Back in the mid '70s someone was working at Hellers Camera in Bethesda MD and had a reference book with a color photo of the battleship Pennsylvania out in the Pacific, around 1944.

The quality of the photo made it clear that it was shot with a large format camera, which is puzzling since most didn’t think Kodachrome (the only modern color film of the time in the US ) was available in sheet films.


An old Kodak hand (and WWII vet and radioman in Europe) revealed that they did have sheet Kodachrome, and that there was only one machine to process the film, located in Rochester.

Note the lack of basic safety equipment. I saw only one pair of safety glasses,
and only a few of the workers were wearing gloves.

Also notice that most of the woman were wearing lip stick and nail polish. WWII
could not have been won without the woman of America stepping up to build the equipment needed to defeat the axis powers.

Some of these images are 70 years old and look as fresh as ever.

https://pavelkosenko.wordpress.../28/4x5-kodachromes/

Wow, very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Damnit i miss film.

The photos look staged. I wouldn't expect that women working in somewhat dirty jobs in factories would be dressed up like that every day - and appear so neat and clean.

The vibrancy is amazing. They look incredible

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
The photos look staged. I wouldn't expect that women working in somewhat dirty jobs in factories would be dressed up like that every day - and appear so neat and clean.

That was my first thought.

I am sure the women did those jobs but that looks like someone set up a photo shoot of them doing them with makeup and all.

Still very cool shots.

Wow, that guy knew his stuff. Most of those are better than anything I've ever gotten out of my digital cameras. Truly shows it's the person behind the camera more than the equipment that makes good photos.



This one is amazing.

Don't digital cameras have to get to like 400 megapixels before they will rival real film?

Edit:

Damn, I guess I did learn something in forensice ph0tography...

from wiki:

A medium-format film image can record an equivalent potential of approximately 400 megapixels, while large-format films can record considerably larger (4 × 5 inch) which equates to around 800 megapixels on the largest common film format, 8 × 10 inches, without accounting for lens sharpness.[

wonderful photos! Thanks for posting. I read somewhere that a 4x5 negative contains as much information as a 61 megapixel digital image.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
The photos look staged. I wouldn't expect that women working in somewhat dirty jobs in factories would be dressed up like that every day - and appear so neat and clean.

Yeah, I agree.

At the very least they were told in advance that "tomorrow is photo day". Everybody is too, too clean.

But the photos are still just plain wonderful.

You can bet those pictures are all staged.
I would like to know if the inside photos were shot with "hot" lights or photo flash bulbs, I would guess "hot" lights.
With a view camera shooting Kodachrome the exposure time would be significant let alone the heat the models had to endure. This is why it looks like all the people in the indoor shots are braced against something to minimize movement during the exposure.Even outdoors with the view camera exposure time with the slow speed Kodachrome would be tough to deal with.

Back when a Photographer and his subjects had to work hard for it!

The original source for these is Shorpy. Great site with a lot of other pictures.

Check out Memorial Day 1942 in Southington, CT:
http://www.shorpy.com/node/347...ze=_original#caption

Now check it out from the exact same spot in Google street view 70 years later (the street view was from 2012):
https://www.google.com/maps/@4...w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I love looking at these old photos and doing a then and now.

The good old days!!!!

Thanks for posting. I believe I’ve seen a few of those photos rendered in black and white, and I never suspected they had been originally exposed in color.

Yes, I would bet a nickel that every shot taken indoors, and some even of the outdoor photos, were very carefully staged. Even when I used Kodachrome film it was quite slow, and most of those pictures would have required elaborate artificial lighting to produce the effects we see. I wouldn’t be surprised if each shot required hours to set up. As for the women’s preparation for such an event, I know a woman police officer who wears makeup on duty, so I’m also not surprised that the ones in the photos wanted to look their best. Keep in mind, though, that their attire was not common for women of the era, so even though their pants were neat and clean, they were still unusual outside an industrial setting.

Added: several others beat me to it.

Staged photos were much more common in those days. It’s obvious, for example, that many of the “combat” pictures from WW II were staged. The one that’s always struck me showed Gurkha soldiers jumping over a trench and supposedly charging into combat with their kukris in one hand and rifles in the other.

quote:

Originally posted by zdog16:
Damnit i miss film.

Could not agree more!!

It's rare that I can think that I'm looking at a subject rather than looking at a picture of a subject.

Those are some amazing shots.

Those are beautiful. Kodachrome looks like nothing else.

Those are some great photos, staged or not. My Mother worked in some sort of an aircraft plant in Phila., Pa. during the war but do not remember which one.

Wow - those are fantastic. Thanks for posting!

I sure do miss Kodachrome 25 and 64.