Why does vintage sports photography have that blue haze?

Lets talk about vintage sports photography, and why modern sports photography looks so much different.

 And no, its not just because the oldies were captured on film. 

Here’s a great vintage photo of a basketball game. We got a golden court, bright orange ball, and this great complementary color- a blue haze in the background. 

This blue haze is a phenomenal device for photographers. 

It creates separation between the players and the crowd, allowing the crowd to fade into the background, even in black and white images. 

Instead of having a bunch of different colours in this wall of people, you have one harmonious color that happens to be complementary to the color of the court- what an ideal set up-

The players skin tones and uniforms can be a huge range of colours and still offer either a triadic or split complementary color pallet with this much blue and gold in the frame.

In hockey, you get the white of the ice and the blue of the background- red or gold uniforms stand out SO well- 

But what was this haze?

Indoor smoking. 

Yeah- its cigarette smoke. 

So I guess we traded better photographs for better public health- 

And now I promise, you’ll never look at these old photos the same way again.

Watch this short on Yvonne Hanson’s Youtube.