Amazing Gallery of Depression Era America in COLOR.

[sickrubik]

Some amazing photographs taken in a form we rarely see from that era, in color.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/

[lac]

Wonderful pictures. Number 12 looks like it came straight out of 'oh brother where art thou'.

[Ingmar]

Note: not actually Depression Era, but a bit after.

[Tannhauser]

Great pics!  I loved the faces and the old buildings and signs.  Remarkable clarity.

[Strazos]

I love the War Bonds poster in the back.

[nurtsi]

Funny how interesting and cool pictures of ordinary life can be after 70 years. I wonder if people will find pictures of microwaves, cellphones, or supermarkets as interesting in 2080.

[Merusk]

Funny how interesting and cool pictures of ordinary life can be after 70 years. I wonder if people will find pictures of microwaves, cellphones, or supermarkets as interesting in 2080.

Based on my own comments about the lack of shoes and makeup it will probably be something like this.  "Look, none of them are wearing rebreathers and there's so few with plastic surgery. How surreal!"

[Tannhauser]

Or something like "Look, they have walls and clothes!"

[Selby]

I inherited the task of electronically scanning in our family photo archives from 1910-1979 or so and while most of them weren't in color, there were a lot that were a striking resemblance to the pictures you see there.  Just seeing your grandparents as 5-10 year olds (or worse, teenagers and newlyweds) and seeing your great-grandparents in their early 20's is a pretty interesting experience.  I can't imagine doing it all in color... 

It does bring it home, that it wasn't just some black and white photo from the history books.  Color adds a new dimension to things like storefronts and signs that I only see in antique shops now.

[proudft]

I love the War Bonds poster in the back.

I can only assume that giant Santa-sack Uncle Sam is carrying is full of whup-ass.

[apocrypha]

Funny how interesting and cool pictures of ordinary life can be after 70 years. I wonder if people will find pictures of microwaves, cellphones, or supermarkets as interesting in 2080.

I think it's because of the colour. We're so conditioned to seeing photographs from that era as black & white that in our brains we kinda think the world was black and white then, which makes it seem slightly unreal. Seeing it in colour makes it seem very immediate, very close, which we're not used to.

I think the only thing that could happen in the future that could generate a similar feeling would be if at some point all of our photography became 3D.

[Merusk]

Funny how interesting and cool pictures of ordinary life can be after 70 years. I wonder if people will find pictures of microwaves, cellphones, or supermarkets as interesting in 2080.

I think it's because of the colour. We're so conditioned to seeing photographs from that era as black & white that in our brains we kinda think the world was black and white then, which makes it seem slightly unreal. Seeing it in colour makes it seem very immediate, very close, which we're not used to.

I think the only thing that could happen in the future that could generate a similar feeling would be if at some point all of our photography became 3D.

If 3d tv catches on you can expect it to happen in the next few years.  The cameras are already out there even if a good one is cost-prohibitive for the masses when compared to point and clicks.

[apocrypha]

They all produce steroscopic images though, that either need glasses to view or require you to go cross-eyed. I think it'll only happen en masse with still photography if proper 3D photos that don't need glasses or anything ever appear.

Edit: Also, we will always know that the world of 2D colour photographs was actually 3D and won't have some odd subconscious idea that it wasn't. We look at a 2D photo and our brains automatically infer a 3D world. The equivalent to seeing these colour photos from the "black and white era" just wouldn't happen, IMO.

[Musashi]

This is how we'll take pictures in the future.

[apocrypha]

Awesome, going back to 640x480 2 colour will make retouching a lot easier, even in 3D 

[Malakili]

The bomb has almost reached the final checkpoint ahhhhaahahahaha!

[Rendakor]

wat

[Draegan]

I think it's a TF2 reference.

[Strazos]

 

[ghost]

Note: not actually Depression Era, but a bit after.

Great Depression ran until the late 30s or early 40s, so some of the photos are "depression era". 

[K9]

The bomb has almost reached the final checkpoint ahhhhaahahahaha!

[apocrypha]

If anyone's really interested then the entire surviving collection of FSA photographs is available online at the Library of Congress site.

I'm a bit wary of taking the FSA photos as a simple record of that era because the photographers were sent out with a clear remit of the type of photos they were supposed to take in order to present a certain impression of rural poverty. However, there's 164,000 photos there, and with that kind of sample size I think that reality has to protrude through the politics regardless of the intent.