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Dead Man · Nov 2, 2011

Damn nice stuff. Thanks OP!

SolKane · Nov 2, 2011

scorcho said:
for a depressing look at progress, here's the same street today sans brownstowns. only the large office building in the background of the hipsters pic remains.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/424079/badnyc.jpg[/mg]

[url]http://goo.gl/99IAa[/url][/QUOTE]

urban renewal, smh

commedieu · Nov 2, 2011

I must say. The color photos are spectacularly vivid.

I thought these were reshoots of the past, with HDRI/post sort of touch ups done. But man, these are beautiful.

Jesus.

noire · Nov 2, 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/

Might be easier than their official site.

Always-honest · Nov 2, 2011

awesome thanx.

thetrin · Nov 2, 2011

This might be the most gorgeous photo I've seen in a long time.

dallow_bg · Nov 2, 2011

Jaw dropping.

arnoldocastillo2003 · Nov 2, 2011

Dude this pictures even look better than anything taken by any kind of DSLR, they look even better than a 5d Mark II or a 300Ds damnnnnn

AlternativeUlster · Nov 2, 2011

arnoldocastillo2003 said:
Dude this pictures even look better than anything taken by any kind of DSLR, they look even better than a 5d Mark II or a 300Ds damnnnnn

Film looks better than digital?

joeyjoejoeshabadoo · Nov 2, 2011

Ferrio said:

That's one fierce pussy.

Sitting on the window sill.

BaronLundi · Nov 2, 2011

Awesome

Souldriver · Nov 2, 2011

Bookmarked! Thanks, Stabbie!

J Tourettes · Nov 2, 2011

Great pics.

Otheradam · Nov 2, 2011

ektoll said:
I want to print and frame this:

Got link for this?

Rapstah · Nov 2, 2011

I just can't get past this photo from the Russian old colour photo archive:

This man is 84 years old. The photo was taken in 1909.

He was born in 1825.

Prez · Nov 2, 2011

Some photocrom photos:

New York, 1900

Amsterdam, between 1890 and 1900

Antwerp, between 1890 and 1900

Ezduo · Nov 2, 2011

I will have one of those pictures of 52nd street from 48 as my wallpaper by the end of the night if it kills me. Gorgeous. I've always loved pictures from the 40's and 50's, something about the fashion, culture, and technology is just incredibly....nostalgic? Just intoxicating.

Maklershed · Nov 3, 2011

dallow_bg said:
Jaw dropping.

They're the Morrissey of pictures.

WedgeX · Nov 3, 2011

I've been a tad homesick for the Detroit area, and the Detroit Publishing photos...well, one might just make it on my wall.

That is, if I can find an awesome one. Which has been difficult.

edit.

This one might look nice in a frame.

speedline · Nov 3, 2011

Babe Ruth knocked out, 1924

dark_chris · Nov 3, 2011

MrFortyFive · Nov 3, 2011

Amazing pictures. I've been meaning to dig through these archives for some time now.

tino · Nov 3, 2011

You know what's amazing about the old photos? People stop and stage a pose for the photo shoots. You can tell exactly how a person's job is, what his personality is by the staged pose and props.

People don't do that anymore.

Max Armstrong · Nov 3, 2011

This is top 5 best picture I've ever seen

WorriedCitizen · Nov 3, 2011

Rapstah said:
This man is 84 years old. The photo was taken in 1909.

He was born in 1825.

I envy the people in 500 years or so who can look back at photos and films. It must be mind blowing. But then it will probably be something normal for them. Or maybe not. Even today i get time travel goose bumps from watching old films that are not even 100 years old.

joshcryer · Nov 3, 2011

Max Armstrong said:
This is top 5 best picture I've ever seen

FUUU, can you link the page that's on?

Max Armstrong · Nov 3, 2011

joshcryer said:
FUUU, can you link the page that's on?

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?gottlieb:2:./temp/~ammem_auuR::

EDIT:

LOL just noticed this:

God damn hipsters

East Lake · Nov 3, 2011

The Edward S. Curtis and Lewis Hine galleries are pretty great.

Curtis (Native Americans)

Hine (Street/Child Labor D

Ether_Snake · Nov 3, 2011

Ookami-kun said:
Found this in cracked

Hey! A South-Korean parking lot!

shanshan310 · Nov 3, 2011

Excuse me for my ignorance, but how are they colouring the pictures? It looks amazing, like it was taken yesterday...

Ether_Snake · Nov 3, 2011

Ezduo said:
I will have one of those pictures of 52nd street from 48 as my wallpaper by the end of the night if it kills me. Gorgeous. I've always loved pictures from the 40's and 50's, something about the fashion, culture, and technology is just incredibly....nostalgic? Just intoxicating.

Yes, until recently even poor people knew how to dress. They would wear fake cuffs and fake shirts (just the collar) under their suits, cause it was cheaper than owning a full suit. But people knew: if you went out, you had to dress properly, and there were rules to follow. We had a more rigid and structured society, so this went all the way down into how people dressed. Look at any old family pictures and you see people rather well dressed, and the pictures themselves are usually rather formal. Compare them to today's pictures of people wearing a pair of shorts, a t-shirt with some giant random logo on it, sitting on the edge of the table with a beer in hand

Anyway I love that color picture of New York with all the reflections. I have been looking for something to print since I have a gift card from a nearby printshop, so I might print that and frame it or laminate it.

edit: Crap, the highres version is too blurry

Shiv47 · Nov 3, 2011

There's only a huge TIFF of this otherwise, but here's the Graf Zeppelin flying over Washington DC:

And the Navy's airship Los Angeles entering its hangar. I love seeing the shots of the classic dirigibles.

Log4Girlz · Nov 3, 2011

Man, we are all just frozen in time, like statues. One day when I have passed, someone will look at my photo and wonder what it was like to live in my era, so many centuries ago.

Shiv47 said:

Erotic.

Chichikov · Nov 3, 2011

shanshan310 said:
Excuse me for my ignorance, but how are they colouring the pictures? It looks amazing, like it was taken yesterday...

They are not coloring them.
Those are color pictures.

shanshan310 · Nov 3, 2011

Chichikov said:
They are not coloring them.
Those are color pictures.

I..... Does not compute.

ShinobiFist · Nov 3, 2011

Antimatter said:
The Edward S. Curtis and Lewis Hine galleries are pretty great.

Curtis (Native Americans)

Hine (Street/Child Labor D

I'm going to download a lot of this pics. Jesus, this is going to kill my day.

Flying_Phoenix · Nov 3, 2011

I really love seeing old photos in color.

ZZMitch · Nov 3, 2011

Flying_Phoenix said:
I really love seeing old photos in color.

Yeah it is very strange. Almost don't seem real for some reason.

UrokeJoe · Nov 3, 2011

Good stuff. Looking at some of these pictures it really shows that time has no hold on us as people. We still do the same stupid shit.

CyReN · Nov 3, 2011

ymmv said:
How do you find a larger version of this photo on the LOC site? I'm unable to find anything with the (awful, AWFUL) search engine. It's like they deliberately made it impossble to find what you're looking for.

BTW I hope everyone already knows the insanely great www.shorpy.com site?

I couldn't really find one, made it 1080p, hope its ok.

TacticalFox88 · Nov 3, 2011

Anytime I see color of old times, I think it's from a movie. :/

Dead Man · Nov 3, 2011

shanshan310 said:
I..... Does not compute.

Colour photography is actually quite old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_photography

BlueTsunami · Nov 3, 2011

Makes a case for the timelessness of Film. Or maybe its just the subject and moment.

And the maturity of Color Film in the early 1900's also caught me off guard when I first viewed similar ones in this thread. Film may be seen as antiquated now but it certainly served its purpose for documenting those moments in time.

Also some of the more striking photos (as far as quality) may be Medium Format (larger than 35mm most people are used to). That size of Film just has a certain look (a fantastic one).

commedieu · Nov 3, 2011

Henchmen21 · Nov 3, 2011

Shiv47 said:

Nothing subliminal about this photo. Nope.

East Lake · Nov 3, 2011

CyReN said:
I couldn't really find one,

Here you go.

Cropped from the original.

Log4Girlz · Nov 3, 2011

With rare exceptions it always looks like old photos had much more care put into them. The composition, the type of film and the saturation of colors...I mean many of the photos posted are like paintings, they can be blown up and framed in a museum.

besada · Nov 3, 2011

Kodachrome was amazing. And I don't get the bafflement about old color photos. Kodachrome has been in use since 1935 and it wasn't close to being the first color film. Luckily, it has great archival qualities, which is why were still able to see these beautiful photographs.

Also laughing at the folks who didn't know hipster was a word from the forties.

VALIS · Nov 3, 2011

xbhaskarx said:
I really like this one.

Me too. There's something about neon lights. Some much more attractive and tasteful than those big box light signs.

RSLYG · Nov 3, 2011

Stabbie said:
Some photocrom photos:

New York, 1900

I saw Bill the Butcher.

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