Friday Evening Picture Thead: Pre-World War I Russia, in COLOR

I've posted this a couple times before on the board, so some of you may be seeing these yet again! Nevertheless, I really enjoy looking at these and I'm sure a lot of you will too.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with pictures of the turn of the last century looking like this:



Indeed, it isn't really until the Post-WWII-era that we start to get photographs that anywhere approach the clarity and color we are used to in modern day.

Granted, there is something to be said for black-and-white photographs, which have their own charms. But color has a way of making the past come alive.

How do you react when you learn that this photo, of Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii was taken in 1915?



Prokudin-Gorskii was a visionary. A chemist by training, he developed a way to make color projection slides that is similar to technicolor, capturing images on 3 glass slides filtered through red, green, and blue filters.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html

When the images were combined, he would obtain a color image that looked like this when projected onto a wall:



Prokudin-Gorskii's vision was to unify the Russian Empire by projecting images of the Empire throughout classrooms; when he showed slides to the Czar, the Czar gave his approval and sent Prokudin-Gorskii to document the entire empire. World War I would prevent Prokudin-Gorskii's dream of becoming a reality, but thousands of slides remained; not all survived. For some, one or more of the plates are irretrievably damaged such that images can now only be viewed in black-and-white. His family also retains several, including rumored pictures of the Czar and his family.

The Library of Congress, however, is in possession of over 2000 of his slides; about 1900 can be viewed in color. Although in Prokudin-Gorskii's time these images could not be captured on film, with the advent of computers, the glass negatives can be scanned and combined digitally to create a picture.

Some years back, the Library of Congress selected 122 of the 1900 images to be fully restored - these images were cropped and the color was restored such that the contrasts and hues were proper. For example, the above image has been restored to appear like this:


Tajik man, near Samarkand, 1911

(Not all of the pictures exhibit that stark a difference between the original projection and the restored print)

About half of these 122 restored prints were displayed publicly in 2001 in an exhibit called "The Empire That Was Russia":


View of the Nilova Monastery, 1910


Tiflis (Tblisi), ca. 1907-1915



The Emir of Bukhara, 1911



Russian Peasant Girls, 1909



Ekaterinin spring in Borzhomi, Georgia, ca. 1907-1915



Church of St. Dmitri, Vladimir, Russia (East of Moscow), 1911

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

If you're interested in viewing more of Prokudin-Gorskii's images in the LoC collection, use this link to the Library's online catalog:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/prokhtml/prokback.html

The above link will give you a host of options for viewing over 2000 images, with over 1900 of them in color. Most will look something like this, uncropped and unrestored but still quite fascinating:



122, including the ones in the exhibit, are cropped and fully restored; after selecting the picture, it will take you to a page that includes a high resolution version of the basic color image (like above) - scroll down and you'll see other options, including for several a cropped and restored version like this:



Note that the full collection also includes a few pictures of Italy and Switzerland from a continental excursion made by Prokudin-Gorskii at some point.

Wikipedia also has a good entry on Prokudin-Gorskii and several of his images are featured on the website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokudin-Gorskii

Enjoy! And do check out those links, especially the Library of Congress exhibit. If you're interested in seeing more, try the second link.

I used to think, as a kid, that everyone 'back then' only saw in black & white...:silly:

Time and Again, in which the main character realizes that people in the 1880s were in color.

it makes the people & landscapes look very contemporary. i never have like b & w photos for this reason - the world wasn't black & white - and it distances me too much.

so beautiful - no billboards, no signs, no cars.

my grandparents came over from Ukraine and Poland, but never brought any pictures. It sort of brings me into their world. (mind you, they emigrated before the above pictures were taken...but life wasn't changing then as quickly as today)

I did find a picture on the 'net of a small city they lived near...it had a wall and a castle...(they didn't, the city did). It was quite stunning.

Thanks for posting them. :toast:

And what a stark contrast to the way that place and period are often portrayed, as one of unrelieved squalor and ugliness. The villages, towns and churches are so neat, trim and breathtaking.

Thank you for sharing.

The blue of the emir's clothes is stunning.

The past doesn't seem so distant once you see it in color. I have a DVD that has clips of the second world war in color and I saw old footage of my great grandfather in color during the 30's.

I am writing s script now that takes place in Russia during this time period (and the revolution - 1917) and just looking at the photos almost makes me cry. It is so hard to take yourself to these places by looking at aged, black and white photos. These are just fantastic.

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!

:kick:

The pictures are lovely.

thanks for sharing :hi:

It's gotten a lot greener since.