Posted on 08/25/2010 8:41:12 PM PDT by Charlespg
With images from southern and central Russia in the news lately due to extensive wildfires, 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
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
It was a special process with red, green, and blue filters and recombining them to make color. Very interesting.
And they look awesome.
Good question.
At first I suspected it was because in 1910 folks from that culture may not have been that comfortable around cameras, if they even knew what a camera was.
But Doc nailed it. From the comments:
Incidentally, very few people are smiling in old photographs because the exposure times might be from 15 seconds to several minutes, depending on the emulsion in use, light, and lens. Hard enough to hold still, much less to maintain a smile!
The lack of smile is due to the technic used by the potographer: he had to expose 3 different plates to get a color shot so the subject was exposed for a long period of time and should remain still so smiling was almost impossible. You can see in the picture involving a river that the exposure was quite long enough to give that smooth effect to the water.
Yea I can see a few of them. But dial up isn’t friendly for a 30 picture download. I can see about 10 of them. Amazing.
Those are incredible! Thanks for posting. It’s like seeing a world I’ve never seen.
Yes, amazing pictures. Thank you for posting.
I didn’t realize that color photos that good were being made in the early 1900s.
Beautiful, but heartrending to think how soon it was all about to be turned upside down.
If only that horrible war had been avoided. . .
I thought it interesting that the fat guy in the blue satin tunic, the Emir of Bukhara. His daughter ended up working for the Voice of America per Wikipedia.
Those are of just outstanding picture quality!
Beautifully spoken. It was mesmerizing to read while examining the photo. Thanks.
ping
Yes.
Amazing!
Post #14: Well reasoned contemplation. Thanks.
Wow I didn’t know they could take color pictures back then.
I wonder why more pictures such as that weren’t taken. The process was too expensive maybe?
No, they weren’t. They were three separate black and white photos with color filters over them.
They couldn’t. What they did was put three color filters over the lens for each of three subsequent black-and-white shots, which the library of congress later recombined digitally back into color. Because things move in-between shots, you see unusual color artifacts on smoke, water, etc.
There are some YouTube videos of Jews in Warsaw in 1939 months before the start of the war, that are in color, you watch them and realize these people had no idea what was about to happen to them in just a few months.
I’ve seen that video...it’s haunting to me to see their faces...not knowing what horrors awaited them..
At least some parts of the U.S.S.R. were just out of the reach of the Nazis..though many from those areas were conscripted and volunteered for miltary service...but at least some were spared from the grip of the Nazis because they lived just far away enough, like the eastern Caucasus and further east.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.