Early Colour Photograph?

[NoelRosedale]

I recently purchased the attached image. It’s titled ‘Sunrise Over Singapore Harbour’ and attributed to Tom Johnstone of Kodak, taken 1933. It would be very early for a colour photograph. Does anyone think it could be a colourised image? And has anyone heard of or know anything about Tom Johnstone of Kodak? You thoughts and help would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Noel

 

[Kino]

This could be an early dye transfer print using the "two-color" process.

Kodak made the relief matrix material and dyes for Technicolor two-color motion picture film at that time, but the Kodak Dye Transfer system that used three-colors for still photography wasn't introduced to the public until the 1940's.

Being that it LOOKS like a two-color image, I would speculate that there is a good chance this Johnstone might have been experimenting with dye transfer prints as part of the eventual release of the three color system, but that is just pure speculation.

Please contact The George Eastman House Museum at https://www.eastman.org/photography.

If they don't know about it, no one does...

 

[NoelRosedale]

Many thanks Kino for the swift reply. I’ve emailed The GEHM so hopefully they can shed some light on Tom Johnstone.

 

[Xiong Chiamiov]

It's not really that early for color photography. Color wasn't cheap for consumers for a while, but early stuff was done in the 1850s and there were a fair number of pretty impressive color photographs by the 1910s. Give all of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_photography a read sometime, it's interesting.