For those of you who don’t know, the Library of Congress recently took the unusual but comendable step of uploading an initial 3000 (and counting - now over 6,500) images from its vast collection to Flickr, the popular picture hosting site. The idea behind this move is to invite the public to tag the images adding metadata to those which previously had little or none. The response apparently has been astounding. You can view the entire (and amazing) Flickr photostream HERE.

Amongst the photostream are 382 photochrom images. Photochrom is a process invented in Switzerland in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schmid whereby colourized images are produced from black and white photographic negatives via direct photographic transfer of a negative on to lithographic printing plates. The process was very popular in the late 19th century when colour photography was still not commercially viable. The resultant images benefit from beautiful and vivid colours.

Take a look at these examples from the L.O.C. Flickr photostream (best viewed by clicking images for full size)

Exchange Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark

Vik in Eidfjord, Hardanger Fjord, Norway

 Castle Street and municipal buildings, Aberdeen, Scotland

Parliament buildings, Quebec

Whirlpool Rapids, looking up Niagara

You can browse 6,500 photochrom images by subject on the L.O.C. website HERE.