A photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) made glass negatives in the early 1900's that could be used to create color images. He did this by inventing a camera that would take three different frames of the same scene, with different color filters (red, green blue) for each. He displayed the pictures via projection, using the same filters. Even though the negatives were only grayscale images, the result was comparable to that obtained using a color slide film, such as Kodachrome. As a result, we are able to see full-color images of an historical period that otherwise would be seen only in black-and-white.
He was not he first to do this. James Clerk Maxwell had developed the technique around 1861, but the results were not very good. Frederick Ives developed a commercially available version (the Kromogram) around 1897. The results were marginal: interesting, but hardly exciting. Below is an image produced in 1999 from a Kromogram.
In 1904 the Lumière Brothers came up with a way to produce color photographs using a single negative, with a complex emulsion. They called it the Autochrome. The problem with the Autochrome process was that the pixels were bulky, and the color definition was not very good.
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii improved on prior art. His photos are reasonably sharp, even by modern standards, with what appears to be decent color rendition.
The original equipment is no longer available, and even if it were, it would not lend itself to presentation via the Internet. However, it was possible to reconstruct the images using digital technology.
The whole process is described on the Library of [the USA] Congress, here: The Empire That Was Russia: the Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated.
The original images are on hand-made 3-inch x 9 inch glass negatives. Each negative has three 3x3 images. Archive workers made digital scans of the negatives, cropped the three frames, and used computers to colorize each frame. Then, they superimposed the three color images using layers.
I imagine that each finished image required considerable effort.
The collection of photographs illustrates a country undergoing rapid conversion from an agricultural to an industrial economy. There are photos of people farming using horses with wooden wagons, and others showing power generation and mechanized production.
Prokudin-Gorskii's photographic technique was new. Each photograph required significant effort. It stands to reason, then, that there is a significance to the choice of subjects. His first portrait, for example, was a photo of Tolstoy.
This is different than modern times. Now, most people buy a camera and then take a picture of their cat.
I am not sure why the digital reconstruction of these photographs strikes me as significant. Perhaps it is because the images are emotionally evocative. Does that help historians understand history? Are they trained in the practice of following emotional cues in their search for the truth?
Humanities & Social Science
