Q: What was the first color photo taken? - Colin H from College Park, Md.
A: The first color photo on record was “taken” by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861 of a Tartan Ribbon.
Maxwell had photographer Thomas Sutton take three separate photos of the ribbon, each time with a different color filter on the lens of his camera. Once the images were developed and projected on a screen by three different projectors, when the three images were focused, it produced this color image.
Levi Hill also claimed to have taken the first color photo in 1851 but there is no definitive proof.
