A collection of fabulous color photos of Czarist Russia was publicized a couple of years ago.
Now there’s a new exhibition of the same photographer’s images, including thousands of photos that were not previously shown.
These photos are well worth looking at. The photographer was sponsored by the Czarist government and recorded many scenes of great interest. He produced his images using a photographic process that, while cumbersome, yields excellent color.
(IIRC I blogged about these photos a year or two ago, but I can’t locate the post.)
Links:
UPDATE: From John Robinson comes this tutorial on how to assemble the color images from the B&W originals, and some interesting thoughts:
Perhaps one of the reasons for Prokudin-Gorskii’s rediscovery in the present time period is the fact that it is now possible, with computers, to make these into marvelous color depictions that were impossible with the technology of Prokudin-Gorskii’s day (printing the images, for example, was out of the question). This might, additionally, be an indication of the man’s being born well ahead of his time.
