Colourised black and white footage from 1900's

[Tumbleweed101]

I've been watching some of these movies on YouTube. London in late 1800's and early part of last century. Just struck me that we are now able to watching what are essentially the ghosts of past lives and eras. I felt very privileged that we are living in an age to be able to see these lives in action rather than just read about them or see artifacts.

I just wondered if anyone else had watched them.

I’ve seen some of those old films before and they freak me out a bit. All those lives and they’re just not here any more, it’s so weird.
They didn’t know we’d be watching them all these years later. It makes me feel a bit funny tbh.

I wonder if people in the future will be watching us from cctv etc long after we’ve gone?

The fact they are colourised makes them more real as well.

Could you link to these? They sound amazing

You'd love this film then...

It's amazing.

They are brilliant. Makes them so much more real.

You might be interested in a wonderful book called The Colour of Time.
It has loads of old photos expertly colourised by a digital artist. Her work is incredible. She spent ages working on it for example researching the colours of old military uniforms and the ribbons on medals etc.
It's a collaboration with an historian who wrote the text to explain the context.
The colour really brings the photos to life.

Yes, the addition of colour makes them feel very more real than the black and white. People appear far more aware of the camera back then too as it was a far more unusual sight.

Close as we're likely to get to time travel lol.

Look up the time travel artist on facebook/YouTube.

Thanks for the link to the film, I'll take a look in a bit :)

I haven't got a link to ones I've seen but just typing in 1800 London will likely start bringing some up.

Glamourdaze is a good channel for a range of eras looking at real fashion - as worn by "normal" people.

Yrs, I've recently come across similar footage of Lancashire. Fascinating to watch, tge world has changed a lot, and hats!

I watch them all the time, it’s addictive.

I also love the portraits that are brought to life.

Example here -

That's exactly how I felt! Very eery and funny feeling seeing these people and how far we have come technically in the world I wonder what the world will look like in 100 years time

I saw something on TikTock recently of London / Carnaby Street in 1967. It was really interesting just seeing street footage of people going about their lives, especially as my mother used to hang out there in 1968!

You know what's really weird and spooky? When they do some digital trickery that smooths out people's movements in old film. We're used to seeing people in very old films moving in a quick, jerky manner. Makes them a bit unreal. Seeing their movements smoothed out makes them hyper-realistically alive.

I absolutely love these videos. So fascinating! I always feel sorry for the horses though. What miserable lives they must have lived.

1888!

This is quite slow to watch but I found it very interesting. It’s not about colouring old photos it’s about the first use of colour photography. Some beautiful images

There are some great links, thank you 😊

Have you seen the film 'They Shall Not Grow Old'? If not, you should,

Omg just looked up Blanche Monnier 😱

@Dilbertian

The film's look odd and jerky because they were shot at about 22 frames per second. If you play them back through a modern projector at 36 frames per second they look speeded up. They have to be adjusted to the correct frame rate.

It’s an absolutely horrendous real life story. Heartbreaking.

Yes! Denis Shiryaev, his modified films are the ones I've seen. It's not just that the people move more smoothly (because sometimes the filled-in motion makes them look like they are gliding unnaturally) but that dresses flow. In the 22fps films clothes look stiff. Women in long skirts look like those dated toilet roll covers. When they move and the skirt swishes with them, they look so much more alive.