Sunday 29 July 2007

Before the Revolution


















Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii invented a method of colour photography which involved taking three pictures in quick succession through different coloured filters.

The Library of Congress has put 2,600 of his pictures, mostly taken in Russia between 1905 and 1915, online here.

There is a subject index here.

Above: a hay-baling machine.

Below: Prokudin-Gorskii on the right.
















And I can't resist adding a few more.

Trans-Siberian Railway bridge over the River Kama, near Perm:













Ryazan in 1912:


















Deckhouse of the steamboat "Sheksna", 1909:

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't the Russian invent everything?

Chertiozhnik said...

Neh, they just nicked everyone else's ideas.

Maybe some forms of soup are original to Russia.

Anonymous said...

I nearly went to Perm once but we didn't get the contract. I nearly went to Hanoi too once but we didn't get that one either. The world is full of interesting places I almost went to.

Anonymous said...

I did got to Margate once.

Chertiozhnik said...

Margate?!?!?

Oh Christ.

I was in Margate for a week once.

Now I need to go and lie down for a while.

Anonymous said...

What about pickled fish? Didn't they invent that?

Chertiozhnik said...

According to my extensive researches, 'twas the Swedes, Dutch, Japanese, Norwegians, Finns, Ashkenazi Jews, Aleuts... pretty well everybody, in fact, except the Russians.

I wouldn't be surprised to find pickled herring taken along the Viking river trade routes from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and being pinched by the Russians en route.