Thanks to the folks at The National Media Museum these amazing photographs by Mervyn O’Gorman have been getting a lot of attention lately. Taken at Dorset in 1913, these photographs of his daughter show us some wonderful versions of the Autochrome Lumière process.
Autochrome Lumière was a process for colour photography invented in France in 1903, marketed in 1907 and which dominated colour photography until the mid 1930s.
O'Gorman himself was an engineer with a very prevalent photography habit which has meant that many of his photographs are often included in exhibitions of early colour photography. For anyone curious about photography's history, these certainly are a wonderful discovery.
via: The National Media Museum and Bored Panda.
6 Comments
I’ve long had a passion for Autochrome photos. The pastel like colors, the softness and warmth. The Albert Kahn Museum in Paris holds a massive collection of Autochrome photos which were taken around the world to bring the world back to France. Kahn at the time was a wealthy banker.
Difficult to imagine now, but each Autochrome photo on a glass plate was exceptionally costly. Color photography then was only for the wealthy. Fortunately the glass plate negatives are color stable, providing us with some of the most stunning peeks back into our history.
Thank you for another opportunity to view more Autochrome photos.
Thank you for posting. Absolutely incredible. I love them, and hope that we can see more of them.
up until the very last image i was almost able to believe they were contemporary fakes. Not sure why that is though.
I thought the same thing!!
Lovely shots and poses haven’t changed one bit , the trouble that had to be gone through in those days, ????
Timeless; apart from two of the shots, in which the clothes are dated, these shots could have been taken today.