100-year-old color photos of Russia

[bixaorellana]

You must see this amazing series of photographs taken between 1907 and 1915 by Prokudin-Gorskii. He fled Russia in 1918, taking his 22 crates of glass negatives with him to France.
It wasn't until the advent of digital images that the pictures could be restored, a process completed in 2001.

www.newsweek.com/id/214585

[Deleted]

Those are really amazing, because it is impossible to disassociate black and white photos from the beginning of the 20th century. Seeing them in color makes them look like scenes from another planet.

In the same vein, there is currently an excellent documentary series on French television about WW2, where they made the decision to "colorize" the documents from the 1930's. It really does make a big difference psychologically, because someone like Adolf Hitler, who has been locked into our minds in black and white, suddenly becomes scarily alive when you see him doing things in color.

[bixaorellana]

Interesting point. The people in the Russian series look "modern" to me, surely because the photos are in color. It reminds me in reverse of those pictures people have taken of themselves in garb of the old American west, for instance. The photos are rendered in sepia, which instantly makes the people in them look "old-timey".

From your comment above, I take it you approve of the colorization in the documentary series because it makes the 30s more real to the viewer. Is that correct?

[Deleted]

Yes, unlike movie classics (even though I am not 100% against that, depending on the movie).

They interviewed some teenagers after the first two episodes of the documentary, and the colorization definitely helped them to maintain their interest in these events.

Sometimes black and white is plenty, however, for example when you discover a document that you knew nothing about -- just the discovery of it is enough to make your skin prickle, like this Pathé newsreel showing one of the main events that contributed to starting WW2 -- the bombing of Helsinki by the Russians (our future allies). We just never think of Finland for some reason, but people thought about it back then. (Sorry for the French language and Finnish subtitles, but the images are gripping, in my opinion.)

[patricklondon]

There have been a number of series on British TV in the last couple of years, some using early (pre-1914) colour film and photo from the Albert Kahn collection in Paris, and some from early amateur pioneers of more familiar (and successful) commercial colour film in the 1930s. Quite a disjunction to see the kind of scenes we thought we "knew" in black and white suddenly in colour (e.g., an American family's European trip movies in 1939 which end in a summery London in the very last days of August - complete with sandbags, barrage balloons, gas masks and air raid shelter signs).

[bixaorellana]

I am particularly intrigued by the Russian photos because the photographer went through such an elaborate process to take them in color. The effect is often that of a regular contemporary photograph that's been ever so slightly manipulated for effect by its maker.

[lola]

The one of Tolstoy is wonderful, and #4, and the Jewish teacher with students. Thanks for these, bixa.

Anyport = what's good and interesting out there.

[fumobici]

Many more interesting pre-Bolshevik images:

englishrussia.com/?p=1720

[bjd]

Interesting photos, Fumobici. I note they are all marked "Russian Empire" and indeed, there are a bunch from Warsaw in Poland, Riga in Latvia and Vilnius in Lithuania, from the time the Russians had spread westwards -- before they did the same after WW2. It's interesting to see, too, that the further east you go, the less asphalt there is on the roads and that there are no motor vehicles, until you get to Vladivostok.

[Deleted]

The English Russia site always has tons of good stuff on it.

[bixaorellana]

Yesterday was Prokudin-Gorskii's 150th birthday, as reported here: blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2013/08/happy-150th-birthday-to-russian-empire-photographer-sergei-m-prokudin-gorskii/?loclr=fbloc

I was happy to be reminded of this thread & to see that the link in the OP still works. Actually, the photos in the OP link are better than in the link I just posted. However, that one has stepping stones to some very interesting information, plus a gallery of all of P-G's color work.