Pop Up Book

The First Colour Photograph Pop Up Book and Illustrations

This is a Pop-Up book I designed showing how the first colour photograph was taken in 1861.

I gathered a lot of information about the topic, this way not only I could understand the process of how the first colour photograph was taken,

I could also experience part of what the physicist James Clerk Maxwell and the photographer Thomas Sutton experienced when they produced the first colour photograph.

I took a photograph of a tartan ribbon like they did with colour filters, red, green and blue. Each image was then turned black and white because the original photographs were taken in black and white.  After that, I overlaid the colour red, green and blue on top of the black and white photographs and created transparencies as they did. I used a tartan ribbon not only because they use a tartan ribbon for the first colour photograph, but also because it was meaningful for James Clerk Maxwell as it has a link to his heritage. James Clerk Maxwell was Scottish.

I created a pop-up book because the interaction with all the elements immerses the user into the journey that James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Sutton had creating the first colour photograph. It allows the user to put the colour filters red, green and blue on top of the camera popping up on the book. The idea of having the transparencies popping up on the book allows also the user to experience my journey recreating a colour photograph from the transparencies red, green and blue and experience what James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Sutton experienced when they created the first colour photograph.