1925 Colorization - An Oliver Stoning?

[Paul S]

If you haven't found the shorpy.com site, take a look for a real treat. They have a huge trove of large format negatives from the 1900-1940s period they have been posting in HQ. Most of the subjects are located in D.C. and NYC. Some of the pictures are being colorized by various site visitors with remarkable results, but the c.1925 picture below caught my eye for its airplane content and the uniform. I'm no vintage AAC uniform expert...were there ever blue Army uniforms worn by the AAC, or is this an example of an Oliver Stoning, where the truth may be another color, like Olive Drab?

[CliffP]

If you haven't found the shorpy.com site, take a look for a real treat. They have a huge trove of large format negatives from the 1900-1940s period they have been posting in HQ. Most of the subjects are located in D.C. and NYC. Some of the pictures are being colorized by various site visitors with remarkable results, but the c.1925 picture below caught my eye for its airplane content and the uniform. I'm no vintage AAC uniform expert...were there ever blue Army uniforms worn by the AAC, or is this an example of an Oliver Stoning, where the truth may be another color, like Olive Drab?

 

Hi Paul,

 

The uniform should be olive drab. Is that Billy Mitchell in the middle of the picture?

BTW, love that website, I'm up to page 100 with only 500+ more pages to go.

 

:-)

 

Cliff

[John Cooper]

Great site Paul this is the first I have seem... Thanks.

 

John

[hawk3370]

Hi Paul,

 

The uniform should be olive drab. Is that Billy Mitchell in the middle of the picture?

BTW, love that website, I'm up to page 100 with only 500+ more pages to go.

 

:-)

 

Cliff

 

Cliff-Paul

Perhaps he is a Pennyslvania or Maryland Highway Patrol Officer that just gave these two a ticket for parking their aircraft on the roadway?

Terry

[Paul S]

Thanks for confirming my suspicion, gents. Things like this will likely find their ways into circulation and be put forth by ardent proponents arguing for its validity, just like the JFK movie has or will be considered by future legions as settled historical fact.

 

I've dabbled some with colorization and found it incredibly tedious using programs with which I'm familiar (Irfanview, GIMP, and maybe a couple of others). However, there should be or maybe someday will be a program available to do the job quickly, automatically, and accurately. All colors of the spectrum present themselves as a certain shade of gray which can be read and replaced with the correct color pixel; however, I haven't yet found a program that will do that without significant manual input...trial and error.

 

It's sure a tempting prospect to consider seeing some of these old pictures in proper color renditions.

 

PS

[Paul S]

Hi Paul,

 

Is that Billy Mitchell in the middle of the picture?

 

:-)

 

Cliff

Yes.