imagine a different world.

People my age are spoiled. We have information at our fingertips and have grown up without knowing anything different. Who was the main actor who played in the movie The Wizard? IMDB.com has it in a second. Who was the 23rd president? Wikipedia has that answer. We don’t need a library, we can travel to our nearest computer and obtain the answer to any question in just a matter of moments. 

Not only are people spoiled because of the Internet but also because of photography. If you didn’t know, cameras weren’t always digital, people did use film at one point. My mom still continues to use it to this day. And they also had darkrooms as well where each person had to process the film. Not one-hour pharmacies that can do it for you. And well, color wasn’t always there either.

Although I took a photography class in High School where I did work in a dark room, all I really know is digital. All I know is if I really wanted to, I could open up any photograph in Photoshop and edit it a 1,000 different ways. My first “real” camera was digital. All I use now is, well, digital.

Because of the current state of photography, the history amazes me. Old time black and white photos always intrigue me simply because they didn’t have the option of color. Well, that is until 1907 and the autochrome process. In a new Daily Mail article, the first colour images of Britain are highlighted. 

Through images like the ones above, we are able to see, in color, a different world. A different life. The above photo was taken in 1919 during the World War One victory parade in Kinghtsbridge. Can you imagine seeing a parade like that if we won the Iraq War? I cannot.

We are able to see photos like this one in color and many other ones simply because of potatoes and a bizarre process. I am amazed. I think the Daily Mail puts it best, “For the first time, vivid pictures of a world still largely unexplored were revealed to a mesmerised public.”

This photo illustrates London’s Fleet Street in 1924, a lifetime ago. The architecture and old time look intrigue me. I have never been to London or Britain before, but I doubt it looks anything like this photo today.

Minus the man on the corner of this street, this photo, taken in 1913, reminds me of the end of my mom’s hometown street in Steubenville, Ohio. Travel up the street and right before the circle, take a left and there you are. Good times had there…

If these three photos have wet your appetite, head on over to Daily Mail to see a few more. There you can see Britain, ”in fascinating detail, a nation on the brink of historical change and which in a few short years would be irrevocably altered by the events of World War One.”