

Russia in color a century ago - mcantelon
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html

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hristov
This is amazing. It is hard to believe these pics were taken 100 years ago.

It is funny how after looking at so many black and white pics of the past one
starts to imagine that the past took place in black and white.

~~~
nhebb
One of the problems is that movies re-enforce that image. Even when the past
is depicted in color, effects are applied, as spoofed in this 5 second film:
<http://5secondfilms.com/watch/its_not_ww2._its_hbo>

What struck me most about the photos was the formality of the clothing. People
used to dress nicer. I remember seeing an old Yankee Stadium crowd shot and
almost everyone was wearing a tie. It makes for nicer imagery, but I'm not
sure I would want to return to that.

~~~
jacobolus
> _People used to dress nicer._

Rich people used to dress nicer. Poor people used to wear dirty worn-out
clothes day in and day out.

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ugh
It’s funny that the exact same process the photographer uses (multiple
exposures with different color filters) is still used by space probes and
telescopes. The reason for that is flexibility. Astronomers can use a whole
array of different filters to get exactly the light they want, they are not
limited to a 'hard coded’ Bayer Array [+]. It’s more useful for precise data
collection. (Also, stars and planets hold relatively still, at least compared
to humans.)

If you look closely you can even see this effect on astronomical photos. Look
at the edges of the shadows on this photo from the Mars Phoenix Mission:
<http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/md_5669.jpg>

[+] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter>

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SandB0x
Ah, they missed out the most beautiful one!

The Monastery of St. Nilus on Stolbny Island: Just incredible:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Prokudin-...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Prokudin-
Gorskii-09-edit2.jpg)

~~~
revorad
I think the others are more beautiful because of the people in them.

Like Justin Timberlake in #32.

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rdtsc
More info about photographer and his process:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky>

 _His process used a camera that took a series of three monochrome pictures in
sequence, each through a different-coloured filter. By projecting all three
monochrome pictures using correctly coloured light, it was possible to
reconstruct the original colour scene. Any stray movement within the camera's
field of view showed up in the prints as multiple "ghosted" images, since the
red, green and blue images were taken of the subject at slightly different
times._

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_delirium
Here's the Library of Congress project that restored the photographs, and
hosts them all: <http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/>

~~~
celoyd
This is a tremendous resource.

From a technical point of view, one of many interesting things there is the
discussion of how the separately-made color frames were stitched into RGB
images (he made separate R, G, and B exposures with a few seconds between
them, so in many cases his models changed position, etc.):
<http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/process.html>

(While merging similar images with the same color response is a fairly well-
studied problem, merging different channels is an interesting challenge.
Consider, for example, trying to algorithmically merge separate R, G, and B
exposures of an Italian flag flapping in the breeze. It’s slightly, although
not very much, like interpolating the Bayer array in a consumer camera.)

Another interesting bit of metadata here is the rights, from
<http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/237_prok.html> :

 _There are no known restrictions on the use of these images. The issue of
copyright was not addressed during the purchase of the collection from
Prokudin-Gorskii's heirs in France in 1948. French law is unclear as to
whether the heirs own any rights. However, they have expressed concern about
"commercial use," and, as a courtesy to them, the Library is supplying
interested researchers with the following contact information:_ [address
given].

P.s.: the LOC’s photo and print collections in general are outstanding. They
make _extremely_ high-res scans of things like Matthew Brady’s Civil War
portraits, political cartoons from the Russo-Japanese War, Hiroshige’s ukiyo-e
prints, and Dorothea Lange’s dust bowl photos available for free over HTTP.

~~~
wtallis
How disgusting that we can't just assume that these 100 year old photos are
public domain. In the US, the Constitution doesn't really even allow for
copyright protection on works of purely historical interest, but modern
copyright laws and treaties don't take this into account.

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samdk
The Denver Post had a similarly interesting series of color photos taken
during the Great Depression a couple of months ago:
[http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-
ame...](http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-
color-from-1939-1943/).

They (unlike many of these) actually do feel like they were taken a long time
ago, but they're excellent pictures and well-worth looking at if this kind of
thing interests you.

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davidw
Put this on the list of the reruns that should be documented somewhere. Bonus
points: here's a modern day picture of #13

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Artvin,+Turkey&sll=45.396641,11.829498&sspn=0.012054,0.033023&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Artvin,+Turkey&ll=41.184193,41.814362&spn=0.051935,0.132093&t=p&z=14&layer=c&cbll=41.184193,41.814362&cbp=12,0,,0,5&photoid=po-13273302)

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ascuttlefish
Seeing the past in colour can be jarring. I just watched a documentary called
Photographer (Fotoamator) about a batch of colour photos taken in the Lodz
Ghetto in Poland during the Second World War. To contrast the colour photos of
the past, modern footage of Lodz and interviews with a survivor of the ghetto
were shot in black and white. It was disconcerting and very effective.

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hernan7
Notice the shutter lag in #27... a century-old annoyance still with us
courtesy of digital cameras.

~~~
ugh
That’s not shutter lag. The camera just moved between the exposures. It’s
impossible to get such a effect with a digital camera or color film in an
analog camera. You can only get it when combining different exposures.

Also, digital cameras have no shutter lag, at least not noticeable. The
problem is autofocus, that’s what takes time.

Pretty much all non-DSLR cameras use contrast detection for focusing. The lens
quickly shifts from the closest possible focus distance to infinity and the
camera looks for contrast changes on the picture. If the contrast is high the
camera knows that the picture is sharp. (This leads to dismal failures
whenever you want to take a photo of something with inherently low contrast
like a white wall.) DSLRs use optical phase detectors which give direct
distance readings, the lens is then shifted to the correct setting. (As you
can imagine, this method is faster than contrast detection.)

This process just takes time. That didn’t happen to you with older cameras
because they don’t have autofocus. All you have to do is remember to focus
long before you plan on taking the picture, that was the case when you could
only manually focus and that is still the case today. Half-press the shutter
button and be happy.

~~~
varjag
> Also, digital cameras have no shutter lag, at least not noticeable. The
> problem is autofocus, that’s what takes time.

Oh but they do. From ~0.07 seconds on professional dslr bodies to as high as
0.13-0.2 second on entry level dslrs.

(and yes, it does matter in practice)

~~~
ugh
But that’s not what most people are complaining about when they complain about
shutter lag. 0.1 seconds doesn’t matter when you want to take photos of your
kids, contrast detect AF does.

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jganetsk
If we think it's incredible to look at these high-fidelity color pictures of
100 years ago, imagine people 200 years in the future looking back at our
perfectly preserved digital images.

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lurchpop
damn. i wish my family pics from the 1970s and '80s were that perfect.

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Ardit20
How different is the dress in these pictures from the comparative ones posted
in colour of America. Very much unlike today uniform like clothes all over,
except for perhaps Arab nations.

~~~
hristov
These pics were taken from the southern parts of Russia though. Most of the
colorful dresses were from the Caucuses and the various Asiatic peoples that
were part of Russia at the time.

You will notice that most Russian men in there are wearing spiffy shiny
uniforms. Russians loved their uniforms in the late Tsarist period. You can
even see why during the revolution the Tsar's supporters were called the
Whites. Notice how the top bosses in the railroads pics always wear shiny
white uniforms.

~~~
Ardit20
I did not mean actual uniform, I meant how we all today wear t-shirts and
jeans and same coats and everything whether one is in Russia, or Japan, or
even China I think, or of course Europe and America and Brazil. Its like,
where has diversity gone in dress.

