"You are wrong on all counts. Kodachrome came out in 1935 and was certainly not too expensive to use."

I can see already that I'm wasting my valuable time challenging someone who is clueless.

We're not talking about Kodachrome. Koda-CHROME — as the suffix indicates — is a color REVERSAL process . . . meaning, no negative is created as a final result from which one strikes positive prints. We're talking about color NEGATIVE. If you don't understand the difference between color-negative film and color-reversal film (e.g., Koda-CHROME, Fuji-CHROME, Agfa-CHROME, etc.) then you understand nothing about the technical aspect of photography, and nothing about its history.

Finally, we're not talking about "art" photographers. We're talking about photo-journalists. If you don't understand the difference between the two, then you also don't understand the photography business.

The first color photographs were negative-positive process and derived from the color-theory work of physicist James Clerk Maxwell. The first color photograph ever taken, apparently, was by him. It's called "Tartan Ribbon". See:

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_p/1_photog...

and,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tartan...

Bye!

settle your feathers. I promise only to appreciate your fine art and to never colorize it. and if I see your work colorized I'll make a citizen's arrest with my flare gun.
maybe plusaf has not seen your work-plusaf-meet DK the artist-
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/44...

yes, copyright law is a little screwed up. I think it should be the life of the creator. I think one reason is politics. The original thought process was reasonable time period to get a reasonable return. Our last copyright laws were passed because we had some Disney characters getting ready to expire. ;)

I am curious to get your opinion on another story that was in the news recently. Negatives from Sir Ernest Shackeltons Antartica exploration were found and developed. They were 100 years old. The natural
assumption is that the groups photographer took the photos. Should they have been released?

"There was color film already in existence when lots of these photographs were taken."

Except it was expensive to manufacture; most cameras that shot B&W were not able to shoot color negative because until Kodak invented integral tri-pack film — with the cyan/magena/yellow dye emulsion layers sandwiched together into one strip of film — color film existed as three separate strips, each strip sensitive to a primary color. Prior to Kodak's technological innovation in the 1950s, photographers — especially in photo-journalism — shot B&W mainly because of technical limitations and economics.

"It is not a case of, 'the photographer would have taken that in color if he could have'. NO HE WOULDN'T!!! Not ever! "

Sure he would. And the evidence that color was greatly desired in pictures of real life is the indisputable fact that painters used color to render scenes of real life: portraits, street scenes, social gathering scenes, etc. No great painter in the past ever chose grayscale to render realistic images.

You're just a B&W bigot. There are many such in the field of photography; and (as I've learned) mainly for one simple reason: most photographers don't know how to work with color effectively.

David, do you think that the credit given to the original photographer, clearly distinguishing it from the work of the colorizer, makes a difference in the property issue?

Plusaf, Im not in this fight but patents are limited. The "life " is short in human terms

Brav-O!