Hi all

On another site, someone directed my attention to a blog that alleges to show color photographs of era views that though some process converts black and white scenes to color.

"40 Color Photos Of Wales In The Victorian Era"

Among the views presented is this one--



However, these are not as the site claims, "pictures . . . taken using black and white negatives with Photochrom technology, enabling them to be developed in color, despite being taken during 1890-1900." They are only black and white pictures that have been colored by hand. That's pretty obvious from the postcard view of the seaside pier. Consider the fact that the different colors are not all the hues of the spectrum but are often the same color repeated, the red brown on the umbrella and the red brown on a woman's dress, etc. I collect period postcards and it was common to color black and white photographs to market them as mass produced postcards for sale to the public. Such colorized views were regularly sold at least through the Fifties before genuine color postcards began to be sold. Below are colorized period photographs from Liverpool and the Isle of Man as examples. Note that in both of the below views although there is color on the scenes presented, the people are all black and white. In the seaside view, the colorist has taken care to add different colors to some of the people in the scene but they are still basically figures in black and white just with color added here and there for effect.

Best regards



Chris