100 years ago in full colour
I don’t know about you, but I tend to form monochrome pictures in my mind when I think of the past, well at least times before the ’70′s. I suppose it’s because the snapshots and movies from those times are usually in black and white – as are 95% of my childhood pics. I’ve also noticed that film-makers trying to recreate the ’70′s, sometimes use washed out colours – like the footage from the Vietnam War.
Well if anyone needed reminding that no, the world wasn’t less colourful back then, look at the picture below. It looks like it could have been taken with a modern digital camera, yesterday. But it’s a hundred years old! Yep, taken in 1909.
You can view this great collection of 100 year-old colour photos here. They were taken by the Russian photographer Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky. A trained chemist, he developed the colour technique himself.
Exactly one hundred years ago a Russian photographer, began a remarkable project. With the blessing – and funding – of the Tsar, Nicholas II, he embarked on an extraordinary journey to capture the essence of Russia in full color photographs. Many of these pictures look as if they could have been taken yesterday, with only the costumes worn by the people captured in their moment of time betraying the age of the work.
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