Thursday, August 13, 2009

Painted Photographs

(Above) Hand-tinted silver gelatin photograph, c. 1950s

(Above) Hand-tinted photograph, c. 1940s

(Above) Hand-tinted photobooth image, c. 1950s
(Above) Hand-tinted photobooth image, c. 1940s

(Above) Painted tintype, 19th century

(Above) Painted tintype, 19th century

(Above) Painted tintype, 19th century

(Above) Hand-tinted daguerreotype image, c. 1940s

BEFORE THE ADVENT OF COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY, AMATEURS AND SKILLED ARTISANS would simply add color with watercolor or oil paints. Some were wonderful at it, as in the 19th century daguerreotype above, and others were less than skilled. Tintypes provided a strong base for oil paint, and during that period photo studios would often an option for “color.” But just imagine, in a world where photographic technology had not yet given color (to the vast majority of people anyway), adding your own color was fairly easy to achieve.

These photographs were all for sale on eBay by various dealers.

3 comments:

Laurie Allee said...

Just found your blog via Jonathan Carroll on Twitter. Amazing finds! Thanks for a great clearinghouse of the odd and wonderful.

John Foster said...

Ahh Laurie, you are so nice to like AM. There's a ton of stuff to explore. I try to bring all of you good interesting stuff everyday.

fred said...

Awesome!! these portraits are perfect because they reminded me the ones I have hanging in my room's wall related to Viagra versus Cialis, it was something my grandfather gave me 10 years ago.

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