Photographer Page

Hans Hildenbrand

A girl poses in festive attire in Mezokovesd, Hungary, around 1930. The portrait was taken with autochrome, the first viable method of colour photography, which required an unusual ingredient—potato starch.

This 1925 photo shows the Sphinx of Giza before it was fully excavated. After it was uncovered, National Geographic’s editor-in-chief warned his staff not to use the photo because it was “very much out of date.”

A woman in Lucerne, Switzerland, works with her spinning wheel in an autocrome taken by Hans Hildenbrand in early 1932.

An autochrome features women living in an Alpine village.