I stumbled across this while reading the usual forums and other online resources and it made me think. There are many great photographers such as Ansel Adams that are credited for stunning and pioneering photography. However true innovators like Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944), are almost completely forgotten or at least not well known. Sergei’s color photography for the time was truly awesome. How he came up with the idea of using Red Green and Blue (RGB) color filters is anyone’s guess.
But wait! I hear you say, anyone knows about RGB. True, but not in 1910. Years later Ansel still shot black and white and the technique to use color filters and then combining the glass plates in order to achieve color congruation is really innovative. Add to that that he then used different colored lamps to project the glass plates combined to achieve nearly true color.
The fotos show how real this all looks and how truly stunning the detail of these shots are. Consider that in order to obtain any of the shots below, Sergei Produkin-Gorskii had to change plates and color filters before anyone could move really. In some cases this did not work well but in others it works great. Then overlaying the plates to match and projecting the image is really a stroke of genius. It is also the only color representation of Russia or most of the world from this time period, which was pre-russian revolution and even pre-world war one.
(Click for larger version)
Please note! all the photos above are really 100 years old. The detail, color and effect is truly stunning. Better than some digital SLRs today, in my opinion.
The stunning and definitely unwanted side effect with these fotos is that due to the multi colored exposure not all elemts in the photo match. You get soemthing that looks like Chromatic Aberration (CA) but it actually it not. It is either the Red, Green or blue Channel that is slightly off because of the misalignment or because an element in the photo moved.
Now, what do you get when you take a photo with multichannel and display a small shift? That is correct, a 3D effect if viewed with those red and green/blue glasses. And it is true. The best example is the floodgate supervisor. It looks really great in 3D, especially the staff he is holding.
As much as anyone is complaingin about Russia and as much as everyone wants to bash them constantly, you have to give them credit. During the Russian Empire Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii with the help and funding from the Tsar, created something truly remarkable. How many of us Photographers can even aspire to have our work seen and shown in 100 years time?
There are over 2000 photos, 1900+ with color separation filters found at the Library of Congress. The best part they are all viewable. Some nare not so good in color but even so, it gives you a great insight of the Russian Empire during this time.
There are lots more great color photos there.
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well, this is old already.. nice photos but bad color.. he should have perfected his technique more.
sorry, but this is truly an achievement for photography. We can see actual colors from a world when there was only black and white photography.
Jason
I said it already on MR, the photos are horrible, they contain bad technique and I can get sharper picture with my Nikon D3000 and the kit lens.
Dale, I think you are missing the point…they are 100 years OLD!!! Your D3000 is a couple of years old and could still argue that you would not be able to produce photos like that in that print size!
//flosse_r