World War One in Color

I just found out about a book of color photographs of World War One published recently by Taschen, which you can find here. I had no idea that such photos even existed but they were apparently taken with a French-patented process called autochrome that required a lengthy exposure time. That means that there aren't many color images of actual combat but many of the photos are of soldiers preparing for battle and of the destruction to towns and cities from the fighting.

When all most people see of this time is black and white there is an inevitable disconnect there, since we don't see the world that way. In most photos of this time (and earlier) it's easy to conceptualize the people in them as being ghosts, not quite real. But, with these color images, it drives home that they were real, living people like us today. The war has largely disappeared from living memory so it's important to keep the memory of that conflict alive. This book and the photos contained within it will help drive home the real, human reality of war for generations to come.