An old mental_floss post begins with a section which makes me think someone is reading my thoughts ((Maybe I should don a tinfoil hat.)):
…having seen mostly black-and-white pictures of the world pre-1960 or so (I’m not counting Technicolor movies), I begin to imagine the past unfolding in monochrome.
I almost always imagine the time before the 60s in black and white: The Titanic, the Victorians and the World Wars ((Though, strangely, before the 1700s, everything – from the Tudors to the Egyptians – I imagine in colour. That adds evidence to my hypothesis that my imagination is prejudiced by the viewing of black and white photographs from the time.)). I too think that it comes from seeing so many black and white images from that period.
For some reason, including colour with a photo makes it feel much more real to me. It’s probably because I experience the world in colour, and so I find it much easier to place myself in such a photo and mentally interact with it. Perhaps it’s also because I particularly rely on colour for my vision and visual memory ((Rather than, say, patterns.)). Or maybe I’m just a crazy son of a bitch, who knows?
I particularly remember watching a documentary called “Hitler in Colour“. It changed my perception of the second World War for the better, and helped my empathise with the victims – although it didn’t change my understanding of the facts. It helped those facts and figures turn into real people in my mind.
Now Flickr has a section for The Library of Congress which includes many colour photos from 50, 60, 70 years ago. I need not explain: just go and explore for a few minutes. There are other such collections in Flickr’s The Commons too, but I’ve not yet explored them. It’s a perfect example of the internet’s potential.
The image following is my favourite so far. It’s from 1944. You often see such scenes like it recreated in old black and white movies, but compared with this, I find myself unable to fully immerse myself in that world. But when I look at this image, it feels more real to me.
My point: colour in an image helps me to recreate that image in my head, which is what I do when I think about things.
Photos from The Library of Congress’ Flickr section.
I think it’s different for everyone.
My recollection of what is real and what seems unreal in history seems to be linked with how plausible it seems combined with how much, and the trust I place in sources, evidence/stuff there is corroborating/backing it up.
A photograph can be easily altered and falsified. A photograph in itself is just the capturing of light through a set filter (whatever the technology is at the time); it does nothing to validate that an event actually happened as it is depicted (see Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier).
It would be nice if real life had that nice orange glow cast over it. But then again, if it did, it would be normal and we wouldn’t notice it. I love you slightly blue hue of the North.
Yes, I know what you’re on about with your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. Obviously I base my knowledge of history on those sorts of criteria too.
My general point was that I can better visualise and incorporate into my mind (i’m quite a visual thinker) colour images than real ones, and so I can ‘connect’ better with colour images from the past.
Give me both a colour and a black and white photograph, and the colour one will ‘feel’ more real. I know feel is not a technical term, and it has nothing to do with my understanding of the truth of history.
Maybe another way of saying it is that I would feel a bit disconnected from the world if my vision suddenly turned to just black and white.
OK, I realise that my last paragraph about the 1944 photo is complete rubbish and confuses things. I’ll rework/delete it. (Is that what your final paragraph is refering to? Because if not, I don’t get it).
The last bit about orange hue is just a general observation. It seems like a common theme throughout the old coloured photos. It makes things appear nicer/friendlier/nostalgic.
I’m sure if your world turned black or white you’d learn to adapt. Maybe you’d appreciate the different shades of grey to a better extent. A bit like how when someone loses one sense, the other 4 senses seem to heighten in alertness.
Never delete a blog post you publish if you’re blogging for yourself.
Ah, I see.
I find the way that the brain can adapt to things to be fascinating. One of my favourite experiments (that I’ve heard of, I’ve not done this myself) made people permanently wear glasses that turn the world upside-down. After a while of seeing the world upside-down, the brain switches the image sothat they see the world as they used to. (Of course the brain had to do it all over again once the glasses came off). It’s amazing.
Maybe I should start wearing greyscale glasses for a while so that I can better appreciate old black and white photos! 😛
Thanks for the advice; I did edit it heavily but WordPress keeps all the revisions anyway if I want to look back at it.