Century-Old TRUE COLOR Photos of Russia

[Teasing the Korean]

"...I thought it would be interesting to look back in time with this extraordinary collection of color photographs taken between 1909 and 1912. In those years, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time - when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun. Collected here are a few of the hundreds of color images made available by the Library of Congress, which purchased the original glass plates back in 1948."

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html?ref=nf

[Lazaro Vega]

Extraordinary.

Looking through those and wondering if I'm seeing telegraph poles in some of the cities.....

[Chuck Nessa]

Weren't these up over a year ago?

[Teasing the Korean]

Maybe, I just found out about them today.

On the Library of Congress site, they explain how the photos weren't viewed for decades - each photo existed only on isolated monochrome slides (blue, red, green) that had to be superimposed and projected.

Digital technology over the last ten years allowed the slides to be combined and printed. Software apparently takes care of slight discrepancies that occurred between each monochrome shot.

There's something very eerie about looking into those faces and wondering what happened to everyone after the Revolution, WWI, and Stalin.

I'm conditioned to think about that era in black and white - it's interesting to see it in color. Even aside from the novelty of color, the shots themselves are amazing.

[Chuck Nessa]

Whatever, they are great pics.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

wait how are they done? you take 3 black and white photos using color filters, and THIS is the result? ---wow---. why wasnt everyone doing this?!?!

[Stereojack]

Fascinating, and very striking! Thanks for posting.

[Teasing the Korean]

wait how are they done? you take 3 black and white photos using color filters, and THIS is the result? ---wow---. why wasnt everyone doing this?!?!

It wasn't practical. The only way to see color was to line up all three glass plates in a projector and project them onto a wall.

[Cliff Englewood]

Cathedrals eh, they don't make like they used to;

[John L]

A book of Prokudin-Gorsksii color photos of tsarist Russia was published some years ago, although they may have been different ones. I'll have to look.

[BruceH]

I believe someone posted these on Facebook a while back.

[sjarrell]

I hadn't seen them before now. Thanks, TtK!

[Brownian Motion]

Thanks for posting, TTK. I enjoyed.

[alocispepraluger102]

Thanks for posting, TTK. I enjoyed.

thank you ttk! beautiful and educational.

[bichos]

Weren't these up over a year ago?

keep boppin´

marcel

[seeline]

When I was going to the Library of Congress on a regular basis, back in grad school, I saw various photos (color prints) from this collection on a regular basis.

But I think this (Boston) is the 1st large exhibit of them outside of the LOC - which is great.

(I even bought reproductions of several items from the collection, back in the 1980s...)

Edited September 18, 2010 by seeline

[A Lark Ascending]

Magnificent - you get so used to seeing photos of this era in b+w that it's hard to imagine the people as real - here they could be people you know today.

Photos like this (1909) always have me wondering where they were ten years later. Or 25 years later after the first phase of collectivisation and the Great Famine.

[seeline]

About seeing the color images of people: yes. It was so startling to me back when I 1st encountered some of these images. (Longtime fan of 19th and 20th c. Russian lit, with an interest in pre-Soviet history.) And I guess it still is!

There are some great photos of people from various parts of the Caucasus in this collection, complete with fancy bandoliers and what most of us think of as "Cossack" hats. There's definitely a wild frontier feeling to those shots.

Edited September 18, 2010 by seeline

[RDK]

Wow! Stunning pics. Thanks for posting.