WWII era color
I was stumbling and came across an amazing website: 14 Rare Color Photos From the FSA-OWI. My initial response to the first few photos was that they were fake. Obviously the result of a high budget, excellent casting, and a great costume designer. I felt like there was no way that these high resolution color images could have been taken more than 60 years ago. After all, every picture I've seen from the World War II era has been in black and white.
I felt like the rich colors, excellent lighting and great foreground focus is certainly the work of modern photographers but then I did a little research. Color film was in mass production in 1935 and fine camera equipment had been around long before that! After reading up a bit on the history of the photos I did realize that they were indeed real. I'm not sure why I felt so disconnected from the people of the past and for some reason seeing people from 60 years ago that look just like we do, (only wearing different clothes and accepting segregation) only now in color, has had some weird effect on my perception of times gone by. I guess some small part of me felt like color was only something recent generations were able to witness when it's really just been that the past has been portrayed in black and white in all modern media.
Growing up only seeing black and white images of our grandparent's generation has really made me cherish these few photos and long for more. It really makes me wonder why they weren't all in color and how my kids are going to feel about our parent's generation when portrayed in the media. Will all men be wearing orange polyester and have mustaches? Will all women have feathered hair and bell bottoms? Or will it all just be filmed with modern cameras using an expensive lens that gives it the cheap grainy/smokey porn effect? It remains to be seen.