from quantz:
A Group of Workers Harvesting Tea, ca. 1907-1915.
“This exhibit, The Empire That Was Russia, has been a favourite of mine for a while now. I come back and look at it once in a while.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was a photographer in Russia at the turn of the last century. He developed a technique wherein he took three pictures of a scene – each with a red, green, and blue filter – and used projectors to display what were, in effect, colour photographs, before the technology of colour film had actually been developed. In his day, they didn’t look so hot because it was hard to get the projectors lined up. But today, we (ie: the Library of Congress) has scanned them and combined them digitally, and the results are AMAZING. You should all look at those pictures: it’s like seeing an alternate universe or something. I can’t recommend them enough.”
This picture, Peasant Girls, was taken in 1909.
and this, View of the Monastery from the Solarium, 1910.
I am rather in awe at how modern these look while at the same time, so antique. The clothes are a give away, as are the manner of industry. I think these are precious. I seriously endorse giving this page a thorough look.
On the Karolitskhali River, ca. 1907-1915.
The Emir of Bukhara, 1911.
Laying Concrete for the Dam’s Sluice, 1912.
