Wigan Album

Lovely, Aitch! It appears to be from pre-colour photography , or at least before colour was used extensively, as it appears to have been coloured in after. My first school photo in the late 1950s was like that; my parents wanted it in colour and the teacher had to write down the colour of my eyes and hair and the dress I wore, and the photo was coloured in accordingly.

What I would give just to step into the photo.

A brilliant shot, however, not fond of the recolouring. It worked for portraits, but not for street scenes.

one of the best - can I put it on mi wall?

just above the trolley line on the left is a sign saying Marco polo, has anyone ever heard of it, and DK use it as you want, as I said its out of an old book I have with quite a lot of coloured shots in there, If I am not offending any one I will put more on.

I have this picture as an old post card along with other's.I think it's a painting rather than a photo.

Lovely picture. I'd like to go back with Dave, stand on the pavement & just look for a while.

Dennis, I can see what you mean about some things being better in black and white,(we have the film "A Christmas Carol" with Alastair Simm in colour, and much prefer the b&w version), but I think this photo has a charm of its own.Aitch, keep them coming!

Hi Irene, I agree with you 100% about the B&W version of "A Christmas Carol" with Alastair Simm.

If this is a painting, the attention to detail is remarkable,especially the buildings..brickwork etc.

Alex b, its a black & white photo,coloured in with water colour..

It is a re-coloured photograph. It would be under-exposed during development stage to allow the colours to show better. I remember doing a bit of this at school. If the photograph had been exposed correctly it would not look half a artistic. Like I say, I am not a fan, but that is one of the better examples I have seen.

I have the same book that pic came from "Wigan Now & Then"
The "now" pics are in colour but the "then" pics, would have been far better left black & white.
There are some awful re-coloured examples..

aitch, Im sure I've read somewhere that Marco Polo was a Coffee and Tea merchants.

This picture is not a modern colouring of an old photo, this is as it was published over a hundred years ago as a postcard, i have an original of this postcard that was sent to New York in December 1904, it was one of hundreds of different cards of Wigan published and sold by Will Smith of Wigan Lane. Most of them were colour printed in a similar way to the one above, they were always printed in Germany, until WW1 started. Remember when you look at the picture on your comp screen the original postcard it came from is only 5 ½ in by 3 ½ in, the colours looks a little better then.

if its a drawing the detail is draughtsman like,all the buildings are in perfect symetry.nevertheless its fantastic.