I just saw this on digg and was quite amazed by it. I've known that early photographers experimented with color filtering, but these are the first and earliest I've seen to give such accurate color. These are, of course, new prints since they didn't have the ability to print in color back then, they could only project the images. They give you information about the process on the site, so I won't bore you with it here. a preview.... click on the image to get to the site.
pretty interesting, if you think about it 100 years ago wasnt really all that long ago and they were just learning how to take pictures...
color and motion photography yeah, but photography as we know it started around the 1820's and 30's while the physical and chemical principles of photography have been known since the 1000's and 1600's respectively. In that sense, its an even bigger achievement. For most of the time we knew of these things, we weren't clever enough to put them together. On a tangent. its like the steam engine, created in the 1st century in Alexandria (the Aeolipile). It was only used to open temple doors as far as we know. If only they had put it on a railed cart, which at the time had existed for about thousand years. It makes me wonder what trivial gadgets we have now that will be put together in the future and revolutionize humanity again. but anyway...
The first projected color photograph was created 147 years ago in 1861 by Thomas Sutton under supervision of the mathematician James Clerk Maxwell. The info can be found here http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/the-first-color-photograph-1961.html Note the only reason that photo you posted looked so good was due to digital remastering done in the last 2 years.
I believe that is actually the original picture. They were just never able to print it out. Only project it onto a screen through thousands of glass filters as well as RGB filters. They explain more about it on the website here.
thanks for the info on the Maxwell print, Devious. Although, I did mention that these were in fact new prints, and not make during the time that the plates where shot, if you reread my first post.
