Dr. C. Scott Ananian (cananian) wrote,
Dr. C. Scott Ananian
cananian

Crazy Russians!

Have you ever wondered what tsarist Russia really looked like? Have you ever had to do a set or costume design for a Chekov play? Or --- more to the point --- have you ever had to lighting design 'The Seagull' and were running out of inspiration with b&w source photographs? Well, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii is your man!

Twenty-plus years before the commercial advent of color photography, and just before the fall of the tsars, Prokudin-Gorskii travelled Russia to document the land for the tsar. And, in an amazing display of foresight, he realized color photography would one day be possible and so took all of his pictures through red, green, and blue filters. The Library of Congress has obtained his glass plates, scanned them, and digitally recombined them to yield color prints. The results are stunning.

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