In any case, I love colors in general, and my very favorite course in college was Color. When did color photography begin? Here is a You Tube lecture on the History of Color Photography. Starts slowly, but provides most of the technical details I will not cover. Otherwise:
- Some say our understanding of light and color began with Englishman Isaac Newton when he published his experiments in 1672.
- But real color photography came nearly 200 years later when in 1861 (note: Civil War in America) Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell (he was that person who is responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation...all those equations).
He showed that all the colors you see can be made by an appropriate mixture of only three colors: red, green and blue light.- Note, though, that red, green and blue paints will not do the same. For good color mixing, you mostly need cyan, magenta and yellow, and for a wider spectrum, at least two more, and better yet, three additional pigments: blue-violet, red, and orange.
A whole range of inventors tried, gradually improving the technology, but a key breakthrough came when two musicians (Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky) during their spare time ran some experiments. Godowsky had gone to UCLA and played the violin, while Mannes studied piano and physics at Harvard. In 1931 the Leopolds quit their night jobs and began working for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York. Thus came Kodachrome in 1935.
- In 1936, Agfa, a German company also developed a process.
- The popular transition from black-white to color for people like us occurred in the 1970s when the price of color photography dropped, and took over in the 80s.
- I remember those early days when every photo you took, like for slides, was developed, and cost you money.
- Carried me through a lot speeches in my professorial career.
- Kodachrome ended production in 2010
- Today, photography is digital. I must have taken 1400 photos just on my recent cruise trip, and everything was essentially free. My talk at 15 Craigside this week will use 120 of them.
History of cameras.
While there remains use for BW photos, here is a video indicating the difference between the two. But those colorizations are the work of artists. Here is a quick color transition of the early 20th century.
But color movies came as early as 1908 with Visit to the Seaside, an 8-minute British short using the Kinemacolor process of the Brighton seafront. A better quality is this clip of footage from 1908 to 1912. Then again, this third version seems more authentic.
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Kinemacolor was discovered in 1906, making a debut in that above film. It was trademarked in 1908, with Checkmated becoming the first dramatic film in 1911, followed by a documentary, With our King and Queen through India in 1912. The sound was later added.
Just read that 15 Craigside will be serving Philly Cheesesteak for lunch tomorrow. Poor planning, should have been last week for the Super Bowl. I left you that day with a statement that I ate so much I couldn't finish my Kansas City Stripsteak that day. I did later in the week for lunch.
White wine, for the bottle was open and had to be finished. For Valentine's Day we had a feast at 15 Craigside. Served were prime rib, shrimp, lobster bisque, and the usual accompaniments. Plus, an outside friend delivered a "better" prime rib, and the whole meal was enhanced by the most expensive wine that came this year from my Stanford collection. You don't see the crustacean entries because I am allergic to them.
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