The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Tony, It may be the most you've ever paid but you'll never regret buying top notch condition. Jerry Blais

Player-Tone wrote:Here is a picture of my great grandfather with his Amberola 50 taken around 1920:

gramps20s (2).jpg

Lol, just kidding! That’s just a modern black and white picture of me.

Seriously though, I will keep my eyes open for real antique pictures of the Amberola.

Nah. Doesn't look at all period. A period photograph, taken on an Orthochromatic emulsion would have an entirely different gray scale, and both skin tone contrasts and foliage would look entirely different.


Very nice suit of clothes, though, beautifully tailored.

Player-Tone wrote:Here is a picture of my great grandfather with his Amberola 50 taken around 1920:

gramps20s (2).jpg

Lol, just kidding! That’s just a modern black and white picture of me.

Seriously though, I will keep my eyes open for real antique pictures of the Amberola.

Very nice period Re-Creation (pun intended) of a period pic. I can imagine the young man's gal taking the photo, reminding him not to move. Well done!

Uncle Vanya, to your point, couldn't the grayscale be adjusted ?

It's more than a question of grayscale. Early photographic chemistry was sensitive only to part of the color spectrum -- blue, or more precise, UV. The net result is that such emulsions registered colors differently than panchromatic film, or digital.

Here's a chart that shows exactly how collodion and early silver gelatin register colors. The top is a standard photo color chart, the bottom is a wet-plate collodion photograph of the same chart. You can see how strange colors can be rendered, with pale blue looking stark white and light yellow looking nearly black.

Most colors end up skewed to a greater or lesser degree, totally aside from grayscale conversion. I suppose with effort most anything could be done in Photoshop but it would likely be a challenge to render colors in precisely the same way. Red and yellow have different tonality in panchromatic photos converted to B&W, whereas they both registered as as dark gray or black in early photos.

Here's another example of how wonky old photographic processes deal with color. Look at my model's hands in this image. They look like she's wearing skin-tight black gloves.

In reality, just before posing for this shot she rubbed a high SPF lotion on her hands because they were chapped. The lotion, by its nature, blocks UV light. UV is what collodion or the early dry silver gelatin processes respond to. So by using a UV-protective coating, the normal light reflecting off of her hands was blocked, with almost no UV reflecting. So her hands appear black. It was an astounding discovery. She washed off the lotion for the next shots and all was fine.

In the end, I loved the spooky effect on this one. It was already funereal, the black hands make it more so. But I learned that if I do a normal portrait I have to ensure that the sitter has no sunblock or it will totally screw up the image. It's not visible to the naked eye but collodion picks up colors in its own, very unique fashion. By the same token, lipstick is not allowed -- it shows as dark black, very distracting and off-balance.

There are lots of variables in duplicating coloration of old photos.

I didn't realize my fake picture would be analyzed with such detail.

Rene',

Thanks for this fascinating insight on early photography. My wife and I are local historians and this explains a lot about some of the early photos of local landmarks that we have pondered over. I'm always amazed at what I can learn on this forum!

Rick