WW II Kodachromes

There's a red tractor pulling a bomber in one of the photos.
Kodachromes

Talk about some crisp , clear photos. They could only trust a red tractor with that important of a task. See the farm family that made a window for the house out of the old car widshield. Very nice photo collection. Hard to believe they are even old they are so clear and colorful. Nice.

Those are mind boggling for us that weren't born yet. Very good photos. By the way, I came along shortly after Truman got the surrender. Nov 1 45.

Fantastic. Really amazing pictures. I'm too young to know anything about that. Truly fascinating and it took my mind off my stupid transmission. Thank you!

I didnt even think that there was any color before color TV came out. I was born in the 60s. Amazing photos.
Thank you.

Fantastic pix. What a photographer. Think I will throw out my TV and watch these over and over. Remind me so much of my own family. Some of these before I was born and I am 68. Dave Thanks a million.

I have seen these before but thanks for posting them.
What tickles me most about them though is how the women - even though they are doing manual factory labor - wear finger nail polish, lipstick, bows, ribbons, fancy socks, pretty skirts and slacks and blouses, hairdos, etc and are all just such lovely, wholesome girls.
I wonder if the photos were staged so that they had time to dress up or did the photographer just pick the comely ones to shoot.

Russians had colour photos sort of in the 1800's. Took 3 pictures with red/blue/green filter onto b&w film.

The picture of the half track shows you why the army switched over to the non-directional tires.

Very nice photos. However I have my doubts about them being the way the original photos looked. I think they may have used modern technology to make them look that good. I am not saying the photos are phonies, just the quality of them.

on backwards ? bill

The red tractor pulling the aircraft looks to me like an I-4, or an I-6 the industrial versions of a Farmall H or M. What do the rest of you think? (My $0.02 worth. jal-SD)

awesome pix ,, makes you feel like it was taken in just yesterday , the gals look GREAT ,, My Mom and aunts built airplanes at CURTIS WRIGHT aircraft in Louisville for the WAR effort , notice how bright the metal on the equipment ,,

Ya gotta remember that this was 4"x5" film. not 35mm. The clarity of that big format was amazing, just not too practical for anyone but a professional photographer. I used to use a Yashica MAT-124 twin lens many years ago, which used 120mm film. It was far better than anything 35mm, but it was bulky.

All I can say is No wonder they were called the greatest generation.

I agree with others' comments about the scenes likely being staged. Evidenced by all hands being clean and the use of lipstick by some of the gals. Note the very minimal amount of jewelry, even a watch was a luxury item in those days. Only one gal seems to be wearing earrings.

Photography was suprisingly advanced then.
Kodachrome film was high class. I have a small group of Kodachrome slides taken by my Dad during WW2 on 35 mm film. Their color and detail are still excellent. As I recall, Kodachrome was a slide or movie film, and purchasing and processing was quite expensive then. The better camera lenses (many were German made) were incredible in strong light. The large format (4X5) required a very large heavy lens with multiple glass elements properly coated to eliminate internal reflections withing the multiple element lens. Different types of glass were used within the same camera lens. Comparitively, most of our consumer digital cameras use plastic lenses of rather poor quality. Just ordinary photo film in small format is rated to the equivalent of a 10 megapixtel digital, and with the large format and the high quality Kodachrome film, it might be equivalent to 100 megapixtel digital (my guess). Today's digital has the great advantage of being instantly viewed and electronically transmitted, but it is no match for the quality of professional cameras with good film used in strong lighting in the 40's through the late 80's.

Paul in MN