Russia in color, a century ago

boston globe ^ | August 20, 2010 | Alan tayor

[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

[Charlespg]

amazing photos

[Cyber Ninja]

I agree, great photos.

But, why does everyone look so happy?

[cornelis]

More photos coming 8/27.

[2banana]

Hard to imagine the hell they are going to go through in the next 40 years...

[Joe 6-pack]

Absolutely fascinating...Thanks for posting!

[mnehring]

More here.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

[Dr. Sivana]

But, why does everyone look so happy?

My understanding is that early cameras needed to keep the shutters open for a while. Using color filters possibly made it worse. It is hard to hold a smile perfectly still for a couple of minutes.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Ah, those were the good old days except for the Pogroms. My family left before the Pogroms really got underway, and the only photos I have of them are in the brown sepia tones.

These photos are fantastic and show a way of life that still exists in some of the further recesses of the old Czar and Soviet Empires.

I see that burquas haven’t change and that women still suffer under them.

[OldGuard1]

Huh. I thought I had the whole collection, and while I have a lot of pictures that aren’t shown here, a good chunk of those they’re showing I don’t have. I guess they’ve colorized more of the archive since I downloaded it from the LOC.

It’s a lot easier to convert the images to color today than it used to be, thanks to computers. ;)

[SIDENET]

Nice!

[dfwgator]

Taking a trip on the Trans-Siberia Railway is on my Bucket List.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

(Sophisticated English voice) Absolutely stunning, very exquisite!

[AFreeBird]

The second photo, next to the creek, gives a good indication of the long shutter speed based on the look of the water.

But damn amazing photos for being a century old.

[Billthedrill]

This one in particular caught my imagination - this young man would not have remembered the 1905 revolution but he would have been in his late teens during the Bolshevik one if he hadn't been snapped up for the Russian army in the meantime. He would have seen the starvation in the 30's, the Terror, and would have been a middle-aged man when the Germans came over the border in 1941. He'd have gone, of course, plucked from the Urals to the front, and if he survived he'd have seen Sputnik and in the 70's when the U.S. left Vietnam, a Soviet Union triumphant as it hadn't been since 1945. He'd have seen the decay of the 80's and if he were lucky the fall of the world he knew in 1991.

That's really quite a lifetime if in fact he were spared to live it. The odds aren't very good given what happened to his people, but if he did, what a life.

[Husker24]

The quality of these photos are amazing, its too bad others didn't use this technique to take more color pictures long ago.

[AFreeBird]

Those aren’t color converted photos. They’re the real deal. Color photography was being experimented with in the mid 19th century. Made it out of the lab and into the hands of photographers (who could afford it) around the turn of the 20th.

[thecodont]

They are amazing and beautiful pictures.

[Yardstick]

Wow, these are great!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Remarkable. The colors look as though the pictures are of recent vintage.

[paudio]

Interesting group of pics. Thanks!