I normally dislike it when B&W photos get the colorized treatment. I feel like it takes a certain je ne sais quoi from the original image and the photographer’s intention to catch a particular moment in its own time. However, these colorized photos by redditors from /r/colorizedhistory and /r/colorization I kinda dig. I still prefer the original B&W images, but they do somehow make you feel like the past isn’t so… distant.

You can view the rest of the collection on Imgur.

Mark Twain in the garden, circa 1900
 

Auto wreck in Washington D.C, 1921
 

 
More colorized photos after the jump…
 

 
What is believed to be the world’s oldest color film footage, has been discovered by the National Media Museum, in Bradford, England. The footage was only discovered by chance, in an old film tin, when the Museum relocated its archive.

The film was shot in 1902 by Edwardian photographer and chemist, Edward Turner. Together with his business partner, entrepreneur and race horse owner, Frederick Marshall Lee, Turner patented a 3-color-film process in 1899, and filmed London street scenes, a macaw and his 3 children playing with a goldfish in the family’s back garden. This was the first color film process, long before Technicolor in 1916. Unfortunately, Turner’s method, which involved recording successive frames through red, green and blue filters, then projecting and superimposing them one on top of the other, at 48 frames per second, proved to be unworkable, and left the images blurred.

Turner died in 1903. His invention and films were soon forgotten, until now, when the National Media Museum used digital technology to transfer the imagery and have now made it available for viewing.
 

 
Via the Daily Telegraph