January 24, 2008
Kodachrome history
Good man, good gun: a private of the armored forces does some practice shooting with a 30-calibre Browning machine gun, Fort Knox, Ky. The gun is mounted on a pedestal for anti-aircraft work. June 1942. Palmer, Alfred T., photographer. (Click on photo for larger version)
Tank crew standing in front of their M-4 "Sherman" tank, Ft. Knox, Ky., June 1942. Palmer, Alfred T., photographer. (Click on photo for larger version)
The Library of Congress has posted more than 1,600 color photographs taken between 1939 and 1944 onto the Flickr website, where the public is invited to view and download the images, as well as leave comments with any information about the subjects depicted.
The quality of the photos is arresting; rich, vibrant color and often striking compositions serve to grab the eye and make you want to linger over each image. The detail is astonishing, and the color gives the pictures a sense of immediacy that is lacking in the more common black and white photos of the era. There are times when it's difficult to believe that more than 65 years have passed since these pictures were taken, the details of everyday life visible in the photos so little changed in the intervening years.
And it's more than a little sobering to think that so many of the young, handsome men in the pictures would soon be dead, and that everyone else -- the kids, the Rosie the Riveter types photographed at the factories, the civilians at home -- are almost all gone, now.
Time lays low what the Axis could not.
Anyhow, I'm going to post some of these images over the coming days. Tell me what you think.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 24, 2008 07:33 AM
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Comments
Great site! Thanks for sharing! I was hoping to find some submarine related pictures, but didn't see any. Mostly industrial stuff, aircraft and construction, but still great. Great quality, too!
Posted by: sonarman at January 24, 2008 04:47 PM