Color Photographs From Early 1900′s Czarist Russia. Coolest Shit Ever.
11 Aug, 2010 in Coolest Shit Ever, Doodles, fnord
This man was born when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams still lived.
I found some color photographs from the early 1900′s, Youdopia. The image above is of Pinkus Karlinskii. That gorgeous color photo was taken in 1909, when Pinkus was 84 years old. He was born in 1825, and that is a color picture of him. That, to me, is the coolest shit ever. I had no idea color photography existed, let alone with such sophistication, so early. The man who took these photos was named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, and he was both a photographer, and chemist. That is probably how he was able to concoct a means to take vibrant color photographs.
This is pre-revolutionary Russia. The Czar is still in power. This is before World War One. It boggles my mind. If you are interested as well, please get thee to the Plog, of the Denver Post. They also have a wonderful series of color photographs taken during the Great Depression. Powerful stuff.
Church in Vetluga settlement; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Amazing. You can almost smell the clean air. Interesting how we equate age with black and white. These look like they could have been taken yesterday.
It’s true. The brilliance of the colors (I’m color blind, so I’m kind of seeing in 256 colors, not 32 bit) is astonishing, and it really moved me. I always try to think of who was alive when someone was born. I knew that the old man was 84 in 1909, so 1825 would be his birth year. Holy shit. Two of the founding fathers were still alive. It’s kind of a bridge for me.
Somewhere I saw old photos from the mid 19th century, of old, old old Revolutionary War veterans. That was crazy. I should find that.