“Throughout the conflict, Kahn’s cameras would return to hospitals all over France. Nurses figure prominently in a number of autochromes; in his pictures, as in the newspapers of the day, they were often represented as archetypal ‘invasion heroines,’ working selflessly, often in the danger zone, to save the lives of those who were so valiantly fighting the Boche. One picture, taken with characteristic panache by Stéphane Passet at a hospital near the Somme in July 1916, was composed with special care. In it, the nurse has a lambent patina – almost an aura – that reinforces the near-mythic lustre of her profession.”

Moreuil, France | 30 July 1916

Sunlight kisses the uniform of a nurse tending to casualties at a chateau that has been converted into a hospital at Moreuil, around 10 miles southeast of Amiens. In this autochrome, Passet’s chiaroscuro lighting gives his heroine an angelic radiance.

A7795 Stéphane Passet

Image and text from The Dawn of the Color Photograph: Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet by David Okuefuna.