Russian Locomotive in the Zaim Pass in Romania towards the end of the Great War, 1918

In this collection of photographs taken by French soldiers on the eastern front during World War I – over hundred years ago – high resolution scans have revealed in stunning detail, not only the film’s grain structure, but also a rich patina of scratches and chemical alterations. On certain occasions, the intimate history of the negative itself and the successive layers of the passage of time confer to the work a unique level of abstract artistic beauty.