In the early years of the 20th century, colour photography was explored by two men, one a Frenchman the other a Russian. These men are remembered today as the pioneers of contemporary colour photography. The French Banker Albert Kahn took his camera across Europe, then on to the Middle East and further afield to South and South East Asia. He said his mission was to “capture our common humanity, and promote peace.” Kahn’s efforts were magnificent, the beauty of his work will forever remain a testament to man’s indomitable curiosity, his skill and dexterity as a photographer aside, Kahn captured cultures that are now not even a memory, but lost in the mists of time.
However, the work of his contemporary Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, is equally beautiful, for his photographs captured Russia in the declining years of the Tsars, when the Romanov dynasty ruled over one of the largest empire’s in the world, extending from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea on the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean, an empire that included a diverse collection of ethnicities and cultures. Prokudin-Gorsky, a chemist from Funikova Gora (now Kirzhachsky District) in Vladimir Oblast, preserved this world forever.
Above – Prokudin-Gorsky’s lithograph print of author Leo Tolstoy (1909) Below Dagestani man in traditional dress (1911)
In the beginning, Prokudin-Gorsky adopted a method for colour photography that had first emerged in 1855, by James Clerk Maxwell, known as the three-colour principle. Although the original method left little to be desired in terms of results, Prokudin-Gorsky, galvanising his knowledge of chemistry, set the method in a different direction. Thanks to his friendship with the Lumière brothers, he then incorporated the Autochrome process, but quickly discarded it, after he began to merge the two and create his own methods in producing colour prints.
Images from Alleia Hamerops demonstrating the results of the three-colour method
Success came for Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909, after his portrait shot of Leo Tolstoy caught the eye of Tsar Alexander II. Upon meeting with the Tsar, he was soon sent on an expedition, to capture the empire across its three continents. He was given a specially adapted railroad car, which contained a darkroom. This prodigious journey would see him produce his magnum opus.
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1912)
As someone who has long been fascinated by early colour photography, I find Prokudin-Gorsky’s photography to be a magisterial display of artistic talent and technological innovation. Like most of the great photographers of the past, Prokudin-Gorsky was a Renaissance man, who aside from a background in chemistry, had also studied painting and music at The Imperial Academy of Arts. In mixing science and art, he was able to become a unique master in his field.
Capturing the Last Days of a Dying World
Below is a further nine photographs from a collection of some 10,000 that Prokudin-Gorsky captured on his epic journey for Tsar Nicholas II, between 1909 and 1915.
