More Russian love! Believe it or not, these sumptuous, color soaked images were taken a century ago, from 1909 to 1912. According to the Big Picture, “Photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images.”
The thing that strikes me most about these portraits, besides their composition and the vibrancy of the colors, is the wide range of cultures and costuming within one (enormous) empire. Those two women at the top — that’s practically Renaissance-style, and only a century ago! It’s sad that so much traditional costuming has drifted away —perhaps resurrected from the back of the closet during high holidays — resulting in a homogenous blob of Calvin Klein t-shirts, muumuus (God love ‘em!) and cuffed jeans. Sigh. Oh, for a world where it’s not an ironic statement to wear a turban (for me, at least).
Another note: the Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog is such a great concept for a news source. Telling stories through huge, incredible pictures with minimal commentary? Maybe it’s the future of narratives, as attention spans shorten and visuals become so thoroughly entrenched in the internet landscape. My two cents!
Awesome pics. I tivo’d a documentary on Russia a while ago & I couldn’t finish it. They have such a sad history.
I’ve been using these in classes for some time now; they are incredible photographs, incredible documents of a world that is gone…simply inspiring!
Alison,
I stumbed on your blog a few weeks ago and have so been enjoying your posts. Today’s photos of Russian denizens is amazing. The b/w set from Olya Ivanova made my heart sing as well. I too have a bit of an obsession w/Russia and her people.
Thank you.
KT
What gorgeous photos! Thank you for posting these. And what an exciting color process that makes these photos look like hyper-realist paintings, and a window into the past.
One of my grandmothers immigrated from what is now Azerbaijan in the early 1920s. We don’t have any photos from the old country, and these sparked my imagination.
A lot of people still wear turbans without irony, and I often see them accessorized with a bluetooth.
What an amazing document. I first thought it was the work of some contemporary artist.
The woman in the first picture has such an intriguing expression… Thanks for posting this!
Hi,
These photos are amazing, but the people in them are Georgians not Russians. The country is also Georgia, which although occupied by Russia both during the Monarchy and Soviet rain is a still it’s own country.