Color Photography in the Early 1900’s

The pho­tographs of Russ­ian chemist and pho­tog­ra­pher, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, show Rus­sia on the eve of World War I and the com­ing of the rev­o­lu­tion. From 1909 – 1912 and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorskii trav­elled across the Russ­ian Empire, doc­u­ment­ing life, land­scapes and the work of Rus­sain peo­ple. His images were to be a pho­to­graphic sur­vey of the time. He trav­eled in a spe­cial train car trans­formed into a dark room to process his spe­cial process of cre­at­ing color images, a tech­nol­ogy that was in its infancy in the early 1900’s. Prokudin-Gorskii left Rus­sia in 1918, after the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion had destroyed the Empire he spent years documenting.

Color Pho­tog­ra­phy from Rus­sia in the Early 1900’s