Unidentified Processes

1900

Various

Photographs of unidentified color film technologies. Several different principles and times. Feel free to contact us if you can help identifying them!

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Unidentified Processes from the Kodak Film Samples Collection and the Cinematography Collection. Credit: National Science and Media Museum Bradford. Photographs by Barbara Flueckiger in collaboration with Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Film Colors.
Unidentified Processes from the Kodak Film Samples Collection and the Cinematography Collection. Credit: National Science and Media Museum Bradford. Photographs by Barbara Flueckiger in collaboration with Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Film Colors.
Unidentified Processes from the Kodak Film Samples Collection and the Cinematography Collection. Credit: National Science and Media Museum Bradford. Photographs by Barbara Flueckiger in collaboration with Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Film Colors.

Lee and Turner

1899

|

Frederick Marshall Lee and Edward Raymond Turner

Additive 3 color: Rotary filter

“Frederick Marshall Lee, of Walton, and Edward Raymond Turner, of Hounslow, to whom is usually accorded the credit of achieving the first practical results in additive projection. Their experimental work was financed by Charles Urban, a ...

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„Their projector […] used three lenses and a special filter wheel which enabled every frame of the film to be projected three times in succession through the appropriate filter as it passed through the triple frame projector aperture. Although it eventually led to the Kinemacolor two colour process, the Lee and Turner patent was not successful“. Source: Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press.
"The First Color Moving Pictures", from the YouTube channel of the National Media Museum. [quote id="1"]
Lee Turner projector in the Media History Museum in Bradford.
„In 1899 Lee and Turner obtained a patent for a three colour process of cinematography requiring a single lens camera […] making a recurring sequence of red green and blue exposures through a rotating filter cum shutter“. Source: Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press.
„In 1899 Lee and Turner obtained a patent for a three colour process of cinematography requiring a single lens camera […] making a recurring sequence of red green and blue exposures through a rotating filter cum shutter“. Source: Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press.
„Their projector […] used three lenses and a special filter wheel which enabled every frame of the film to be projected three times in succession through the appropriate filter as it passed through the triple frame projector aperture. Although it eventually led to the Kinemacolor two colour process, the Lee and Turner patent was not successful“. Source: Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press.
National Media Museum, UK. Lee and Turner Colour Projector, 1902.
Source: Klein, Adrian Bernhard (Cornwell-Clyne) (1940): Colour Cinematography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co.
Illustration of the process from National Media Museum's short documentary.
38 mm positive of the Lee Turner film showing the three b/w images for the three color records. Credit: Brian Pritchard.

16 Images in 1 Gallery

Lascelles Davidson

1898

|

William Norman Lascelles Davidson

Additive 3 color: Rotary filter

“Apparently, associated with W. Friese-Greene, in the same year, Captain William Norman Lascelles-Davidson, also of Brighton, patented a triple lens motion picture camera (E.P. 23,863, 1898). The colour filters revolved either behind the lenses, ...

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Drawing from E.P. 13,468, 1901.

1 Image

Chromolithography

1898

|

(Technique adapted from print media and laterna magica)

Applied colors: printing

Widely used in print media around 1900, the chromolithographic printing process was first adapted for the Laterna Magica and then utilized to produce early animated films primarily aimed at children. These films were usually very short ...

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[U-Boot]. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. Photograph of the chromolithographic nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
Box Der Film fürs Heimkino. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
Box "Film for Home Cinema". Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
Box "Attention! Celluloid Film". Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
Boxes and loops. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
Box and loops. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Barbara Flueckiger.
Film can for Chromolithographic Loop. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Filmcolors
Film can for Chromolithographic Loop. Credit: Deutsches Filminstitut DIF. iPhone photo by Noemi Daugaard, SNSF Filmcolors

119 Images in 3 Galleries

Friese-Greene

1898

|

William Friese-Greene

Additive 2 or 3 color: Alternately stained

“In 1898 William Friese-Greene, a professional portrait photographer by trade, demonstrated in London ‘the first process of true natural-color cinematography.’ His program consisted of ‘a series of animated natural-color pictures,’ and although this demonstration aroused considerable interest at the time, Friese-Greene was unable to exploit this system on a profitable basis. Undaunted, he eventually developed a total of four different color methods.”

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Credit: Courtesy of BFI National Archive. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Film: Kino the Girl of Colour (GB 1920, William Friese-Greene, Claude Friese-Greene).
Credit: Cinémathèque française, conservatoire des techniques, Paris.
Credit: Paolo Cherchi Usai. Source: Cherchi Usai, Paolo (2000): Silent Cinema. London: BFI.

112 Images in 2 Galleries

Theory of three-color photography

1897

|

Arthur Freiherr von Hübl

Theory

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Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Three-Colour Photography. Three-Colour Printing and the Production of Photographic Pigment Pictures in Natural Colours. London: W.A. Penrose.
Source: Hübl, Arthur Freiherr von (1904): Die Dreifarbenphotographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Dreifarbendruckes und der photographischen Pigmentbilder in natürlichen Farben. Halle a. S.: Druck und Verlang von Wilhelm Knapp. Photograph by Martin Weiss, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.

11 Images

Isensee

1897

|

Hermann Isensee

Additive 3 color: Rotary filter

“The first patent that has been found was granted to H. Isensee and he placed in front of the lens, both in taking and projection, a rotary shutter with three 120 degrees sectors in the usual colors.” (Wall, E.J. (1925): The History of ...

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Source: D.R.P. 98,799, Dec. 17, 1897
Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: D.R.P. 98,799, Dec. 17, 1897

2 Images

Lenticular Screen

1896

|

Raphael E. Liesegang

Additive 3 color: Lenticular screen

“Every element of a cross-lined screen acts as a pinhole camera, and reproduces an image of the aperture of the objective in whose rear focal plane it is placed. Thus, when using a square stop, the dots in the halftone produced will be square ...

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Credit: Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich. Source: Ede, François (1994): Jour de fête ou la couleur retrouvée. Cahiers du Cinéma: Paris.
Principle of capturing and projecting lenticular film. Credit: Joakim Reuteler and Rudolf Gschwind, Digital Humanities Lab, University of Basel, Switzerland. Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich.
Principle of capturing and projecting lenticular film. Credit: Joakim Reuteler and Rudolf Gschwind, Digital Humanities Lab, University of Basel, Switzerland. Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich.
Principle of capturing and projecting lenticular film. Credit: Joakim Reuteler and Rudolf Gschwind, Digital Humanities Lab, University of Basel, Switzerland. Illustration by Sarah Steinbacher, Multimedia & E-Learning-Services, University of Zurich.

4 Images

Toning / metallic toning (French: virage, German: Tonung)

1896

Applied colors: Replacement of silver

In contrast to tinting, toning is not the simple immersion of a film into a dye bath but involves a chemical reaction converting the silver image. In this reaction the neutral silver image in the emulsion of the positive film is replaced by one consisting of colored metal compounds. These were usually iron ferrocyanide (Prussian Blue) for blue, copper ferrocyanide for red/brown, silver sulfide for sepia or rarely uranium ferrocyanide for reddish brown. Toning had been used in still photography before. But since film was projected on the screen it required translucent toning compounds.

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Hongarije (FRA 1926, Anonymous). Credit: EYE Film Museum. Photographs of the tinted, toned and stencil colored nitrate print by Olivia Kristina Stutz, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Virages sur films à support teinté Pathé, Film teinté lavande (virage bleu) lavender tinted stock with blue toning, the same image from a different copy of the book, combination of tungsten backlight with daylight toplight. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Source: Didiée, L. (1926): Le Film vierge Pathé. Manuel de développement et de tirage. Paris: Pathé. [quote id='16']
Photomicrograph, 25x. Credit: Norbert Wey, Institute of Pathology, University of Zurich.
Photomicrograph, 50x. Credit: Norbert Wey, Institute of Pathology, University of Zurich.
Photomicrograph, 100x. Credit: Norbert Wey, Institute of Pathology, University of Zurich.
Toning samples from the Tinting and Toning Workshop by Ulrich Ruedel, Seminar "Materiality of Film" by Barbara Flueckiger and Bregt Lameris, Department of Film Studies, University of Zurich, in collaboration with Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern, David Landolf and Brigitte Paulowitz.
Toning samples from the Tinting and Toning Workshop by Ulrich Ruedel, Seminar "Materiality of Film" by Barbara Flueckiger and Bregt Lameris, Department of Film Studies, University of Zurich, in collaboration with Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern, David Landolf and Brigitte Paulowitz.

1549 Images in 62 Galleries

Tinting (French: teintage, German: Virage)

1896

Applied colors: Dyed gelatin

For tinting, the positive print is immersed into a variety of dye baths, scene by scene. To this end, the print has to be cut into the corresponding fragments and reassembled after the dyeing process. The dye homogeneously attaches over the entire image’s gelatin including the perforation area. Usually synthetic dyes were dissolved in a weak acid solution to form a chemical bond with the gelatin.

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Salomé (USA 1922, Charles Bryant). Credit: George Eastman Museum. Photographs of the tinted, toned and Handschiegl nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Source: Agfa Kine-Handbuch. Berlin: Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation. (around 1927, estimated).
See Mazzanti (2009: 71). Credit: Cineteca di Bologna. Film: Lyda Borelli in Malombra (Italy, 1917).
As coloured for South America, see Mazzanti (2009: 71). Credit: Cineteca di Bologna.
As coloured for the domestic Italian market, see Mazzanti (2009: 71). Credit: Cineteca di Bologna.
Photomicrograph, 25x. Credit: Norbert Wey, Institute of Pathology, University of Zurich.
Photomicrograph, 50x. Credit: Norbert Wey, Institute of Pathology, University of Zurich.
Photomicrograph, 50x. Credit: Norbert Wey, Institute of Pathology, University of Zurich.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Dagli Appennini alle Ande (ITA 1916, Umberto Paradisi). Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Dagli Appennini alle Ande (ITA 1916, Umberto Paradisi). Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Dagli Appennini alle Ande (ITA 1916, Umberto Paradisi). Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Dagli Appennini alle Ande (ITA 1916, Umberto Paradisi). Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Dagli Appennini alle Ande (ITA 1916, Umberto Paradisi). Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Dagli Appennini alle Ande (ITA 1916, Umberto Paradisi). Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Gaumont Woche.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Gaumont Woche.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Gaumont Woche.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Gaumont Woche.
Credit: Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern. Film: Selznick News.

4493 Images in 111 Galleries

Joly

1896

|

John Joly

Additive 3 color: Line screen process, still photography

“In 1894 Professor John Joly of Dublin patented a process for producing a screen of red, green and blue-violet lines by ruling them on a gelatin-coated glass plate. Joly used ruling machines of great accuracy, with drawing pens trailed across ...

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Photomicrograph (20x) of a Joly screen. Credit: Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film.
Credit: Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film.
Source: Coe, Brian (1978): Colour Photography. The First Hundred Years 1840-1940. London: Ash & Grant.
Credit: Gawain Weaver, Photograph Conservator, Gawain Weaver Art Conservation, San Anselmo, CA.
Source: Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 69.
Source: Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 22.
Source: Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 23.

7 Images

Hand coloring

1895

|

(technique inherited from lantern slides)

Applied colors: Manual application

Coloring of individual frames by the use of very fine brushes. The process was previously applied to lantern slides. Any water based translucent dye was suited for the process, most often the coloring was done with acid dyes.

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Loïe Fuller (FRA 1905, Anonymous). Credit: BFI National Archive. Photographs of the hand colored nitrate print by Olivia Kristina Stutz, ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors.
Métamorphoses du papillon (FRA 1904, Gaston Velle). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph of the nitrate prints by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Turconi Collection by courtesy of George Eastman Museum, Moving Image Collection. Film: Zara.
Credit: Paolo Cherchi Usai. Source: Cherchi Usai, Paolo (2000): Silent Cinema. London: BFI.
Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions.

250 Images in 18 Galleries

Chromogenic development

1895

|

Raphael E. Liesegang

Subtractive 3 color: Chromogenic development

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Lippmann

1891

|

Gabriel Lippmann

Direct color photography: Interference, still photography

“In 1891, Professor Gabriel Lippmann demonstrated to the French Académie des Sciences interference colour photographs of the spectrum and of stained glass windows, taken by a modification of Wiener’s method. An exceedingly fine grained, ...

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Source: Coe, Brian (1978): Colour Photography. The First Hundred Years 1840-1940. London: Ash & Grant.
Source: Lavédrine, Bertrand (2009): Photographs of the Past. Process and Preservation. Los Angeles: Getty Publications.
Source: Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press.
Source: Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 19.
Source: Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 235.

5 Images

Silver dye-bleach

1889

|

Raphael E. Liesegang

Subtractive 3 color: Dye-bleach

“Probably the first use of the catalytic property of silver was in 1889, when E. Howard Farmer disclosed the action of a silver image upon strong dichromate solutions (Eng. P. 17773/89). When a plate or film, containing a silver image, is immersed ...

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Sensitizing theory

1885

|

Hermann Wilhelm Vogel

Color theory

“Dr. H. W. Vogel, the discoverer of colour sensitizers, made three-colour photography possible, and has been the first to recognise the relation between colour sensitiveness of plate and printing colour in the following principle made known in ...

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Hydrotypie / Hydrotype / dye transfer

1880

|

Charles Cros

Subtractive 3 color: Dye transfer, still photography

“In the imbibition process, a dye image is transferred from a gelatin relief image to a receiving layer made either of paper or film. Charles Cros described this method of “hydrotypie” transfer printing in 1880 and suggested it ...

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Dye Imbibition Process

1875

|

Ernest Edwards

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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson.

1 Image

Orthochromatic stock

1873

|

Hermann Wilhelm Vogel

b/w photography: Orthochromatic b/w stock

“In 1873 Dr Vogel discovered that by adding dyes to the sensitive material, its sensitivity could be extended, so that it would record green as well as blue. The new ‘orthochromatic’ plates were available commercially from 1882. The ...

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„Film orthochromatique (film négatif Pathé Standard)“ (orthochromatic stock). Source: Didiée, L. (1926): Le Film vierge Pathé. Manuel de développement et de tirage. Paris: Pathé.
„Film ordinaire (non orthochromatique)“ (Normal, non-orthochromatic stock). Source: Didiée, L. (1926): Le Film vierge Pathé. Manuel de développement et de tirage. Paris: Pathé.

2 Images

Proposal of a variety of processes of three-color photography

1869

|

Louis Ducos du Hauron

Theory: still photography

“Louis Ducos du Hauron is reported to have become interested in the reproduction of colors by photography in 1859, when he was twentyone years old (Potonniée, 1939). In 1862 he submitted to a friend of his family, M. Lelut, a paper embodying ...

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"Du Hauron invented his Chromographoscope in 1874. It could be used either as a camera or an additive viewer." Source: Coote, Jack H. (1993): The Illustrated History of Colour Photography. Surbiton, Surrey: Fountain Press.
An early three-color print by Louis Ducros Du Hauron, 1877.

2 Images

Proposal of a variety of processes of three-color photography

1869

|

Charles Cros

Theory

Description of a variety of color processes, even for images in motion by the use of a rotary shutter.

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Color theory

1861

|

James Clerk Maxwell

Additive 3 color: Additive 3 color, still photography

“In a lecture on the theory of three primary colors, given at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on May 17, 1861, Maxwell presented the first demonstration of a photograph in color. According to the records of that meeting (Maxwell, 1890c, ...

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Source: Coe, Brian (1981): The History of Movie Photography. Westfield, N.J.: Eastview Editions.

1 Image

Trichromatic vision

1802

|

Thomas Young

Theory: Color vision

Theory of trichromatic vision proposed by Thomas Young.

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Kingston Process

191?

|

Arthur Kingston

|

England

Additive three color process: rotary filters

Three black-and-white color separations were printed consecutively on one film strip and projected through the corresponding color filters, thus combining to one color image on screen.

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Kodachrome used for duplication

[1964]

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