| Tuesday, February 3, 2004 |
16:28 - Before the World Turned Color
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/object.html
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What you're looking at here is a color photo of Russian soldiers.... taken in 1912.
This site is full of these, all in gorgeous full color, all from 1907 to 1915 or so. It's absolutely mesmerizing.
Apparently, the Russians had internalized the practice-- probably insanely expensive, which is why it seems to have been done by the Photographer to the Czar-- of taking photos which consisted of three separate plates, red, green, and blue. What's astonishing is that they did this even though they didn't have a means to process the separated negatives into a combined final print. So color photography has effectively been around for a century; it's just color processing that took the time.
And the plates seem to have withstood the ages, so they processed out into some gorgeous pieces. Like this one. (Good God.) And this one. And this one (check out the colors on those dresses). And this one.
For history buffs, techno-geeks, and cultural students alike, this is akin to a religious experience.
(Via Dean Esmay and Samizdata and everybody else who's passing this link around.)
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Brian Tiemann
