This is so much more real

[Phantasee]

Check this out

These are some of the earliest colour photographs ever made. Somehow, the people seem more real than b&w photos of the same time. Perhaps because the photos are such high quality? I don't know, but I found myself wondering what happend to the melon vendor after this picture was taken, same with the Kazakh family.

It's so strange to see pictures of people from beginning of the last century, and to think of them as real people.

[Simplicius]

There's a simple reason that they seem more real - when was the last time your vision was black and white?

[Phantasee]

Of course, but I meant, I feel a real connection with the people in the photographs that I've never had before, not with people from that time period. Even when watching something like Rome on TV, it didn't have the same effect on me because I knew they weren't real, despite looking real.

I need help articulating what I'm feeling!

[aerius]

Some of them almost look like Technicolor. I tend to associate faded & not so bright colours with early colour films, yet the pictures are as rich & vivid as pretty much anything seen today.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Nice! Apart from the poor dynamic range in many (White/burnt out skies), these looks damn good, realistically modern even without the very strong colours of Technicolour or Soviet photo post processing.

Amazing how good analog worked even early on.

I tend to associate faded & not so bright colours with early colour films, yet the pictures are as rich & vivid as pretty much anything seen today.

Hey, "The Wizard of Oz" is early technicolour

[Zablorg]

Yeah, that's why they made her slippers red, so they could show off their shiny new COLOR!

Yeah, they do seem more real. If you go look at a blockbuster film, and look at a documentary of something grounded in reality, you will notice that the film looks "better" than life, which helps it look sexy, but these photos look "photorealistic".

Fuck, I can't articulate either.

[Phantasee]

These photographs are everything photography should be: a portal to another place, but also another time. I don't feel like I'm looking at a photograph, I feel like I'm staring at the Melon Vendor across an open (and large) doorway.

[hongi]

Have a look at the picture of the emir. Just wow.

[aerius]

I remembered this thread after I found a copy of Photographs for the Tsar in the local library. Maybe the photos in the book are a bit faded, or maybe the images on the linked page in the OP have been Photoshopped, but the photos in the book look a lot more like what I'd expect from early 20th century photos. Most of them are like this instead of the full rich colours found in modern photos. Still, it's quite remarkable that some of the earliest colour photos in existence are still that good.

[VT-16]

I remember seeing exhibitions and reading about this particular photographer. Strange how photographs from Imperial Russia ended up in the American Library of Congress.

[Melchior]

Nice! Apart from the poor dynamic range in many (White/burnt out skies), these looks damn good, realistically modern even without the very strong colours of Technicolour or Soviet photo post processing.

Amazing how good analog worked even early on.

The prints that you can see on the Internet are mostly, if not completely, modern and obtained by digitally reprocessing the original triple negatives.

[Simplicius]

I have to say that despite the gorgeous colors in the best of the digitized Gorsky plates or Kodachrome's sock-knocking quality, I have a certain fondness for the more muted colors of Autochrome. There is an instantaneous visual association with the past by virtue of the color quality, which also makes it more abstract than modern color film while avoiding falling into Pictorialism.

Odyssey: The Art of Photography at National Geographic features a very interesting introductory essay about the role of photography for the magazine, part of which includes the commitment to color from early on. A number of autochromes (and a few other early color types, chrome and hand-tint) are among the photographs featured.

[Phantasee]

That's kind of what I was talking about. With that Autochrome film, you can tell it's a picture of a long time ago. With the pictures in the OP, it feels much more immediate, and it gave me a very different feeling. It felt like there was less 'stuff' in the way between me and the subject of the photograph. The muted colours in your example are kind of a 'fog of time' for me. Or is that supposed to be a mist?