The color photograph below was taken in 1911.


Now remember that color photography didn't hit the market until the mid 1930s with Kodachrome ... although color films did exist before then, they weren't wonderful.

When I saw these pictures, I nearly shat my pants. I've always adored black and white photography, but there is something captured by color (I think for historical pictures, color is a lot better, but for artistic purposes b&w is a better medium) ... so to see these wonderfully VIVID pictures from the turn of the century ... to see what life REALLY was like back then ... is awesome.

I showed this to Chris and he got excited to. To really glimpse into the turn of the century ...

So how was it done? The photographer responsible for these prints is Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who gained permission from Tsar Nicholas' II of Russia to take a survey across Russia ...

Basically he used b&w film, but would take the same picture three times (using a red, green, or blue filter each time). Sometime after WWII, the Library of Congress bought all his prints ... and then recently using some newfangled technology (digichromatography), they were able to add color to his pictures which only contained b&w films.

Amazing for the photographer to have the foresight and patience to take each picture with three different filters ... and amazing for the man who invented digichromatography. I'm interested in going out with Tri-X and seeing if I can do some digichromatography at home ...

Check out the pictures at the official website. It's really amazing ... the story and the images.

GOGGOOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG. I know you want to waste time!