Rule Britannia: Characters in a pageant – Britannia and her colonies and dependencies – on the grass in Southampton in 1928 – Source: Daily Mail Article – “1920s Britain at work and play: Glorious National Geographic colour photographs capture an innocent age a century ago” by Mark Duell, August 20 2015.
I was at the Metropolitan Museum in NY City a while back and saw my first autochromes there. I immediately fell in love with the delicate colors. Unfortunately I’m not willing to go to the trouble of covering glass plates with potato starch grains and so was unable to produce them myself. I tried to find a plugin or something that would emulate this look with a digital image, but so far I haven’t found anything I like. I was very pleased to come across these old images. They must have caused quite a stir when they were first produced.
From Boy Scouts on a hike to children playing on a beach, this wonderful set of photographs captures British life almost a century ago.
The images from the 1920s and 1930s also include scenes of postmen on their rounds, police directing buses and characters in a pageant.
They were taken by Clifton R. Adams, who was sent to England by National Geographic magazine to photograph life in the country.
Mr Adams, who died in 1934 aged just 44, had instructions to record its farms, towns and cities, and its residents at work and play.
He took the images in colour using Autochrome Lumière, which was the most advanced colour photographic process of the day.
The plates were covered in microscopic potato starch grains coloured red, green and blue-violet, with about four million per square inch.
Light passed through the colour filters when an image was taken, with the plate then processed to produce a positive transparency.