Russia in color, a century ago

I was surprised to learn that color photography, at this level of quality, existed well over a hundred years ago. I thought these images were pretty stunning, and some of them look like they might have been taken yesterday, not one hundred years ago. Wow.

The rest of the 34 photos at:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...ntury_ago.html

Quote:

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...photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time - when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun. Collected here are a few of the hundreds of color images made available by the Library of Congress, which purchased the original glass plates back in 1948.

http://inapcache.boston.com/universa...1_00021620.jpg

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