In Living Color: Inspirational Ladies!

These photos, originally black-and-white, were colorized to give the viewer a "you-are-there" feel. From here. I think you'll find them inspirational Enjoy!

Liz Taylor 1956



Audrey Hepburn



Sophia Loren & Jayne Mansfield

There were early colour processes long before Kodachrome, some as far back as the 1880s.

There are many colour pictures from before 1914.

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

oggbashan said:

There were early colour processes long before Kodachrome, some as far back as the 1880s.

There are many colour pictures from before 1914.

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

Click to expand...

Earliest 'color' photos I've seen (other than test shots) were hand-tinted plates from the Matthew Brady studios during the USA Civil War. Early photo emulsions were sensitive only to actinic (UV-violet-blue) light; other colors recorded only as black. (Modern legacy: anyone here remember when xeroxed yellow highlighter came out black? Same sort of pre-panchromatic spectral sensitivity.)

No, it's not true that before Kodachrome, the world was monochrome. It only seemed that way.

Awesome. If these are indeed hand colored, the dude has serious skilz...


I like the one with Clint Eastwood repairing his car. As you'd expect the Clint doesn't actually touch anything. He just scowls at the engine and the poor thing starts out of pure intimidation...

oggbashan said:

There were early colour processes long before Kodachrome, some as far back as the 1880s.

Click to expand...

I'm well aware of this, Ogg. But some of the pictures on the site have never been colorized, in spite of the fact that there have been colorization processes for about 150 years. And in some cases, that means the people in those pictures may have never been seen in color by modern viewers (the ones I posted certainly excepted from that as there were many color photos of all four women throughout their lives).

My purpose in posting these wasn't to discuss the history of colorization, however. It was simply to offer a "living color" inspiration to writers of images that have not, to this date, been seen in color.

Charlie Chaplin...





Cillian Murphy...





Hmmmmm....