This collection of rare photographs of London, spanning from the dark days of the Blitz to the triumphant celebrations of VE Day, was taken in a little-known photography process, Dufekler.
They give another perspective on the period between 1943 and 1945 when Nazi Germany conducted a sustained aerial bombing campaign against Britain.
Introduced as cinematic film in 1932 and as roll film in 1935, dufacolor is an early French and British additive color photographic film process for motion pictures and still photography.
It was based on the four-color screen photographic process invented by Frenchman Louis Dufay in 1908. Dufekler worked on the same principles as the autochrome process, but achieved his result using a slightly different method.
The film base was painted blue, printed with mosaics using a resistant greasy ink, and bleached. The resulting blanks were then colored green.
The process was repeated at an angle, the new spaces being bleached and painted red, creating a mosaic of color filters consisting of a mesh of red, green and blue lines, approximately one million per square inch. The color element, known as a research.
When exposed to light through research, the film emulsion was exposed to light of the same color. Thus the emulsion behind each color element recorded the tones for each primary colour.
Upon projection, the research worked to filter out the white projected light, so that the colors of the picture were consistent with the recorded scene; For example, red values were shown only in red. The same principle applies to the green and blue components.
Although it was popular among professional and amateur photographers by the 1950s, Dufacolor was eventually overtaken by Kodachrome and other improved color processes.
