COMMENTARY: Recreating the First Colour Photo Ever Made1 min read
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In the “Olden Days,” professional science was still in its infancy. People who trained in science and practiced science were using every ounce of creativity and imagination at their disposal to discover the nature of the world. They were scrappy and inventive. In this article, I will outline a modern replication of the experiment that produced the first colour photograph ever made.
As you will see, the method for making the original colour photograph was itself a remix. It was made in 1861 by Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell working with the photographer Thomas Sutton. The image was of a tartan ribbon and based on ideas he had worked out and described in a scientific paper six years earlier, in 1855.
In a world driven by multi-media and digital imagery, it is easy to forget that not so long ago, photography was a brand new technology. The first photograph known to be taken that is still surviving today was by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827. It is a photograph taken through an upstairs window, looking out over the rooftops of his estate in Le Grase, Burgundy, France. The earliest photograph known to include people was by Louis Daguerre in 1838, showing the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.
These early photographs were all monochromatic — “black and white.” They were largely based on chemical reactions of silver nitrate, which darkens when exposed to sunlight. Such reactions are called “photochemical.” While the novelty of capturing life exactly as it appeared at a given moment was enchanting, there was always something missing: colour.
Image credit: PetaPixel
