Photographic Grey

“Photographic grey” is an interesting early example of the increasing importance of photography for publicity purposes and the evolution of this influence as technology improves.

From around the 1860s railway companies were keen to exploit the expanding potential that the relatively new photography could bring. However the cameras and glass plate technology of the day were not able to to pick out in much fine detail in the often darkly coloured company liveries, especially for the all over black that was frequently applied to goods locomotives and wagons. Even when the first films started to be used, the chemistry had yet to be perfected and they were poor at recording red hues – red and maroon were common liveries of the time.

A circa-1909 application of photographic grey to a Midland Railway locomotive

The solution was to paint the locomotives in a mid-tone grey scheme that best suited the cameras sensitivities and enabled as much detail to be recorded as possible. These detailed images were exactly what was desired by the publicity and marketing, particularly of the locomotive builders who wanted to attract customers for their product – with lots of small railway companies and many locomotive builders then market was competitive and any advantage was seized upon.

As the sensitivities of camera technology to various tones hues improved from around the 1920s the use of photographic grey began to give way, first to multi-tonal greys, often in the pattern of the final livery, and then to the standard livery as this became possible to record accurately.

This all changed again with the coming of colour photography – as again attention grabbing images were wanted, locomotives were out-shopped in very brightly coloured, distinctive liveries, often of quite contrasting colours. While the rail industry is very different these days, the concept of making your product stand out in photographs continues to greater and lesser extents in many different industries. 

Newly built steam locomotive "Tornado" in rail grey livery in 2008.
Photographer: WIkimedia Commons user Ultra7. License: Public domain

 References:

Wikipedia article: Photographic Grey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_grey

Nock, Oswald, "British Locomotives of the 20th Century, Volume 1" 1983
"The Railway Magazine", volume 146, 2000