Flickr features Desolation Row, B&W shots from a “futuristic”–and now abandoned–housing development in Taiwan. [Via]
Speaking of futures that never were, here’s the late Braniff Airways’ view of what air travel could be, circa 1975. (If you wore the tinfoil pants, would the TSA then let you carry a Coke on board?) [Via] Oh, and related to retro, never-quite-happened air travel, have you seen the Goodyear Inflatoplane?
A sort of Flickr of the past, Square America bills itself as “A gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography.” Odd finds include “Defaced,” a gallery of photos with faces scratched out. [Via]
Among other surprises from the past, I had no idea that color photography existed in World War I. Kottke links to this and other collections.
Ah, the days before medical malpractice, when you could wire up a guy’s face & shock the crap out of it… In the 1850’s neurologist Guillaume Duchenne combined electricity & photography to record the creepy The Mechanism of Human Facial Expressions.
If you are interested in really old color photography, you should check out the incredible The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/). Color photos circa 1910. Sick.