Design
Those Old Color Photographs of Paris You've Been Seeing? Not Quite Real.
Here's what the originals look like.
Have you seen the early 20th century color photos of Paris making the rounds on the internet? They show a city on the verge of change, where wall-plastered playbills, sprawling vegetable markets, and horse-and-buggies exist alongside shining automobiles and a new Metro system; a city whose population is largely working-class, a world away from the demographics of the French capital today.
For most of us, this pre-war city has always existed in black and white. But in these photographs, Paris is bursting with color. Their vibrant appearance makes them seem closer kin to the paintings of Monet and Renoir than to the work of the era's photographers.