COLORING PHOTOS WITH A BRUSH IN OLD JAPAN

The above photo is an 1896 albumen print that was tipped in (pasted into) an 1897 book.

Instead of scanning it with a proper scanner, I just took a picture of the photo with my little LUMIX camera.

Although it's an 1896 print, it was photographed much earlier -- somewhere between 1865 and 1875, and was already a public domain image by the time it was used in the 1897 book

I forget who took the original photo --- most likely Beato or Stillfried. Someone once told me they thought that it's an early photo of Kimbei Kusakabe. I'm a little fuzzy at the moment, but I'm sure someone will pop up to set me straight.

The book in question is seen and described HERE :

♥ www.flickr.com/photos/okinawa-soba/3340015545/

This was a very fancy version of the multi-volume book, and the publisher decided to use laid paper with a textured "linen" surface.

Unfortunately, although it might be fine for the text, the photographs that were glued onto the pages took on the texture of the paper.

I am not a fan of textured photos, as the deformed surface draws attention to the physical nature of the print, rather than the content of the image.

However, any self-referencing photograph showing an early Japanese photo colorist in his kimono and chon-mage (top-knot hairstyle) while hand tinting a photograph, is a great piece of historic photographica whose importance will always over-ride any distracting artifacts of the mounting process.

You can see a few more "Japanese Colorist" images at the head of THIS ALBUM :

♥ www.flickr.com/photos/okinawa-soba/albums/72157605125064425

PHOTO NOTE : I am sure that the visible, "linen" lines in the photo could be reduced or eliminated by changing the direction of lighting, or experimenting with its orientation in the scanner. Will do it later.

Some rights reserved

Taken on: September 27, 2015

Sets appears in: • JAPAN PHOTO GRAPHICA • 1897 BRINKLEY SET more » • ALBUMEN PHOTOS « less

Stats: 2,278 views

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder