America in Color 1939-1943

Everskyward

Everskyward

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Everskyward
I thought this was pretty interesting. There are even some aviation pictures like this one.

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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.
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http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/
 
Cool stuff. I love seeing pictures like that. It is fortunate that so many (maybe not enough) photos of relatively banal stuff, like a family dinner, or guy working in the rail yard, or sleepy Main St USA, were taken and saved for posterity.

One thing I don't like about digital photography is that you're never sure if you can believe the image is real. Too much photoshopping. Back in those days, a photo was a photo (99 times out of 100).
 
Guess I should post more of my dad's stuff from the 40's and 50's.
 
wsuffa said:
Guess I should post more of my dad's stuff from the 40's and 50's.
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I've enjoyed the pictures you've shared. It's neat to look back and see what things were like.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Cool stuff. I love seeing pictures like that. It is fortunate that so many (maybe not enough) photos of relatively banal stuff, like a family dinner, or guy working in the rail yard, or sleepy Main St USA, were taken and saved for posterity.

One thing I don't like about digital photography is that you're never sure if you can believe the image is real. Too much photoshopping. Back in those days, a photo was a photo (99 times out of 100).
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Well, unless the photographer didn't know what he was doing or the emulsions were off etc. Cameras today are a lot more sensitive, too. Also, you could "photoshop" things in and out of old photos too - in the darkroom.

I have a book I bought in London called "World War II in color" (or something like that). All color photos taken during WWII in Europe. It makes the war seem a lot closer to today's world.
 
woodstock said:
Well, unless the photographer didn't know what he was doing or the emulsions were off etc. Cameras today are a lot more sensitive, too. Also, you could "photoshop" things in and out of old photos too - in the darkroom.

I have a book I bought in London called "World War II in color" (or something like that). All color photos taken during WWII in Europe. It makes the war seem a lot closer to today's world.
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Yeah you could goof around but in general it was pretty obvious stuff. Now you can't even be sure the colors are real. Photoshop can do just about anything and you're hard pressed to notice.
 
The cameras may be more sensitive, but I'm not sure the photographers are. Ansel Adams, Robert Capra, Alfred Eisenstaedt...I don't think we've really seen their equal lately.
 
Annie Liebovitz isn't bad.

Steve McCurry isn't bad either (and I'm fairly certain that everyone has seen his photos, at least his most famous one. Even if you don't recognize his name).

I think part of the reason the old ones stick out so much (in addition to their awe-inspiring talent) is that how many real photographers were out there, many years ago? Sure, people had cameras - but not pro cameras - and not as many people.

Nowadays, all the great photography is lost in the white noise - the sheer volume of photos out there is staggering. The cream still rises to the top, but not as quickly. I think also it is much much harder to make a living as a photographer nowadays which means how many of the ones with talent just do it as a hobby? Or make the money where the money is to be had - local photographers, doing wedding and family shots, prom shots, high school graduation shots, and so on. That's where the money to be had still is (and not a lot of it, but at least it's a niche).

Just a theory.
 
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I agree with Woodstock. There's a lot of nice photography out there...there's also a lot of mediocre work as well. A quick glance af flicker or other photo sharing sites would support her hypothesis.
 
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Those guys also had a very focused market. It was basically Life or Look. As a result, everyone saw their stuff. Not so anymore.

Walter Iooss Jr (or however you spell it) does great sports photography.
 
I'll post a few more of my dad's soon. I've also got a few my mom took when she went to UW-Madison (those were harder to deal with as the negatives were 120's, while my dad's were 35mm).

Beth, I'm not sure that photographers back then really made much more money than good photographers do today. The "pros" were artists, like Ansel Adams. As a hobby, though, photography was much more expensive and less convenient than it is today. 120 film, for example, came on open rolls backed w/paper. If you loaded the camera in anything other than a changing bag or dark room, you risked fogging the film. 35mm, with it's cartridges, made a huge difference in convenience, and safety film (prior to the 40's most film was on a nitrate base) made a big difference, too.

Color was very expensive. As I go through my dad's work, he didn't move to color until the 1950's (except for a rare roll or two from the 1946 trip). And even then, it was slides (generally Kodachrome).

I've got one of his 3 still cameras - it's an Argus, arguably the camera that popularized the 35 MM format and "hobby" photography. He also had another Argus and an Olympus OM-10 (and a B&H 8 MM movie camera). The Argus didn't even have metering. Nor a flash. It was rangefinder focus.

Digital is convenient - and EVERYONE has one now.... if you own a cellphone, chances are you have a digital camera. Easy to take pictures, still hard to do good composition & exposure.

Among the film I have are B&W photos taken at the 1957 International Photo Expo held at the Washington DC Armory...
 
It's amazing how many of those pictures look like they could be from just yesterday.

The clothing styles have changed, but other than that....
 
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