[PRCo] Re: Tylerdale

[Donald Galt]

On 29 Dec 2006 at 22:29, Fred Schneider wrote:

> I truly suspect that the colors in that picture are as close as  
> you're going to get to realism and that the red and cream streetcar  
> is the only object on a gray day that had any color other than  
> various intensities of gray.
> 

Like you, Fred, I had plenty of experience with Kodachrome II but none with its 
predecessor.

Seriously, though, I don't think we are looking at a slide. Rather, at a low-
resolution 120 print that has been touched up - quite expertly! - by a 
colourist. It looks so very much like some of the better of the b&w pictures 
that I used to take as a child. The tinges of in the snow look to be done by a 
human hand, and the tinting isn't as crisp as the photo itself. The yellowish 
cast to the entire picture could possibly come from the camera but could just 
as likely be due to a subtle wash. 1707 may well be the only vivid object in 
the photo. Not that vivid, though, not in this unpromising light.

I can't prove it - just my hunch. As I said, if a tint job, a skilful one.

The colour quality available to the well-heeled photographer as long ago as 6 
decades is seen in the Washington Interurban photos in Bill Volkmer's 
Pittsburgh Area book. A couple of them claim to date from 1944. In any case, 
the Washington city pictures are obviously no later than their stated 1952-3. 
Oh, if only we had a few more like them! Or a few dozen more.

Don Galt