A rifle and face from the past-

[JBinIll]

These images, scanned from old glass negatives which had surfaced in northern France, were believed to have been taken by a local amateur photographer in 1916.
They showed British and a few Australian soldiers, in formal or informal poses, during or just before the most murderous battle in the history of the British Empire – Battle of the Somme.
(Property of Bernard Gardin/Dominique Zanardi/Joel Scribe/The Independent Magazine)

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[IditarodJoe]

Thanks JB, that's pretty amazing! I actually had to check to see if that sort of color photography even existed in 1916. It did. The process I found is called Autochrome Lumiere, which hit the market in 1907 and was apparently "the" way color photography was done until the mid-1930s. Looking at that photo sends a chill down my spine.

Do you know anything about that particular soldier? His rifle? His uniform? Are there other photos available?

[Fred]

Neat!

[JBinIll]

Thanks JB, that's pretty amazing! I actually had to check to see if that sort of color photography even existed in 1916. It did. The process I found is called Autochrome Lumiere, which hit the market in 1907 and was apparently "the" way color photography was done until the mid-1930s. Looking at that photo sends a chill down my spine.

Do you know anything about that particular soldier? His rifle? His uniform? Are there other photos available?

Those are colorized pictures of old B&W negatives.There are several more posted on a FaceBook page called The Colorfull Past.It's from a group of photos called The Lost Tommies.They are all unidentified.

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[Merc]

Thanks JB, that's pretty amazing! I actually had to check to see if that sort of color photography even existed in 1916. It did. The process I found is called Autochrome Lumiere, which hit the market in 1907 and was apparently "the" way color photography was done until the mid-1930s. Looking at that photo sends a chill down my spine.

Do you know anything about that particular soldier? His rifle? His uniform? Are there other photos available?

Ever notice how much more detail appears in the older photos? From the looks of the short nose, long bayonet and the mag, could the rifle be a No. 1 Mk 3 which would make the soldier a Brit?

Merc

[JBinIll]

Ever notice how much more detail appears in the older photos? From the looks of the short nose, long bayonet and the mag, could the rifle be a No. 1 Mk 3 which would make the soldier a Brit?

Merc

It's from a collection called The Lost Tommies so yes,he's definitely British.LOL There are other photos in the same collection called The Lost Diggers for Aussie soldiers.These are all B&W photos that have been colored and digitally enhanced.

Here's some background information-

DO YOU KNOW ANY OF THESE ‘LOST TOMMIES’?

If you recognise anyone in these pictures, please leave a comment with clues as to who they might be.

If you don’t have a Facebook account, please email us at theoneshow@bbc.co.uk and include a link to the photo you are contacting us about, along with your information.

We’d love to be able to identify as many of the Lost Tommies as possible and hopefully trace their relatives, so we really need your help!

ABOUT THE LOST TOMMIES

The photographs were taken by a French couple, Louis and Antoinette Thuillier during the First World War and are a fantastic and very natural collection of portraits of Allied soldiers who were billeted in the village when they were away from the trenches.

The collection of images lay undiscovered for a century in the attic of a French farmhouse in the village of Vignacourt. They were found in 2011 by a team of researchers led by Australian journalist Ross Coulthart, who has since collected the images together in a book called The Lost Tommies.

What makes the pictures all the more powerful is that the village of Vignacourt was a days march from the frontline that would be the centre of the Battle of the Somme, so a lot of the men who had their photos taken would have died weeks or even days later. The vast majority of the men remain unidentified because of the informal nature of the photos and that is why we need your help.

All images courtesy Kerry Stokes Collection, The Louis and Antoinette Thuillier Collection
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Note the cap badge,a harp,Royal Irish rifles-

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[JBinIll]

Thanks JB, that's pretty amazing! I actually had to check to see if that sort of color photography even existed in 1916. It did. The process I found is called Autochrome Lumiere, which hit the market in 1907 and was apparently "the" way color photography was done until the mid-1930s. Looking at that photo sends a chill down my spine.

Do you know anything about that particular soldier? His rifle? His uniform? Are there other photos available?

There are two books available,The Lost Tommies and The Lost Diggers.Original pictures are B&W and not color.The books show them in the original B&WSome of them are IDed as to unit-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Tommies-Ross-Coulthart/dp/0008103313/278-4769699-1026855?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

[JBinIll]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/29639770/lost-bugler-in-photo-identified-after-100-years/?cmp=st#page1

[Art]

Ever notice how much more detail appears in the older photos? From the looks of the short nose, long bayonet and the mag, could the rifle be a No. 1 Mk 3 which would make the soldier a Brit?

Merc

It's because of very good lenses and the large formats used. The smallest formats back then could give you a 4x4" or 5x7" contact print (slap the negative right on the paper print it nd you have a useable picture) and the lenses were capable of much finer resolution than you'd think. We're talking about a time when some optics that were much finer optics than you'd expect were being produced. Heck, sophisticated optical rangefinders capable of being used to direct gunfire at very long ranges in naval engagements had been in use for over a quarter century at the time. The cameras of the period weren't small but they were capable of producing great images. As time went on and the formats got smaller, down to 35mm finer grain films were needed to produce a similar result because of the amount of enlargement needed to produce a usable photograph. That's why the larger format 120 and 220 film formats held on so long for things like portrait and wedding photograph. In film photography generally the larger the format the better the result. Nothing good happens in emulsion photography when you start enlarging. The more you have to enlarge...the worse the result.

Today the best digital cameras can exceed the quality of the old large format film jobs, even the later ones like the Hasselblads but that's super high tech and super high price (like ah Hasselblad wasn't real pricey.) The average DSLR kit camera Joe Dokes uses really usually doesn't produce a better image than you could with an old 35mm Nikon or Canon with the right film. It just does it much more easily with a lot less mess and waste.

[JBinIll]

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[Merc]

It's because of very good lenses and the large formats used. The smallest formats back then could give you a 4x4" or 5x7" contact print (slap the negative right on the paper print it nd you have a useable picture) and the lenses were capable of much finer resolution than you'd think. We're talking about a time when some optics that were much finer optics than you'd expect were being produced. Heck, sophisticated optical rangefinders capable of being used to direct gunfire at very long ranges in naval engagements had been in use for over a quarter century at the time. The cameras of the period weren't small but they were capable of producing great images. As time went on and the formats got smaller, down to 35mm finer grain films were needed to produce a similar result because of the amount of enlargement needed to produce a usable photograph. That's why the larger format 120 and 220 film formats held on so long for things like portrait and wedding photograph. In film photography generally the larger the format the better the result. Nothing good happens in emulsion photography when you start enlarging. The more you have to enlarge...the worse the result.

Today the best digital cameras can exceed the quality of the old large format film jobs, even the later ones like the Hasselblads but that's super high tech and super high price (like ah Hasselblad wasn't real pricey.) The average DSLR kit camera Joe Dokes uses really usually doesn't produce a better image than you could with an old 35mm Nikon or Canon with the right film. It just does it much more easily with a lot less mess and waste.

Thanks for the informative reply. My collection of Civil War era CDVs is a great example of how quickly the science of photography progressed.

Merc

[JB White]

Digital photography means discovering 100 year old photos will not likely happen 100 years from now.
How many photos never get printed? How many times has the format changed in the past 20 years? When was the last time you tried to read a floppy disk?

[IditarodJoe]

Sadly true JB. Not only photographs, but personal correspondence as well. And the day to day record of our society that was once captured for posterity in newspapers and magazines is fading fast. As technology effectively erases our footprints behind us, the task of the legitimate historian will become more difficult while that of the historical revisionist will become increasingly easier.

[JBinIll]

Sadly true JB. Not only photographs, but personal correspondence as well. And the day to day record of our society that was once captured for posterity in newspapers and magazines is fading fast. As technology effectively erases our footprints behind us, the task of the legitimate historian will become more difficult while that of the historical revisionist will become increasingly easier.

Makes you wonder what people will collect 100 years from now as many of us collect things from our past now.Those photos were on glass plates.How long will a memory chip or CD last if thrown in a box and left in an attic or basement
.

[John Sukey]

About the only thing I could identify in the original pic is the soldier on the left is Royal Artillery going by the cap badge