By Joe DeLise
Another colorized photo of Old Mission Santa Barbara from the 1880s. This one is viewed from E. Los Olivos Street where it meets APS.
Original photo is courtesy of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
Colorized Mission: Los Olivos View
jdelise
February 28, 2023, 11:35 am
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I see that the enslaved people who built this Mission, are not permitted an opinion/response, regarding the constant reminder of what this
“House of Death, slavery & rape”, represents.
I’m clear on it.
No one is disputing the mission history (and most of America’s history) is horrible. Posting “kill me” on a local blog is weird, no need to spin it into something bigger than it is.
Relative to English settlers back east and later American settlers in CA, the Spanish were benevolent. That’s not saying a lot though, they enslaved natives with a vague plan to eventually emancipate them and give them mission land. Anglo settlers straight up wiped whole tribes out. One of the first US governors of CA made it legal to kill natives. The CA missions’ rehabilitation was a tourism marketing ploy from the turn of the century. An attempt to make CA have a historical pedigree and seem more exotic and relatable instead of just being blank land. In reality the missions were a historical curiosity, a failed experiment in colonialism and cruelty.
Joe, interesting that you give these images a vertical exaggeration (the Mission and trees are taller, and the topography is taller too if present (not much in this image). The entire image is taller, but not wider (which anybody can measure on the screen). I appreciate that you are making the images more showy: clouds added to the sky, bolder buildings and ground features, and artistic enhancement of distant hazy terrain. Color adds some realism to the view. But are you concerned that a falsely taller Mission (etc) degrades the realism?
This topic was addressed on the last post. The top photo has sizing restrictions so it compresses the photo. If you right click and open the top photo in a new tab, the correct display shows.
Not so. If you make a screenshot of both of these images and overlay them you will see they are identical in size and aspect ratio, no distortion. The only difference is with the colorization.
Already did that. Flickered them. Different size. Perhaps a browser effect? (Firefox on a Mac here.)
Okay, here is the answer: Yes, if you download the images (Control-click on a Mac), the images are different sizes BUT have the same height-width proportions. So the proportion distortion is in the browser display (…for some bizarre reason — why would anyone ever want that?).
Actually, I disagree. The colorized photo is far more realistic when compared to actual proportions. Looks like the original was distorted, not the new version.
It’s an illusion. I just downloaded both images and overlaid them. Dimensionally they are identical.
Not an illusion. Measured. Perhaps some other explanation? They are absolutely (still) NOT the same the same height on my screen (they ARE the same width). Perhaps different browsers handle them differently?
You’re right.