Kodachrome Color Photos in WWII

[Matt Tacchi]

Hi All, this is my first post here so nice to meet you all.
I am a WWII enthusiast (hope I got the right place!), and in
particular I am very interested in the use of Kodachrome color
film during the second world war.


I have found when trying to engage friends and family in learning
about the conflict, carefully selecting the right photographs really
helps to get people interested in the subject.

I work on the theory that many people think WWII happened so long ago,
and that it somehow isn't relevant to their modern lives. Everyone is
used to seeing scratchy old B&W footage but few know about the existence
of often very clear color photos such as these: http://www.wwiidogtags.com/blog/wwii-photos/wwii-kodachrome-photos/

In my experience at least, sharing these Kodachrome photos really
helps to make the conflict more of a reality, thus more engaging to
people. Now my question is, and reason for posting, what is the best way
to tell which are genuine Kodachrome pictures, and which have been digitally colored by enthusiasts?

I much admire the work that goes into digitally coloring B&W images,
some are just incredible, but I also like to try and know which are
'genuine' color images from the period?

Any help or thoughts on the topic much appreciated!

[p***@gmail.com]

Post by Matt Tacchi
to tell which are genuine Kodachrome pictures, and which have been digitally colored by enthusiasts?
I much admire the work that goes into digitally coloring B&W images,
some are just incredible, but I also like to try and know which are
'genuine' color images from the period?
Any help or thoughts on the topic much appreciated!

Are you doubting these images, or are you looking for help on other images you
have? All of these images are well known to be from original Kodachrome.

If you have images you want verified, you may want to start at apug.org. There
are lots of people there with several decades of experience shooting Kodachrome
and other films, as well as digital. It's about the only site I know of where
digital discussions are forbidden - it's analog only.

[Mario]

Post by Matt Tacchi
I much admire the work that goes into digitally coloring B&W
images, some are just incredible, but I also like to try and
know which are 'genuine' color images from the period?
Any help or thoughts on the topic much appreciated!

I disagree on "coloring B/W".

That's a fake and viewers should be noticed of that.

[p***@gmail.com]

Post by Mario
I disagree on "coloring B/W".
That's a fake and viewers should be noticed of that.

As an amateur photographer, I am more toward this line of thinking. Black and
White photography is not just pictures with the color missing. The great war
photographers were every bit as serious about producing outstanding photographs
as they were about documenting the war. The war photos of Eugene Smith, Capa,
Eisenstadt, etc., were seen, taken, processed, printed, editorially selected and
published as patterns of light and dark. Eugene Smith's photos from Okinawa,
Guam and the Bunker Hill in particular are outstanding works of art that simply
leap off the page in black and white. When one adds color to these, it is
almost always a failure because the color then becomes the subject, obscuring
whatever it was that caused these photos to be culled from the thousands of
others that were taken in the same period.

What could color possibly add to this in capturing the truth of the moment:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/***@N07/6079902662/

Or what would color add to "Why We Fight"?

[Jim H.]

On Thursday, July 11, 2013 2:08:37 PM UTC-4, Mario wrote:
..........>

Post by Mario
I disagree on "coloring B/W".
That's a fake and viewers should be noticed of that.

Hand tinting / coloring of b&w still photos & portraits
was a very common technique before WW II, when color
film was uncommon. My dad was a newspaper & professional
photographer. My mother did a lot of hand tinting of his photos.

As an aside to the OP, I still have Dad's Kodak Medalist,
which he bought in 1940 or '41. It's a small-format
2 1/4" x 3 1/4" press camera. It uses helically-threaded
metal tubes to move the lens out, rather than the more
standard but fragile bellows typical of press cameras. It
has interchangeable cut-film and roll film backs. It would
have been capable of using color films of the day, if they
were available in 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 cut film or 620 roll film.

He got one of the last ones sold to the civilian market,
before the USN took all production for issue to ships too
small to warrant an assigned ship's photographer. They were
sturdy, and simple enough to operate that pretty much any
junior officer could learn to use one successfully. I
sometimes see WW II photos taken from small ships, and wonder
if they were takenby a junior officer using a Medalist. I
also have a copy of the war-time USN repair manual for it. It's
marked 'Classified'.

Jim H.

[p***@gmail.com]

Post by Jim H.
Hand tinting / coloring of b&w still photos & portraits
was a very common technique before WW II, when color
film was uncommon. My dad was a newspaper & professional
photographer. My mother did a lot of hand tinting of his photos.

Hand tinting is not what he's talking about. It was subtle, very cool and very
much of the time. He's talking about faking a color photo in photoshop.

Post by Jim H.
As an aside to the OP, I still have Dad's Kodak Medalist,
which he bought in 1940 or '41. It's a small-format
2 1/4" x 3 1/4" press camera.

<snip very good description of a great camera>

Have you, do you, or do you plan to use it? They are capable of extremely high
quality images. At one time I considered getting one, but decided not to
because of the 620 film. Instead I got a pre-war German Zeiss that uses readily
available 120 film.

Post by Jim H.
He got one of the last ones sold to the civilian market,
before the USN took all production for issue to ships too
small to warrant an assigned ship's photographer. They were
sturdy, and simple enough to operate that pretty much any
junior officer could learn to use one successfully. I
sometimes see WW II photos taken from small ships, and wonder
if they were takenby a junior officer using a Medalist. I
also have a copy of the war-time USN repair manual for it. It's
marked 'Classified'.

The Navy issue Kodak Medalist was a real anomaly. Kodak had/has a reputation
for making some of the best film (including aerochrome infrared for camouflage
detection) and worst cameras in the world - cheap, light junk for the
unsophisticated consumer. The Medalist, on the other hand, was a solidly built,
professional camera comparing favorably to the best engineering from Zeiss
and Voigtlander, the cameras that documented the German side of the war. The
Ektar lens was about the best Kodak ever made - it stands up even today.

The high quality of WWII photos is a testament to the high quality of mid-20th
century photographic technology. With the film available during WWII, the
Medalist's 6x9 CM negative is the approximately equivalent of a 100 mega pixel
digital sensor, something that exists only in one lab at a university in China
and was announced only last week. So any US Navy Junior Officer could be seen
carrying around a device with capabilities one still cannot buy for any price
today.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by Matt Tacchi
I work on the theory that many people think WWII happened so long ago,
and that it somehow isn't relevant to their modern lives.

An alternative theory is that the Cold War mattered to most people's
lives, and they believed the Cold War originated in rivalries as at the
end of WW2, so that the aftermath of WW2 remained relevant: but
the Cold War ended 20+ years ago, and nothing else makes WW2
relevant to contemporary experience. I doubt that pictures (still or
moving, coloured or B&W) have much to do with this.

[S***@argo.rhein-neckar.de]

Post by Matt Tacchi
I have found when trying to engage friends and family in learning
about the conflict, carefully selecting the right photographs really
helps to get people interested in the subject.
I work on the theory that many people think WWII happened so long ago,
and that it somehow isn't relevant to their modern lives. Everyone is
used to seeing scratchy old B&W footage but few know about the existence
http://www.wwiidogtags.com/blog/wwii-photos/wwii-kodachrome-photos/
In my experience at least, sharing these Kodachrome photos really
helps to make the conflict more of a reality, thus more engaging to
people. Now my question is, and reason for posting, what is the best way
to tell which are genuine Kodachrome pictures, and which have been digitally
colored by enthusiasts?
I much admire the work that goes into digitally coloring B&W images,

I do not admire their work but hate it. I never saw a really good coloring.
For movies coloring is often just bad taste. Some directors would call
it rape. For documentaries its fake.

Keep in mind that the used colors are often just fantasy. They have
no time to research in archives about real colors. Sometime they
even screw military uniforms - color info easy to find.

Post by Matt Tacchi
some are just incredible, but I also like to try and know which are
'genuine' color images from the period?

Electronic colorization today gives an area a constant color hue. But
in reality even uniform material slightly changes its hue due to the
light incident and reflection angel. The effect is best seen on faces.
A constant color hue face and only changes in luminance points to coloring.
But if the coloring was by a good artist, there is almost no chance to
detect any trace of fake. If the artist is named I would accept it
as modern art, not as fake.

But there is another problem. Some Kodachrome was converted later
in unstable film and only survived degraded - the originals lost.
And there was in Germany the less stable Agfachrome. To repair
their color defects (often saturation loss and hue shift) is a
problem widely ignored by amateurs and professionals - even the
Smithsonian. But its high time to save this films before the
damage is irreparable.

In Germany to save the c. 1942 "Muenchhausen" Agfacolor fantasy movie
a special expensive project was launched in the 1980s. Today by
digital means it would be a much cheaper job. And this time really
forever.

I agree with you that the WW II color images look more direct. More
shift it in today. There is by Dariusz Jablonski a 1998 Polish TV
documentary "Photographer", German (arte) "Der Fotograf".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotoamator

It shows the Agfachrome color slide collection (400 pieces) of the German
administration officer Walter Genewein in the ghetto of Lodz. You see the
Jews at work and live and you know they were all killed in Auschwitz
several months later. It is less shocking than the Agfacolor film
of the horrible Warschau ghetto. But the more normality in Lodz
let the crime there coming closer to the mind. Because you only
see normal live like today (but the yellow stars) and the occasional SS
men are almost unreal like from a movie crew. Some images are found by
Google:
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&q=Walter+Genewein&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=1

Another Agfacolor collection is from V1 and V2 production inside
KZ Mittelbau Dora. You see the slaves in KZ clothings at work.
Some rather young look up in the camera. Some equipment they use
is in shape and color like build in 1980s and 90s. But you know the
slaves survival rate there was low. Less then in most other KZ.
Now there are some colors of Hitler in 1944 with his experts...

Instead to colorize people should rather try to collect and digitize.


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