I was reading Manny’s thread about 1942 and the paint the German’s might have been using and a question popped into my head around photography.
Kodak invented it’s color photography in '35/'36 and AGFA in '36. So, why don’t we see more color pictures of armor, troops, and/or planes? Certainly the official photographers for the Whermacht and US Armed Forces would have been issued color film. One would think that the official communications units that had photographers would have had color too. Heck, Life Magazine and Signal were early adopters of color…
I can understand why many of the candid photos we see are black and white. The average Joe (or Fritz) likely only had accecss to a camera with black and white film - and I’m mostly thinking about cost and ability to get film “in the field” here.
Typically there is some very good photographic documentation around the dvelopment of new armor (certainly in the US, ENG and GER). Why aren’t there more color photos from that archive?
Am I wrong here? Was color film a rare and precious commodity? Did the US Armed Forces and Whermact decide not to purchase much because of the cost? Or is there some other reason? Is the Intellectual Property of the color photos more costly or harder to get around than B/W? Do book author’s and publisher’s favor the candid shots from soldiers in the field, which tend to be B/W? Are publishers being cheap and reproducing color pictures in B/W to save some money?
First, processing black and white takes a lot less time and is less demanding than color.
Black and white was likely more stable and the finished product has been seen to be much more stable than color.
The news media, mostly print, published virtually no color photos. No use wasting time and money on color when the finished product would be seen in black and white.
Remember, even most movies were still being made in black and white.
Even if there had been more color film shot, its value today would be questionable. Between fading of the original prints and vagueries at the processing/printing stages, many of the vintage color photo as available today shows significant variations. There’s a famous photo of a P-51 whose camo color has been interpreted as blue. This photo still spurs controversy.
It has a lot to do with how fast new technology catches on…a good example is television…it was invented in the '30’s but was not a practical household item until the 50’s!!!
There is always a lag-time between invention, practical application and widespread use…Another reason was because developing, printing and publishing of B&W film was so much more easier during that time than the newer color photography…
I am no expert in this field but I also believe that photographing in color, in the field, during those early years was more difficult, had more lighting limitations, was grainier in general and more expensive…there are some color pics to be found, as you said (SIGNAL magazine is a good example) but the pics are few and far between…
You also have to remember that the reason for the pictures was mostly for immediate print – newspapers and the such. The everyday correspondent would have been loaded w/black and white film. Look at the Korean war even – very little color
You are exactly right. B&W film could be processed in fairly primitive conditions and electronically sent to newspaper publishers miles and miles away (via “the wire”), and be out on the street in a paper in a matter of hours…Couldn’t do this w/ color pics…that’s why the monthly periodicals were the first to use color pics (LIFE, etc.)…
Also, no one knew that there would be vast legions of armor modelers debating the colors of German AFV’s in 1942 65 years later !!! LOL…
No kidding, people talk about taking a sports almanac back in time, be useful, take a digital camera and documents allowing access everywhere. It shouldn’t be too hard to get good forgeries with Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler and Hirohitos signatures on them granting access to armor parks and airfields with modern scanners and printers. [:D]
I don’t remember from my Photo History course exactly when Kodachrome was invented, but it was before WWII (late 1920’s?) and is still to this day one of the most stable color formulations that exist. It will color shift, usually to red, but it also takes some really nasty storage conditions and years to make it happen. Grandpa’s photos in the attic? Bad place to keep them.
Early color film formulas really weren’t that grainy, but Agfa’s first color films lacked acutance, or the ability to resolve fine detail- high speed silver wasn’t in vogue at that time and many combat photogs were lugging a 4x5 press camera. B/W sheet film was a known entity and great photos could be gotten ‘handheld’ and development could be pushed and pulled to achieve a printable image from a poor exposure. Kodachrome 25 demands a tripod when used in a 4x5, especially where the shutter’s top speed might be 1/125 sec. And as a transparency film, if the exposure is off it is trash… 1/3 of a stop is all of the variance you get, unlike B/W or today’s color negative films where you can be off by almost 5 full stops and still pull an image.
Part of the reasons for the lack of color have already been mentioned, but there’s this too- many thousands of color photos probably weren’t saved because no one saw the future value of them, or were lost in the cameras when the owner was captured, KIA or simply bailed out.
But the hassle of getting frontline color back to the lab was formidable- it still takes a week+ to get a roll of Kodachrome processed today and there might be two labs in the US still certified by Kodak to do it.
Speaking from my perspective as someone who was around in the late 1940s and 1950s, I can tell you that the cost of processing color film back then would take a big bite out of your wallet – at least until the mid-sixties. If my memory serves me correctly, the cost of procecessing a twenty-exposure roll of color film in the late 1950s was around ten bucks. This was at a time when the average hourly wage for a middle class person was about three or four dollars. Consequently, color photos were usually reserved for special occasions like weddings, graduations, etc. And not every drugstore (that’s where you took your film for processing in those days) had access to a color lab, which meant that your precious roll of film had to be mailed to a lab in a far-away city, and that could take as long as a month. More than once, my parent’s pictures got lost for good in transit. In addition, Color rendition in those old photos was usually not true to life. If you have a chance to look at some well-preserved color pictures from that era, you’ll notice that the colors generally look strange. If a lab was careless, colors could be way off. Also, Because color was such a novelty, the hues were often enhanced – or “saturated” – as it was called at the time. If you get a chance, take a peek at some of the old color movies, like “The Wizard of Oz” or “Gone with the Wind” You’ll see what I mean. The colors in those old flics remind me of something from a kid’s coloring book. Additionally, colors would fade over time if the pictures were not properly stored. Greens would fade to blues, reds to brown, along with many other unnatural permutations. Old color photos are interesting historical documents, but I wouldn’t recommend using them as a reference for models.
My dad was a photografer during the cold war and beyond…As he would put it,you can see more details in black and white then in color.Color prints to get the details out back then was a labor intensive job.I remember when helping my dad,we could put out some 800 prints in black and white before you got one color print.The machines where very complacated and took up to 4 hrs to get one color print.Even at that you still had to go over the print with a jewels glass and see if you had the color right from the negitive.If not well go back and do it again.Out in the field black and white is cheap to use and easy for a first timer where as color you had to have the right lighting condisitions to make it come out right.The military still uses black and white for the details to find stuff and the color pics are reserved for speical occasions.Digger
Good point…a lot of recon pics from satellites and high-altitude spy planes are STILL done in B&W…I have always liked BandW from an artistic point of view as well…
Clearly there were some severe limitations on the application of color in the field. Again, that’s why nearly every “candid” or action shot in the field is in black and white. However, what about all the photos from Life and Signal - how come we don’t seem to see more of them on line these days? How many of you have seen the color photo of Speer (I think it is Speer - i’m doing this at work, from memory, so don’t kill me if it is turns out to be another top dog) driving around a turretless Tiger I? It’s everywhere, so how come there aren’t more?
Also, everyone’s comments (for the most part) seem to reflect field limitations. That still leaves the door open to why wouldn’t factories and weapons development teams use color to document their work? Or how come we don’t seem to have much color propoganda pictures? Color is a perfect medium for “spin.”
Could there have been more color pics out there that have indeed been lost to battles and bombings?
lastly, while I agree with the comments about color shift, let me say that color photos at a minimum would give us a better sense of the number of colors used in a camoflage scheme and their demarcations or patterns on equipment. The contrast should be sharper than simply the black, dark grey, less dark grey, and light grey which we have all seen. And which seem to have lead to some interesting discussions on what types of camo paterns and colors really existed.
Also, everyone’s comments (for the most part) seem to reflect field limitations. That still leaves the door open to why wouldn’t factories and weapons development teams use color to document their work? Or how come we don’t seem to have much color propoganda pictures? Color is a perfect medium for “spin.” Many of the German propaganda color pics were color. Signal magazine was a propaganda vehicle for the Germans.
Could there have been more color pics out there that have indeed been lost to battles and bombings? Yes, and many B & W pics were lost to the same causes as well.
lastly, while I agree with the comments about color shift, let me say that color photos at a minimum would give us a better sense of the number of colors used in a camoflage scheme and their demarcations or patterns on equipment. The contrast should be sharper than simply the black, dark grey, less dark grey, and light grey which we have all seen. And which seem to have lead to some interesting discussions on what types of camo paterns and colors really existed. Agree, but most of the pics you are talking about would have had to be taken at the front where color was less friendly to the conditions of the battlefield.