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4x5 Kodachromes WWII era

Ron (Netherlands)

Ron (Netherlands)

New member
Just to share really beautiful kodachromes I found on the net, shot in the US and Puerto Rico during WWII era (they can be found at shorpy.com).









 
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Don Libby

Don Libby

Well-known member
Ron - looks like you attempted to post 5 images - none of which are being display other than a small white box with a red x.

Don
 
Don Libby

Don Libby

Well-known member
Ron - Hate to say this however each link beings up "Page not found..."

Frustrating isn't it..

Don
 
TRSmith

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
The site is great! Whenever I find those collections of "Antique" photographs I can't help but think that we have taken two steps forward and one step back vis-a-vis technology. The clarity, sharpness, and tonal range of some of those old glass plates are phenomenal.

I lifted this one example but there are so many others. I'm not saying I want to go back to glass plates, but for all our digital advancements, it's good to remember that standards for quality were set quite high long before digital was even imagined.
 
helenhill

helenhill

Senior Member
Wooohoooo...I LOVE IT
Absolutely Gorgeous
and I Agree with You Tim /Two Steps Forward one step back Theory
 
O

Oxide Blu

Guest
TRSmith said:
... The clarity, sharpness, and tonal range of some of those old glass plates are phenomenal.
Click to expand...

And this you know because you saw the digital scan of the images online. :D You can run from digital, but you cannot hide from it.

I agree with you. :thumbs: And the more popular digital photography becomes, the more impact potential silver photography has. Gotta see the images live, hanging on the wall where photography belongs ... er, I mean used to belong. :D


Ron -- thanks for sharing the link for that website. Also, while the images may not be copy righted, the digital version of those images certainly would be.
 
TRSmith

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Oxide Blu said:
And this you know because you saw the digital scan of the images online. :D You can run from digital, but you cannot hide from it.
Click to expand...
Actually I know it because I worked in a lab during my youth and spent 3 months making contact prints from a glass negative archive that belonged to Yale. As tedious as that job was, it was also incredible to handle those fragile slabs of glass and watch as magical images from the past materialized in the soup.

And I agree with you that silver/film-based photography will continue to have an impact. :thumbs:
 
Ron (Netherlands)

Ron (Netherlands)

New member
These are the some of the famous shots made in 1940 by Russell Lee taken at Pie town in New Mexico to demonstrate the effects of the depression.







 
Lars

Lars

Active member
My dad went to India in 1954, brought his brand new Kodak Retina IIa (with the Schneider Xenar 50/2.0 lens) and some Kodachrome film. He passed the camera on to me some years ago, and I also got an opportunity to scan his slides - really remarkable images of people, architecture and landscape. I'll see if I can post some scans here later.

The camera is still working great although the shutter is a bit slow on most times. It's a kit with shade, b/w filters, ready case, closeup filters and closeup viewfinder, and the original Kodak manual in Swedish.
 
Ron (Netherlands)

Ron (Netherlands)

New member
Lars Vinberg said:
My dad went to India in 1954, brought his brand new Kodak Retina IIa (with the Schneider Xenar 50/2.0 lens) and some Kodachrome film. He passed the camera on to me some years ago, and I also got an opportunity to scan his slides - really remarkable images of people, architecture and landscape. I'll see if I can post some scans here later.

The camera is still working great although the shutter is a bit slow on most times. It's a kit with shade, b/w filters, ready case, closeup filters and closeup viewfinder, and the original Kodak manual in Swedish.
Click to expand...
Hi Lars,

I guess many people at least in the usa in the fifties could make use of 35mm Kodachrome (in Europe it was Agfa color (Ansco). What especially attracted my attention is the use of the professial formats, like 4x5 inch, which was only available from 1939 until 1953 and was use by a handfull professional people. If you look closely at these images, the quality (I don't have the original scans of course) still can match most of todays images made with small format sensor digital cameras, and they produce imho very beautiful and honest colors. These images bring me very close to history of over 65 years old!
Other beautiful series of that time are the photos of women working in the US-war factories. I did't post them here since they are well known and published and because they come very near studio photography - which I prefer less. Here are two other shots from every day life shot at Lincoln Nebraska in 1942:



 
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