color photos of a black-and-white world, part 2

[start here with part 1]

Isn’t it amazing to see color photos from a time when we hardly ever see such imagery? I’ve come across a few recent examples of that sudden and delightful startlement, and I think you’ll be as astonished and enchanted by them as I was.

This second batch is but of taste of what City Noise is offering in a post called “Early 1900s in Colour”:

In the early part of the 20th century French-Jewish capitalist Albert Kahn set about to collect a photographic record of the world, the images were held in an ‘Archive of the Planet’. Before the 1929 stock market crash he was able to amass a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true colour photography

I love these examples. New York City’s Plaza Hotel, with Central Park beyond:

Canadian cowboys:

Thames riverside:

Iraqi girls:

Norway:

France during WWI:

There are tons more. Check ’em out.

[part 3]