Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet

Most of us probably don’t know who Albet Kahn is, but we should. An early Twentieth Century millionaire, he dispatched photographers around the world to shoot color autochromes, a record of who we were then. If you scroll through the images there, take a look at the photo out of Montenegro – that’s not a crack in the picture frame, that’s a crack in the picture. This was shot on a glass plate, not the flexible piece of film most of us remember.

The BBC produced a 10-part series on these images last year (and, yes, you can order it online for about $30) (and, yes, I just did).

(Thanks to Christian Fuchs for the link.)