Welcome once again dear tourists to the Bestie Museum of Old Photography. We realized of course that a museum for pictures on the Internet was foolish, and probably just some quick way to frame an article so that the writer didn’t have to do REAL work. Ha! What a hack!
Anyways, this much more serious museum will showcase some of the earliest colour photography. We realize that this may be confusing for some tourists, as they may have believed colour was the thing that was invented and the world itself was black and white for many years. That notion is, in fact, wrong, as it was a colour photo that was invented and the world has always been in colour.
This is 25 Of The Oldest Color Photos Showing What The World Looked Like 100 Years Ago, the tour.
1. 1914: Flower Street Vendor. Welcome and honoured guests, I present you with our first exhibit, a flower street vendor from Paris in the year 1914. Gaze in awe upon her and the flower’s beauty. Wonder to yourself: What is that stuff under the flowers? Is it seaweed? Is it just, like, lettuce or rhubarb or whatever? Truly, it is an enigma of a photo.
2. 1925: Two children next to a mountain. Heinz and Eva are the names of the children pictured here. Look at the beautiful landscape and remember that Heinz’s upcoming 10 years are going to be very tumultuous for the young man, and even worse for the girl if her last name is Braun.
3. 1911: Sisters in blue. Our third picture is one of family, wonder, and love. The two girls pictured are tying roses together, perhaps as some sort of gift. One may wonder who the gift is for, perhaps some father of theirs? Hopefully, he isn’t a soldier!
4. 1914: The Moulin Rouge. There are a lot of ways I can talk about this exhibit, dear tourists. Hey Sister, Go Sister, Soul Sister, Go Sister, perhaps? Or maybe I should go with a reference to Zidler and his diamond dogs? Something about Baz Luhrmann, perhaps?
5. 1909: Camouflage at the time. I am of course joking in my typical hilarious manner, oh treasured guests of mine. This woman adorned in the most brilliant of green dresses could never blend into anything, let alone some run-of-the-mill grass.
John Cimon Warburg6. 1910: A Woman and her dog. The name of this piece is actually: “Mrs. A Van Besten”. Whether that is the name of the woman or the dog remains unconfirmed. Well, at least by us it remains unconfirmed. Mystery sells tickets, okay?
7. 1915: Family on the beach. As you can see, my treasured guests and families enjoyed going on outings together 100 years ago as well. And they didn’t have phones to entertain themselves, so they probably had to talk to each other! Yes, I know, an insane and scary notion indeed.
8. 1914: The Eiffel Tower. This is of course before the events of 2002, where The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower took effect. What’s that? The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower is just a band? Will somebody READ these facts before we put them on the tour, please?
9. 1907: Little Red Riding Hood. This was of course the inspiration for the legendary fable, The three little pigs. Not pictured: the pigs, the straw, the sticks, the brick, the radioactive material, the houses, the wolf and the huffing and/or puffing.
10. 1917: A Girl Next to Some Soldier’s Equipment. Unfortunately, dear tourist, child soldiery was still an issue 100 years ago. Of course, back then you were EXPECTED to fight in the name of your country by the time you turned 7.
11. 1915: A Child playing pilot. Yet another sad example of the exploitation of children. How did they expect those tiny planes to go up against the Red Baron? It was a different time, we weren’t as aware as we are now.
12. 1915: Cows on a beach. Yes my sweet, innocent and loving guests, I too was surprised by this picture. Turns out, as I had not previously known, they did, in fact, have cows 100 years ago. Why weren’t there any Big Macs then, you ask? Again, different times, different awareness, etc, etc.
JOHN CIMON WARBURG13. 1907: Woman with a red umbrella in the forest. Fun fact, my spouse of a tourist, this was among one of the first colour pictures ever taken by Louis Lumière. Who of course we all know was the candlestick from Beauty and the Beast. Why he never took any pictures of that elegant ballroom, we’ll never know.
14. 1908: Orange vendors. After some mild research I have discovered that in 1908, Florida was, in fact, selling oranges. Was this some early Floridians trying to make a living? Or were they just hoarding oranges to stave off the waves of angry alligators, like in modern-day Florida?
15. 1914: Air Balloons. Ah yes, the air balloon. The absolute best, most foolproof and most importantly, the SAFEST way to travel. As we all know, nothing bad ever happened after 1914 involving balloons, hydrogen or air travel.
16. 1910: Beachgoers. Once again, we see that people ALSO enjoyed the beach 100 years ago. The people I feel the worst for are the women: fully clothed in long sleeves and long pants. They must be sweltering! Thank goodness we live in a more progressive time or we’d be losing women every year to heatstroke!
17. 1910: Girl Digging on a Beach. They should call this the museum of beach pictures! Haha, of course, I’m kidding. The most interesting part about this picture is the change of language associated with it. In 1910 this is what we’d call a mud digger, but in 2018 it means a big, dirty truck.
18. 1918: Charlie Chaplin standing in a corner. [Editor’s note: Sorry to interrupt the tour, dear guests, I was forced to remove a low-hanging fruit comment about Hitler from this entry. Jake has been added to A Naughty Writers Blacklist until further notice] Charlie Chaplin gave us The Kid, The Circus, A Dog’s Life and a bunch of other old movies we can all name but have never actually seen. Don’t even THINK about the unfortunate moustache. Forget about it.
19. 1908: Mark Twain reading. The top comment on this… er… “exhibit” was: “I wonder if his eyebrows ever got in the way of his reading”. After much reflection, expensive amounts of research and a lot of arguing we here at Bestie have come to the conclusion of: “probably, yeah”.
20. 1914: An outdoor market. As it turns out, a beautiful, smart, amazing guest of mine, Black Friday was just as big of a deal in 1914 as it is in 2018. These people are actually looking to buy the newest piece of technology: The iPod shuffle.
21. 1909: Girl beside an orange tree. Here we see yet another possible Floridian with her oranges. What’s that? Why yes, her eyes DO follow you wherever you go, why do you ask?
22. 1908: A rusty buoy. That’s a “buoy”, not a “boy”. Boy, would a rusty boy be sure would be silly. Also, I’m really glad I’m saying this joke out loud to a tour group and not in writing, or else it would look even SILLIER!
23. 1915: A harbour with boats. This early set of Game of Thrones was used back when George R.R. Martin started writing The Winds of Winter. Haha, of course, I’m kidding, he started that book about 100 years BEFORE.
24. 1915: A woman lying in front of her unidentified instruments. Yes. Unidentified instruments. Now, can the kids of the tour group please close their eyes and ears? Just for a second, it won’t take long. All good? All covered? Okay, it’s stuff for smoking opium.
Léon Busy25. 1913: Christina in Red. And now, we come to the final image of our tour, the one you’ve all been waiting to see, the feature picture itself, Christina in Red. Gaze upon her beauty, her grace, her… um… redness? I don’t know, listen, this museum is going to get shut down after this. We didn’t get enough good feedback, alright?
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