gain a lot through the ease of technology. Anyway, these ARE beautiful and they contain some ordinary blokes with their trusty pipes.
Beautiful color photographs of England during the 1920s - https://dangerousminds.net/comments/beautiful_color_photos_of_england_during_1920s
These 18 Autochrome Photos Will Transport You to Another Era - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/autochrome-photography-archive-vintage-history
Explore a collection of America’s first coloured photographs - https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/america-first-coloured-photographs/

Your link is to a National Geographic article which you can’t access without a subscription. And quite frankly if anyone is still paying for that after seeing what it’s become in the last 3-5 years then they are some koolaid swilling blockheads. (Hint: all adventure is dead, the world is ending, and all of the fake so-called social issues of the past 5 years are what every article is about, save maybe another piece of crap about dinosaurs).

It’s a shame - the photos were looking good and I saw 1 pipe smoker before getting locked out. Plus it seemed like the photos were going to be from the era when they were a respectable publication, not the neo-fascist drivel they print nowadays.

 

[milk]

Your link is to a National Geographic article which you can’t access without a subscription. And quite frankly if anyone is still paying for that after seeing what it’s become in the last 3-5 years then they are some koolaid swilling blockheads. (Hint: all adventure is dead, the world is ending, and all of the fake so-called social issues of the past 5 years are what every article is about, save maybe another piece of crap about dinosaurs).

It’s a shame - the photos were looking good and I saw 1 pipe smoker before getting locked out. Plus it seemed like the photos were going to be from the era when they were a respectable publication, not the neo-fascist drivel they print nowadays.

I don’t have a subscription. I managed to see it somehow but I just tacked on some things I could see after really enjoying the first link. I started with the first link. I’m not sure why I WAS able to see the third. I’d like to get a book of early American photography.

 

[sablebrush52]

Check out Photographs For The Czar a collection of pioneering color photography by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii that was commissioned by Czar Nicholas II and which covers all of the Russian Empire at that time. It's an astonishing body of work.

 

[mso489]

I don't mean this in a whiny way, but when celluloid went out of general use, my interest in photography pretty much faded. I like the intimacy of composing a picture through the SLR or rangefinder. I like the smell of celluloid, the sound of an actual shutter, and the darkroom process or the wait for processing.

I dislike composing on a digital screen with the glare and softness of focus, while the computer does the actual work. True or false, the celluloid ritual seemed intimate and immersive rather than remote and assisted.

Good photographers, the pros, took it all in stride and made it work for them. Though I used photography in my work for decades, it was never my principle career activity. But I do miss the work of seeing and capturing photographs on celluloid. It was a great pleasure.

My only regret was never having worked with a Leica rangefinder camera.

 

[sablebrush52]

Sure, we had to work harder using film and developers but it was the extra knowledge and work that made the photo great. Computers and digital cameras have made it easier.

As someone who used to calculate development for gamma ranges on a Houston Fearless I can appreciate what a more demanding technology required me to learn. This makes manipulating digital files much easier. Just as I would treat YCM film strips with different gammas to rebalance a film image, I can do something very similar in Photoshop using CHOPs to rebalance, or restore photographs.
But had I not learned using traditional media my familiarity with the concepts and developed expertise would have been more limited. Digital is more limited than analog, but it's limitations are still well beyond most needs, and in some areas, like digital's exceptional ability to capture details in the shadows, it exceeds photo-chemical approaches.

 

[sablebrush52]

My only regret was never having worked with a Leica rangefinder camera.

I've used a few, just to satisfy my curiosity. They're wonderful machines, light, silent, and smooth as silk, and those Leitz lenses produce some spectacular images. But I'm quite happy with my Canon rig. At some point we're hair splitting hairs.

 

[huntertrw]

milk:

This thread reminded me of a paper that I wrote in 1988 for a journalism class, and that was titled The Evolution of Color Positive and Negative Plates for Still Photography: 1816 - 1946, and in which I discussed, among others, Lumiere's Autochrome process. His plates were first marketed in 1907, and were used by many famous photographers including Edward Steichen, Frank Eugene, and Alfred Steiglitz

 

[Egg Shen]

I don’t have a subscription. I managed to see it somehow but I just tacked on some things I could see after really enjoying the first link. I started with the first link. I’m not sure why I WAS able to see the third. I’d like to get a book of early American photography.

That’s pretty funny. Even when I used to subscribe I’d occasionally search for something that lead to their site and it would always ask for a subscription number to view. Of course I had no idea what my subscription number was. I have to confess i’m no longer a camera guy but I enjoyed lomos back in the day

 

[huntertrw]

...and that was titled The Evolution of Color Positive and Negative Plates for Still Photography: 1816 - 1946,

Sorry, the title should have read The Evolution of Color Positive and Negative Plates and Films for Still Photography: 1816 - 1946

 

[UB 40]

I've used a few, just to satisfy my curiosity. They're wonderful machines, light, silent, and smooth as silk, and those Leitz lenses produce some spectacular images. But I'm quite happy with my Canon rig. At some point we're hair splitting hairs.

The drawback of the rangefinder Leicas and lenses was triple the price of a Nikon or Canon flagship of those times. Never could afford one.

 

[UB 40]

That’s a book with the work of Heinrich Kühn a widely unknown german pioneer of photography. He was into early autochromes and other pittoresque techniques as gum bichromate around the beginning of the 20th Century.

 

[EA/DC]

The drawback of the rangefinder Leicas and lenses was triple the price of a Nikon or Canon flagship of those times. Never could afford one.

I have owned a few of them in the past, screwmount and M system. Only used cameras and lenses, never new. They weren't ever cheap but when I wanted to sell them later I always got my money back or even made some profit. Many years with top quality cameragear for free in the end...
I still have one old IIIc here from 1948. I never use it but it still runs great.

 

[pappymac]

As someone who used to calculate development for gamma ranges on a Houston Fearless I can appreciate what a more demanding technology required me to learn. This makes manipulating digital files much easier. Just as I would treat YCM film strips with different gammas to rebalance a film image, I can do something very similar in Photoshop using CHOPs to rebalance, or restore photographs.
But had I not learned using traditional media my familiarity with the concepts and developed expertise would have been more limited. Digital is more limited than analog, but it's limitations are still well beyond most needs, and in some areas, like digital's exceptional ability to capture details in the shadows, it exceeds photo-chemical approaches.

I always found the amount of detail that could be pulled from black & white negatives fascinating. I was working on a story about the Coast Guard's Motor Lifeboat School at the mouth of the Columbia river when a fishing vessel lost power and drifted though heavy surf and ran aground. A helicopter was used to hoist the fishermen off the vessel and landed on the beach. I made a shot of them getting off the helo. It was an overcast day.

When I got back to the office and processed and printed the film, the first print showed pretty much a blank sky. The photographer in charge took the same negative and used it to explain dodging and burning by over exposing the sky for 30 seconds. When we processed the print, the extra exposure actually brought out the mountains in the background. I don't think that could be done with a digital camera.

 

[sablebrush52]

I always found the amount of detail that could be pulled from black & white negatives fascinating. I was working on a story about the Coast Guard's Motor Lifeboat School at the mouth of the Columbia river when a fishing vessel lost power and drifted though heavy surf and ran aground. A helicopter was used to hoist the fishermen off the vessel and landed on the beach. I made a shot of them getting off the helo. It was an overcast day.

When I got back to the office and processed and printed the film, the first print showed pretty much a blank sky. The photographer in charge took the same negative and used it to explain dodging and burning by over exposing the sky for 30 seconds. When we processed the print, the extra exposure actually brought out the mountains in the background. I don't think that could be done with a digital camera.

It can absolutely be done with a digital camera.

Just like analog, quite a bit depends on the original exposure. When I shot plates for visual effects shots I always went for a "full negative", that is an exposure between 1/2 and 1/3 stop overexposed. This created a denser negative with finer grain structure and detail in the shadows, while still retaining enough information to be able to pull skies. Cinematographers disliked the look of a full negative, preferring the graininess, but since these images would go through a generation or two of duping, fine grain structure was more critical. I could pull excellent shadow detail and step on the image without it going to grain hell. Keep in mind that the processed images had to be cut into a sequence and not give away that they were dupes.
Same concern is true with digital, but its ability to record details in shadows is pretty amazing, even when I don't choose to bias exposure. A few years back I shot the wedding of a friend's daughter as a special wedding gift. They had official photographers there, but my aim was to avoid the poses and just catch candids, something I enjoy doing. Therefore I was shooting under available light, no flash, no lights, just what was available as the event progressed into the evening. The amound of detail I was able to pull from areas that looked black was astonishing, and I dodged and burned those RAW images and got shots that I would not have been able to get using photo chemical approaches. Almost no lighting situation was so adverse that I couldn't do something with it. At the end of a few days of rebalancing my picks from what I'd shot, I sent my friends the pictures, and they were thrilled with what I had recorded. Digital has amazing plasticity, even within its limits of being a sampling rather than a continuous tonal scale.
Ultimately, the tech is no better than the person using it. Analog or digital, it's the photographer's eye, sensibility, and technique that's central.

 

[karam]

As someone who used to calculate development for gamma ranges on a Houston Fearless I can appreciate what a more demanding technology required me to learn. This makes manipulating digital files much easier. Just as I would treat YCM film strips with different gammas to rebalance a film image, I can do something very similar in Photoshop using CHOPs to rebalance, or restore photographs.
But had I not learned using traditional media my familiarity with the concepts and developed expertise would have been more limited. Digital is more limited than analog, but it's limitations are still well beyond most needs, and in some areas, like digital's exceptional ability to capture details in the shadows, it exceeds photo-chemical approaches.

There's something I love about this, I saw it in university and queried my dad about it: a lot of the old professors, crusty antiques some of them, had this uncanny ability to keep up with SOME new technologies better than us new ones, and not just keep up but also improve on it rather than just use it. His response was that "they learnt comparatively fewer stuff, but they learnt how to learn, while your generation just learns".

You can also see it in Primo Levi's Periodic Table, as someone who's a biochemist and worked among chemists I marveled by how comparatively "stronger" their science was - then again we did the cool stuff they couldn't. Primo Levi's book goes in some detail in some of the chapter describing how he learnt basic chemistry, something which is not done nowadays, the field is just too big, so they learn piecemeal, a bit of everything. Discussing with chemist friends, we were in awe in how they managed to draw chemical structures correctly, 300 years ago. Knowing what techniques they worked with, they managed to do the equivalent of drawing a human based on small fragments of shadows, seen through a mirror.

Not saying you're a crusty antique @sablebrush52!

 

[sablebrush52]

There's something I love about this, I saw it in university and queried my dad about it: a lot of the old professors, crusty antiques some of them, had this uncanny ability to keep up with SOME new technologies better than us new ones, and not just keep up but also improve on it rather than just use it. His response was that "they learnt comparatively fewer stuff, but they learnt how to learn, while your generation just learns".

You can also see it in Primo Levi's Periodic Table, as someone who's a biochemist and worked among chemists I marveled by how comparatively "stronger" their science was - then again we did the cool stuff they couldn't. Primo Levi's book goes in some detail in some of the chapter describing how he learnt basic chemistry, something which is not done nowadays, the field is just too big, so they learn piecemeal, a bit of everything. Discussing with chemist friends, we were in awe in how they managed to draw chemical structures correctly, 300 years ago. Knowing what techniques they worked with, they managed to do the equivalent of drawing a human based on small fragments of shadows, seen through a mirror.

Not saying you're a crusty antique @sablebrush52!

The trick is an ability to understand, in abstract, the principles and purposes behind the specifics and to be able to differentiate the principles and purposes from the specifics, and to be able to carry this understanding across technologies. Understand the principles and purposes and you will better understand how to supply the specifics. Concrete thinkers, which are the majority, will not understand this. For them, the specifics are the principles.