WW1 Pilot's (Wilhelm Hippert's) Wristwatch

SkunkPrince

I draw your attention to the logo in the lower left. 😀

OMTOM

It might be a barometer - thus for him an altimeter.

OMTOM

It might be a barometer - thus for him an altimeter.

JwRosenthal

The colorization is actually kind of neat, but I get why some may not like it. I have handled original 3 plate color negatives from the 1910’s -there was a large push in Russia to document the life of the “common” and “country folk” using this technology, they are truly amazing images. I have seen the original 1930’s Kodachrome (girl on the beach) which is in essence a dye process.
I have glass plate stereographic images that are all hand colored from the 1910’s-30’s. Some look cartoonish, some breathtaking. The art of colorizing monochromatic images is a technique as old as photography itself- I throw no shade at it…unless it’s towards Ted Turner.

OMTOM

Here's mine. But of course they were used as altimeters (with a different dial), for example in balloons, also around this time.

Archer

For me personally, it's messing with history in this context. If there's skill involved is largely irrelevant to me - there's skill involved in making a fake watch, but we don't celebrate that.

I will admit that my views on this are probably coloured by seeing too many Ted Turner colourized movies...that were poorly done and that I would rather see in their original form.

Omegafanman

(painting an original negative would be a big no of course)

JwRosenthal

Yeah, that a big fat no. The original source material is sacrosanct. The reason I don’t have an issue with the OP image is that it is very clearly watermarked as colorized. Kudos to the company/person that went to the extra effort to note that- it shows they had no intention of trying to deceive and this was an artistic rendering of sorts.
We maintain an archival database at work, all original gelatin negatives or digital RAW files are banked and under the lock and key of an archives team. All corrected/manipulated tiff and working files are open to the office for use in separated folders. Any images that are altered (such as mock-up images, enhanced images, stitched panoramic images etc) are noted as “photo illustrations”.
Of course someone could web-grab the OP image and remove the watermark, then falsely claim it is a long lost early color image to deceive, but that is the problem with open access to images on the web- the creator loses control.
I don’t see colorizing images as an ethical issue like making fake watches, more akin to redials which is a matter of taste. You either like a freshly redialed watch or you don’t. As long as it is clearly noted by the creator and understood by the viewer, I don’t have issue with it.