Man, where have I been!? If you're like me and didn't know there was a fabulous photographer in Russia who shot in COLOR from 1905-1916...taking beautiful plates of the Russian Empire, you're in for an incredible treat.

I'm so unused to seeing shots like this in color -- it's as if the world was sepia-toned to me back then:







They were shot in color, not colorized. The scans are typically 9-10 megapixels.

See more, read more (and buy prints) at http://www.gridenko.com/pg/index.htm (I have nothing to do with them, I'm just an avid admirer).

Baldy

Those are great.
It's soooo neat to see that era in color, it's really cool to see it in original photographic color.
wow.

Any idea of what equipment they were using?
I'd like to see the camera and especially would like to see the lens.
Neat chromatic abberations, I wonder if any of that is from the scanning process or if it's all from the vintage process.

Originally Posted by John Macdonald Any idea of what equipment they were using?

Here's the Library of Congress site with more info (speculation) on the camera:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html

Originally Posted by Baldy Here's the Library of Congress site with more info (speculation) on the camera: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html

Fantastic find Baldy - these are just lovely pictures and a great demonstration of the use of three black and white images to capture color images. Thanks

Pathfinder

I did not know the technique went back so far. My Dad was doing colour from B/W images in the 50's and I remember him talking about the technique that he used (but did not invent). I am hazy on the details but it only used 2 images. I think one with a red filter and the other with no filter. I had a hard time at the time understanding how it could work with only 2 (vs 3) but I do remember that the projection used a different colour filter set so that combination of both subtracting and adding gave the permutations.

Awesome. I too have trouble thinking of past times in color, although I have made a conscious effort to do so at times. I'm amazed at how fast the camera had to be to catch the people without any blur, I thought they were much slower then.

Great post!

wow