old blue photographs: In the attic of an old New England home, I came across a photo album from the early 1900s. All the photos in it are a lovely shade of blue. Would this have been...

BillyDuds Loc: North Carolina

In the attic of an old New England home, I came across a photo album from the early 1900s. All the photos in it are a lovely shade of blue. Would this have been their original color, or is it the result of some chemical change to B+W pics over the century or so since they were taken? (As best I can understand from Wikipedia, color film wasn't readily available until somewhere in the 1930s, so I'm certain these photos are not the result of degradation of color photos.)

edgorm Loc: Rockaway, New York

Cyanotypes?

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

edgorm wrote:

Cyanotypes?

Yep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotype
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1069&bih=735&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=old+Cyanotype+images&oq=old+Cyanotype+images&gs_l=img.3...7677.11938.0.12039.11.11.0.0.0.0.55.556.11.11.0...0.0...1c.1.4.img.r6XeiJQpEkw

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

Yes Billy they most probably were black and white but as you say over the years have slowly changed blue. But anyway they are to be treasured as they show a time so different to ours, just think those bairns have grown up and had children of their own and most probably been dead for years!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

BillyDuds wrote:

In the attic of an old New England home, I came across a photo album from the early 1900s. All the photos in it are a lovely shade of blue. Would this have been their original color, or is it the result of some chemical change to B+W pics over the century or so since they were taken? (As best I can understand from Wikipedia, color film wasn't readily available until somewhere in the 1930s, so I'm certain these photos are not the result of degradation of color photos.)

Quite a coincidence. I posted this recently.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-97755-1.html

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/black-and-white-and-blue/

corryhully Loc: liverpool uk

the are cyanotypes.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-87869-1.html

and good fun they are.

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

In fact this was a process and anyone who worked with monochrome prints should be able to tell you that monochromatic prints (incorrectly called black and white) were often sepia or blue toned, other colours were also done.

http://www.wikihow.com/Sepia-Tone-a-Black-and-White-Print

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

Well I have learned something new.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Doddy wrote:

Well I have learned something new.

I think you learned something "old".

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

GoofyNewfie wrote:

Doddy wrote:

Well I have learned something new.

I think you learned something "old".

...from someone old?

wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

On my Nikon D90 in the monochrome menu cyanotype is listed along with sepia, red, etc. Used "tone" prints with rite dye and my darkroom days for fun and something different. To Sepia tone you bleached the print until the image was almost gone the put it in the sepia toner and the image would come back in sepia tone. - Dave

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

wilsondl2 wrote:

To Sepia tone you bleached the print until the image was almost gone the put it in the sepia toner and the image would come back in sepia tone. - Dave

You forgot to mention the smell!
I even miss that.

JudyTee23 Loc: Eastern U. S.

BillyDuds wrote:

In the attic of an old New England home, I came across a photo album from the early 1900s. All the photos in it are a lovely shade of blue. Would this have been their original color, or is it the result of some chemical change to B+W pics over the century or so since they were taken? (As best I can understand from Wikipedia, color film wasn't readily available until somewhere in the 1930s, so I'm certain these photos are not the result of degradation of color photos.)

Those are examples of the 'Cyanotype" process which was invented around 1840. Attaining image permanence was a problem with early silver-based photo printing methods. Cyanotype was based on ferric (iron) salts rather than silver.

The process fell into disuse by about 1860, as methods were discovered that aided the permanence of silver based prints.

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

You can still do it. You contact print a negative or object to the paper using sunlight. No darkroom is required.

Cyanotype kits can be found here: http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_search.php?rfnp=10&q=cyanotype&rfnc=104&

Bunko.T Loc: Western Australia.

BillyDuds wrote:

In the attic of an old New England home, I came across a photo album from the early 1900s. All the photos in it are a lovely shade of blue. Would this have been their original color, or is it the result of some chemical change to B+W pics over the century or so since they were taken? (As best I can understand from Wikipedia, color film wasn't readily available until somewhere in the 1930s, so I'm certain these photos are not the result of degradation of color photos.)

This is what I've done with one of them.
I've done a lot of work with similar pic's recently. I got tem back to B&W by fixing the saturation. I did this with Picasa in a couple of minutes.