In 1802, Thomas Young theorised that all different colours were produced optically through your eyes, and there were only 3 wavelengths of light, this is called trichromatic. These colours were red, green and violet. These theories also provided the first framework for the first commercially viable method of colour photography, the autochrome.

Emile Guilton was the founder of the Societe Jeriaise photographic archive. Emile took the first colour photograph in Jersey using autochrome. This image was called Lumière Autochrome. Though it is hard to see, each image is made up of lots of small dots with one of three colours, red, violet and green. Our eyes make the dots within the image merge into the colours they would make when mixed and create this bright image of colours.

The image above is an example of autochrome image, made by Emile F. Guiton. This is an early example of colour photography using the autochrome technique. The image is of plants in a vase. These plants are pink, and the use of autochrome allows this pink to show brightly due to the colours mixing into the colour it should be.