Photography equipment manufacturers Auguste and Louis Lumière, known as the Lumière brothers, were pioneers of motion pictures. Thanks to their short films, we now have a better understanding of how the world looked like in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Watching Lumière films doesn’t paint a full picture of the period, considering the technology was limited, and their works were shot in black and white. But that is changing thanks to history enthusiasts and modern advancements.
The YouTube channel Lost in Time recently shared a colorized compilation of Lumière films from 1896 that provides us with a much better idea of how the world and life of people looked back on them. It consists of footage recorded from all over the world, including France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Egypt, and even Japan.
The video features a group of people throwing snowballs at a cyclist on the streets of an unnamed French city, a busy day on the streets of New York City, the pyramids and Sphinx in Giza, sword practice in Tokyo, and much more.
According to Lost in Time, the footage was colorized, upscaled, stabilized, and enhanced with the use of AI. The results are simply fantastic, so check them out below.