Early Colour Photographs

I often find old colour photographs that are hand-tinted black and white shots, but the genuine article is a rarity. Today I found three early examples of a medium that, to my surprise has existed since the 1860s. The first one, from 1919, is particularly gorgeous:

At first glance I wasn't sure where the picture was taken, but then I realised that it had to be British. What other country would have anything as daft as garden gnomes? The photograph was taken by an amateur - a Mrs A Barton - and is called 'Harvest Bounties'.

The next picture was taken by a Frenchman called Jean Tournassou in 1915:

'Soldiers in the Field' is beautifully composed, but perhaps it also shows how the French army, with their colourful uniforms and ceremonial swords, were an anachronism in the machine age (he said, quickly checking Wikipedia to see if an off the cuff sweeping generalisation can be backed up).

This picture was taken by Louis Lumiere of his mother and her granddaughter. It's hard to believe that this is actually a photograph, as the sepia hues and quality of light make this look like an oil painting. The granddaughter looks particularly Rubenesque.

Finally, two images that are a far cry from the age of Lumiere, but really exited me when I saw them yesterday: the surface of the planet Venus.

The only pictures I've seen up until now have always been distorted and of poor quality, but someone has taken the raw data sent back from the Soviet Venera probes and used it to reconstruct the actual view. As you can see, our "sister planet" looks even less inviting than Mars:

(On a nerdy, space probe note, I'm really looking forward to seeing the first close-up pictures of Pluto, when the NASA mission arrives there next July).