From the very first color photo taken in 1861 to the streets of Paris during World War I, these incredible early color photographs offer a window into the past.
Early color photo of Agen, France, by Louis Ducos du Hauron, 1877. The cathedral in the scene is the Cathédrale Saint-Caprais d'Agen.Wikimedia Commons
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A dining room in Germany's Neuschwanstein Castle, circa 1886.
Library of Congress/Flickr
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The cloister at the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey in Normandy, France. 1895.
Wikimedia Commons
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Bedouin woman, Tunis, Tunisia. 1899. Library of Congress
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Night illumination of the Grand Court at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, Omaha, Nebraska, 1898.
trialsanderrors/Flickr
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Arcade, Rotterdam, Holland. Ca 1890-1900.
Library of Congress
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The School of Arab Embroidery in Algiers, Algeria. Circa 1899.
Library of Congress/Flickr
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A Sámi family in Lapland, Norway. Circa 1900.
Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images
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Passengers disembarking from a ship, Algiers, Algeria, ca. 1899. trialsanderrors/Flickr
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Cafe Bauer, Unter den Linden, Berlin, ca. 1900.
trialsanderrors/Flickr
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View from Central Pier, Blackpool, England, 1890-1900.
Library of Congress
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A worker amid raisin drying racks in Southern California, 1901.Library of Congress
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Arrowmaker, an Ojibwa brave, 1903. Library of Congress
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The Alcazar Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida. 1902.Wikimedia Commons
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A gardener holds tomatoes in his apron. United Kingdom. 1905.
SSPL/Getty Images
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Autochrome of Mark Twain, 1908.Royal Photographic Society / Getty Images
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The parlor of North German Lloyd steamer Kaiser Wilhelm II., ca. 1910. trialsanderrors/Flickr
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A luxury cabin on board the North German Lloyd mail steamer König Albert, ca. 1910. trialsanderrors/Flickr
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Exterior of the Moulin Rouge in Paris, 1914. Wikimedia Commons
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Air Balloons in Paris, 1914.
Wikimedia Commons
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The Grenata Street Army, 1915. Photographer Léon Gimpel befriended a group of children from the Grenata Street neighborhood in Paris who had established their own "army". Australian War Memorial
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A little girl plays with her doll next to two guns and a knapsack in Reims, France during World War I. 1917.
Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images
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The castle, Pembroke, Wales. Between 1890 and 1900.Library of Congress, Flickr
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Heinz And Eva On The Hillside, 1925.
Royal Photographic Society / Getty Images
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Lumière brothers autochrome of a young lady at the beach, early twentieth century.
dalbera/Flickr
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Drunk man sleeping on a city street, Paris, 1914.Musée Albert-Kahn
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Military Concert at Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt. Ca. 1890-1900.
Library of Congress
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George Bernard Shaw, circa 1911.internetarchivebookimages/Flickr
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View up the 100 and 200 blocks of St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. 1900. Wikimedia Commons
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Cheapside, London, England. Circa 1890 to 1900.
Wikimedia Commons
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Man and woman with suitcases. Date Unknown.george_eastman_house/Flickr
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Dalen, Norway between 1890 and 1900.
Detroit Publishing Company/Wikimedia Commons
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Devil's Bridge, Aberystwith Wales. Ca.1890-1900. Library of Congress
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Woman in Vietnam smoking opium, taken by Albert Kahn in 1915.Musée Albert-Kahn
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Self-portrait of Russian photographer and chemist Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. 1912.Wikimedia Commons
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A ferris wheel in Paris, circa 1890-1900.
Library of Congress
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Photographer Frank Eugene poses for an Autochrome in Hoboken, N.J. 1907.
Alfred Stieglitz/The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Else Paneth (left), the wife of Austrian chemist and photographer Friedrich Paneth, sits on a camel in Egypt. 1913.
The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Science and Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images
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Girl with a collection of dolls, 1910. george_eastman_house/Flickr
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Glasgow Bridge, Glasgow, Scotland. 1890-1900.
Library of Congress
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A woman with tattooed arms poses in Bosnia. 1912.
Musée Albert-Kahn
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Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy. Ca, 1890-1900. Library of Congress
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Christina, the daughter of Autochrome photographer Mervyn O'Gorman, poses in a red cloak in order to be photographed by her father. Dorset, England. 1913.
The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Science and Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images
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Memorial Arch in Hartford, Connecticut. 1905. Library of Congress
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Two men play chess in Hoboken, N.J. 1907.
Alfred Stieglitz/Wikimedia Commons
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Killiney and Dalkey, two villages in County Dublin, Ireland. Ca. 1890-1900. Library of Congress
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Mosque of Sultan Ahmet I in Constantinople, Turkey. Circa 1895.
Library of Congress/Flickr
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A WWI French soldier in a trench, Haut-Rhin. 1917. Wikimedia Commons
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Autochrome New Orleans street scene circa 1907.
inferno55/Flickr
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Royal Northwest Mounted Police constable and horse. Edmonton, Alberta. 1913 or 1914. alberta_archives/Flickr
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Entrance to port, Ostend, Belgium. Between 1890 and 1900. Detroit Publishing Company/Wikimedia Commons
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Autochrome Of A Young Girl, 1910.Getty Images
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Distinguished Moorish women in Algeria. Circa 1899.
Library of Congress/flickr
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Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, 1905.
Library of Congress
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Sisters sitting in a garden tying roses together, 1911.
Etheldreda Laing/Getty Images
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Panorama of Los Angeles. Circa 1898-1905.
Library of Congress
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Guanajuato, Mexico. Circa 1900.
Wikimedia Commons
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Girl in green dress, 1909.John Cimon Warburg/Getty Images
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"The Last Digger." United Kingdom, 1910.
The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Science and Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images
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The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, ca. 1895. Library of Congress/Flickr
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Two women sit on a bench. Location unspecified. Circa 1915.
George Eastman Museum/Flickr
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Peking, Temple of Heaven. Ca. 1890-1900.
Library of Congress
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Milk sellers in Brussels. Circa 1890-1900.
Wikimedia Commons
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The Taj Mahal, circa 1890-1900. Library of Congress
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J.L. Niebergall, between 1898 and 1905.
Detroit Publishing Company/Wikimedia Commons
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The Gullick family in New South Wales, Australia, 1910. statelibraryofnsw/Flickr
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Ruins of the Castle of Arques, near Dieppe, France. 1895. Wikimedia Commons
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Photographer Alfonse Van Besten called this picture of his wife with a dog "Musing," circa 1910.Alfonse Van Besten
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Shanklin Chine on the Isle of Wight, England. Between ca. 1890 and 1900.
Library of Congress
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Charlie Chaplin, 1918.George Eastman House/Charles Zoller/The Image Works
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Villa Belsa, Biarritz in the Pyrenees, France. Ca. 1890-1900. Library of Congress
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Thatched cottages in Corhampton, Hampshire. Early twentieth century.whatsthatpicture/Flickr
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A little girl in a red riding hood poses near some flowers. England. 1907.
The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Science and Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images
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A Chinese family, photographed between between 1898 and 1905.
Library of Congress
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Old Venetian courtyard, Venice, Italy. Ca. 1890-1900. Library of Congress/Flickr
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Palace of Horticulture, San Francisco, during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915.george_eastman_house/Flickr
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Woman in greenhouse, 1910. george_eastman_house/Flickr
These 77 Images Are Some Of The World’s First Color Photos
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Although it's difficult to imagine life before the first color photographs, the first time people saw any photo at all was nearly two centuries ago — in 1839.
The Daguerreotype, invented that year by Louis Daguerre — and built on previous inventions made by inventors like Joseph Nicéphore Niépce — was one of the main monochrome photo processes. Popular worldwide, it required iodine-sensitive, silver-plated sheets of copper and only a few seconds of exposure.
However, the public became easily bored with black-and-white photography — even just a few years after its invention. Where was the vibrant color that existed in reality?
The race to take the first color photo was on. Labeled the holy grail of the photography world, scientists and experimenters alike tinkered with different processing methods for over 20 years before finally discovering a reliable color photography method.
The Famous Tartan Ribbon Color Photo
Wikimedia CommonsTartan Ribbon, photograph taken by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861.
Sir Isaac Newton used a prism to split sunlight in 1666, so long before the first color photos, we knew that light was a combination of seven colors. The difficulties facing the pioneers of color photography had to do with impracticality, long exposure times, unwanted dye spread, and expense.
In 1861 a Scottish physicist and polymath named James Clerk Maxwell discovered that by mixing red, green, and blue light, any color can be made. This is now referred to as the three-color process.
Using this as a strategy for coloring photos, Maxwell asked photographer Thomas Sutton to take three snapshots of a tartan-colored ribbon. He used filters in these colors and took the photos in bright sunlight.
The three photographs were developed, printed on glass, then projected onto a screen with three different projectors, each with an additional filter with the same color used in each original photo. Although Maxwell wasn't aware of it at the time, the emulsions he used were insensitive to red light. Fortunately, the red cloth used in the ribbon reflected ultraviolet light — so it registered in the final emulsion.
Even though Maxwell was not a photographer and he did this for a physics presentation, he again proved Isaac Newton's color theory and this three-color process unlocked the first key in creating the first color photos.
Still, despite this early success, it would take a few more decades until color photography became more commonplace.
Failed Experiments In Color Photography
Wikimedia CommonsA picture of Mohammed Alim Khan (1880-1944), Emir of Bukhara, taken in 1911. Three black-and-white photographs were taken through red, green and blue filters. The three resulting images were projected through similar filters. Combined on the projection screen, they created a full-color image.
Many times experimenters produced a color photo, however, the color would fade almost immediately when exposed to light. Solving the emulsion sensitivity problem remained elusive.
Dr. John Joly of Dublin created the Joly process in 1894. It involved a filter that combined a plate with all three key colors, exposure, reversal processing, and finished with another filter screen. This process was not very reliable, and it definitely lacked practicality.
Frederick Ives created the Kromogram in 1897. These were transparencies that needed a special viewer called a Kromskop. The complexity and the need for a separate viewer meant this process never caught fire the way Ives hoped. The rush to create the first color photos continued.
In the meantime, professional photographers grew impatient with waiting, as their customers clamored for color. They took to hand-painting their photos. This was fairly simple and cheap to do. So much so, that even after the invention of practical color photography, hand-painting remained popular.
The Color Photography Explosion
Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesThe Lumière brothers invented Autochrome, the easiest early color photography process.
By the last decade of the nineteenth century, several color processes existed; although none of them practical. However, things were about to escalate very quickly.
The Photochrom was the earliest color photo process that a few professional photography companies used. They produced photochroms of famous places — mostly for tourism and catalog purposes.
However, this process used the hand-coloring of negatives — and is actually a hybrid of photography and printing. Photochroms continued to gain popularity through the 1890s.
Finally, the Lumière brothers burst on the scene. Auguste and Louis invented the Cinematograph in 1895 — the motion picture film camera. They too had a color photo process, and they called it Autochrome when they patented it in 1903. The trick they had up their sleeve was combining the emulsion and filter on the same glass. Dyed potato starch was used to make their filter plate.
The Autochrome process was easy to use, and it worked with existing cameras. The longest exposure time was just 30 seconds in the worst of conditions — unlike some earlier processes that needed hours.
One of the hallmarks of images made using microscopic potato starch are the visible clumps of dye that often formed. Many believe this adds a subtle artistic element to the photographs.
The Autochrome was released commercially in 1907 and it was the holy grail of color until 1936 when Kodachrome introduced their practical multi-layer color film.
These very first color photos are part of the evolving history of photography — and mesmerizing to look at.
An All That's Interesting writer since 2013, Erin Kelly focuses on historic places, natural wonders, environmental issues, and the world of science. Her work has also been featured in Smithsonian and she's designed several book covers as a graphic artist.
Maggie Donahue is an assistant editor at All That's Interesting. She has a Master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a Bachelor's degree in creative writing and film studies from Johns Hopkins University. Before landing at ATI, she covered arts and culture at The A.V. Club and Colorado Public Radio and also wrote for Longreads. She is interested in stories about scientific discoveries, pop culture, the weird corners of history, unexplained phenomena, nature, and the outdoors.
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Cite This Article
Kelly, Erin. "These 77 Images Are Some Of The World’s First Color Photos." AllThatsInteresting.com, March 25, 2024, https://allthatsinteresting.com/first-color-photographs. Accessed January 30, 2025.
