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  1. #1

    Default Colour photographs from a hundred years ago

    These are absolutely incredible: colour photographs taken between 1909 and 1912 by photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession using red, green and blue filters. This allowed them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near-true colour images.

    Remember as you look at them - these were taken A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

    Russia in colour, 1909-1912

    Last edited by Awesome Wells; 30th Aug 2010 at 11:38 PM.

  2. #2
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    Wow... those are incredible! It's hard to believe that colour photography was being taken so long ago.

    They also give a fantastic insight into the (very real) diversity of Russia. I think that most people tend to think that all Russians are Slavs, which isn't the case. Those images really project a view of the ethnic diversity of the geographically largest country on the planet

    Ant x

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    The pictures are good. Although in a way a bit too good compared to other photos we seem to have of the period which are always slightly blurry, that makes you slightly suspicious.

    But yeah - this would have been Russia in the last years under Tsarist rule, before the "glorious revolution". Russia was a backward almost feudal society compared to it's contemporaries in Europe.
    Remember, just because Davros is dead doesn't mean the Dalek menace has been contained ......

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    wow just look so good

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    Quote Originally Posted by WhiteCrowNZ View Post
    The pictures are good. Although in a way a bit too good compared to other photos we seem to have of the period which are always slightly blurry, that makes you slightly suspicious.
    Not really. It is a little disingenuous to say they are 'always' slightly blurry. There are many good pictures from that era. It's all dependent on what film stock was used, how it has been preserved in the intervening years, and how it is presented. It is also only now, with the age of hi-res digital scanning, that we get to see these images to the best resolution possible. Most others previously published have deteriorated, been scanned in lossy ways and then put through a printing process that further compromises the resolution.

    Remember also that colour photography, though rare, was about half a century old by then. Although it was still about 20 years before a single colour film was developed, the 'three-image' process was well established, though only available to the public since about the 1890s.

    Recently restored early daguerreotypes from the late 1840s have been estimated to have a resolution equivalent to 140,000 megapixels, and all that on a 6.5 x 8.5 inch plate!

    Check it out

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    On a similar vein, some of the earliest known colour film footage has recently surfaced... clicky.

    Ant x

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    Did they have to make it resemble an audition reel for a brothel?

    Si.

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    Those pictures are extraordinary. It probably sounds silly, but the sunshine looks so 'modern' it's really hard to appreciate how old they are. Amazing.

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    Those photos are amazing, aren't they? The quality of them is unbelievable considering their age. Very impressive!

    And thanks for your link as well, Jason...I found that very interesting

    It makes you wonder just how many good quality photos still actually exist out there, rather than the grainy low quality images that we're used to seeing from that era.

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    I had no idea that colour photography was this old, let alone older than that, as Jason suggests. It doesn't surprise me that there's crisp photos at all from the period, as I've seen some well-preserved film stock from about that time; but it is amazing that the photographer managed to get such crisp colours.

    As an aside, but on a similar subject, it may come as an education to some people - it did to me! -to find that the National Portrait Gallery have photos of Disraeli and Faraday on public display. Shows how long photography's been about.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stuart Wallis View Post
    I had no idea that colour photography was this old, let alone older than that, as Jason suggests. It doesn't surprise me that there's crisp photos at all from the period, as I've seen some well-preserved film stock from about that time; but it is amazing that the photographer managed to get such crisp colours.
    I'm not sure if it was in the article linked to above or on another page when I tried to search for more of these photos, but apparently the technology didn't exist then to transfer these colour photos into print, the way thae these photos were taken (ie 3 identical photos through 3 different coloured filters) meant that the only way they could actually be viewed in colour was by means of a specially adapted projector which could view all 3 different coloured images as one full colour photo. Of course, having the Tsar of Russia bankrolling the project would have meant the photographer would have access to the best of equipment.

    Some of the photos not featured in the article are absolutely amazing given their age, if you have the inclination to search for more. One in particular I think is particularly stunning, it's a view of a monastery taken in 1910 (I forget it's name at the moment) with all it's domes and spires, and featuring the access bridge over a lake or river in the foreground of the picture. It's a beautiful sunny day and the colours are truly stunning.



    I love this photo!
    Last edited by MacNimon; 6th Sep 2010 at 6:49 AM. Reason: add image

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    I had that photo as my desktop wallpaper on my PC a few years ago.


    As an aside, but on a similar subject, it may come as an education to some people - it did to me! -to find that the National Portrait Gallery have photos of Disraeli and Faraday on public display. Shows how long photography's been about.
    I've seen lots of old Civil War photos from the 1860's, plus there are very famous ones of Abe Lincoln.

    The oldest of Lincoln is this one from 1846:


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