Someone on the other board I go to posted a link that went to a site that had some of the only color photographs from the post depression era.

"These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color "

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/

It's weird looking at something that old in color because it almost makes it seem like it was a recent thing.

It looks incredibly real, but the pictures are in such high resolution that it's not really possible for them to be real. But only back then was there families that large, farms, and Coca Cola being advertised so nicely. Anyways, these pictures are really cool.

I think the pics are awesome. It gives a nice glimpse of the era, and gives us something to enjoy. I like the pic of the girl staring while the boy builds a model airplane. These days, you see the same thing. Only thing is, the boy's holding a Nintendo DS, and the girl forgot to bring hers, so she's watching him play

The pictures look so real it is just really weird to think that it just happened even though it didn't. These are really cool.

Wow these pics are amazing these were taken during the depression & and in the war. But seeing those family made me relies those must have been tuff times.

They look great, but I am skepical of them being real. I don't know if kodak cameras were around by this time, but if they were, I highly doubt the film was the color kind. It looks like it was from the 80's as far as the color film quality appears. The 80's had this kind of color film. It could be 70's style. I just know it looks nothing like today's color photos. It looks like it was from the late 20th century. Here's some proof of my claim.



If you look at the photo closely, you may see a more inferior color production in there.



Once again, you may notice inferior color production. This photo looks even dimmer than what I see in the 1980's one.



I couldn't find many good examples of color photography from the 1960's, so sorry. This could be one. I'm pretty sure the poster of it remastered it, but so that may explain the better than expected quality. Just look at the old color movies for some more examples of what color photography was like. It was very... How should I say this... Flat looking. These photos that are claimed to be real in that link could be real, but I doubt it.

It's very easy to photoshop this stuff, and make it look real. These could very well have been made with the highest quality camera of the time, but who would bother? The rich people of that decade probably weren't bothering photographing the majority of that era. I'll need to find a color film from that era if I am to believe this. If I find one, I'll let you guys know.

Edit: Colored films actually have been around since the late or mid 19th century. They just weren't as well known. Any colored films from the 1930's probably didn't survive, and may have been lesser known, and never shown outside maybe a local theater in some little town. I got this from Wikipedia, so it might have been a joke edit, and my information may change, but I do know color film for movies and maybe photography was worked on when the inventions started out. They just were never seen by the public much.

Colored films were made by adding the color in after clips were made, from what I read and understood. If this is true, those colored photographs could have been colored in after taken. Phantom of the Opera, which was a silent horror film from 1925 actually had some color scenes. These were probably done by tinting, if I read the Wikipedia article correctly. I know that site is a controversial source, but I trust it quite often, and actually do edit if I see something wrong. I did this when I saw a joke edit about a Christian metal band worshipping Satan. I will need to find more films from the pre-color eras to have a better educated opinion and idea of this subject, so this post should be taken with a grain of salt, as I just gave what made sense to my mind before researching in full.

Here's a link to a list of early uses of color in films. It was made with the use of editing, of course. To give ground to my claim that color film for movies and photography was not well-known at the time, the list shows many movies I don't believe are well-known. The only one I think could be well-known on this list is Phantom of the Opera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Color_Feature_Filmography

Even if they are fake, they are nice. I would love to go and live in those times. That time when everything was exactly what it seemed and there wasn't all of these complications in life. Of course I could be wrong and it could be just as bad as today but still, looking back, everything seemed so much simpler. What I miss now a days though is playing tag and marbles. If I said, "Hey, let's play tag!", I would just get an odd look and the other person would continue texting or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I like all of today's technology, its just such a hassle to keep up with the times and feeling bad when you can't is just terrible. I guess seeing these pictures makes me nostalgic for those days when I was five and I didn't have a clue that there was all this stuff developing and we were slowly making the shift into the technological era. Oops, this starting to get long...so...um...END.

rendezvous564 : Those times were pretty darned complicated. I mean... You'd be lucky if you lived in a well off family during the depression. Even children were hit hard. Sure, childhood fun we miss would be accepted, but it was just as accepted in the 50's...

I've always been the kid who played by themself, so I never did things like play tag willingly unless I felt like it. I often would do things like watch TV all day, play on the computer, play video games, and draw. I also made stories with my toys. I never liked playing with others unless I had no other choice.

Playing stuff like tag isn't weird around here. I mean... Teenagers in my town still do things like play pretend. It's for Youtube videos, but still, is there any difference? I mean, you see these people enjoying themselves oftentimes when they do the videos. If you wanted to make a movie with costumes and all, and share before the days of video sites being mainstream, you'd share it via video camera with friends and family. Now we can show them to the world. Really, childhood is not like it was when we were younger, but we should be happy we enjoyed ourselves, and the new generation is enjoying themself.

The pics are really good and it reminds me of small towns in Virginia and Georgia that I've been to. It's amazing to see how much the world has changed since 1939-1943 to the twentieth century! And I would totally rock some of the clothing that they are wearing and make it a new fashion trend.

YourMajestyKen : It is quite interesting to see how much has changed from the time to today. Of course, we still have those little general store things. My town has one, in fact. It sells all the old school candy. I buy my candy cigarettes there. My town and Ohio's old capital, Chillicothe, happen to still have all the old buildings, and stuff. Out in Chillicothe, you can still drive out to the oldest part of that city, and look at the old buildings. There's people who live in those buildings, as well. That city is actually one of my favorite places because of all the historical things it keeps public.

I can't say where I live, but it is a few minutes away from Chillicothe. It's not the most interesting town ever. We got quite a history, though. Especially my mom's side of the family. It's sad to know that people portray the Southern Ohio area that is near the Appalachian Mountains as poor, though. We even get treated by those from Northern Ohio badly in some cases. Some of the people from the Northern area think we're a bunch of stupid hicks...

I think there's even TV commercials that claim that Appalachian Ohio is impoverished. *facepalm* We're not the most wealthy people in the world, but we sure don't need TV ads portraying us as poor.

Ohio is always the least interesting place to visit to most people, it seems. It's odd, as we've got some cool stuff. The metal scene in areas of Ohio is great. My town used to have a wonderful folk metal band... Until they broke up. It was a talented one, too. Columbus has tons of great metal. I can't say much about other music here, but our metal bands are often great.

Ack screwy browser

MegaRevolution1: Could you please close this thread

edit I guess it doesn't need to be after a six month bump

KlawedFlaw : Interesting thing I discovered... color photography has actually been around since the 1840s, though it was experimental. But there are actual color photographs from the 1880s and onward that are very similar in quality to what we are more familiar with. However, color cameras would have been very rare and very expensive, which is why we usually do not think of them existing back then.

Also, Kodak did not invent color photography. They may be well known for the process we use now, but they were not the first.

I think this is a very interesting thread, thank you, Cyro.

Very interesting, those pictures are a lot more interesting with color in them

Wow cool find. Denverpost.. hmm interesting site. Thanks again for sharing Cyro, you never fail to keep things fresh.