Friday Fun - early color photography of children

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
A Group of Children, 1909

I love these color photos by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, taken during his survey of Russia done for the Czar around 1910. Of course, I love the ones of the children the most. 

But the whole technology behind getting the color photography brings out the photo geek in me too. He made these amazing photos long before we had color film by using red, blue and green filters when snapping photos in quick succession. They explain it much better here.

Prokudin-Gorskii surveyed the entire Russian Empire and recorded its diversity - in culture, ethnicity and terrain - to bring back to the Czar. Along the way (in his custom train car photo lab, natch) he captured amazing photographs of everyday people in the far-flung regions of pre-WWI, pre-revolution Russia.

Peasant Girls, 1909

Nomadic Kirghiz, 1911

 

A Settler's Family, ca. 1907-1915

You could seriously spend your whole Friday going through these archives. I look at the faces of the people - especially of the children - in these photographs and see the same emotions as I see today when I look through my camera lens. It's amazing that these were taken 100 years ago.