It's a Beautiful World

Today I discovered a wonderful Plog (picture blog) posted on Denverpost.com which shares incredible historical photography.  I was especially transfixed by the pre-World War I color photographs from Russia.  Since I will probably never visit Russia and obviously I will never visit the early 1900s in person, I am grateful to visit the country and the time through these amazing photos.

The photographs of Russian chemist and photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, show Russia on the eve of World War I and the coming of the revolution. From 1909-1912 and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorskii travelled across the Russian Empire, documenting life, landscapes and the work of Russain people. His images were to be a photographic survey of the time.

He travelled in a special train car transformed into a dark room to process his special process of creating color images, a technology that was in its infancy in the early 1900’s. Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, after the Russian Revolution had destroyed the Empire he spent years documenting. To learn more about the Prokudin-Gorskii, the process he used to create the color photographs, and see his collection, you can visit the Library of Congress, who purchased his glass negatives in 1948 after his death in 1944.

Here is a sampling of what you will find.  Enjoy.

Peasant girls, Russian Empire. Three young women offer berries to visitors to their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River, near the town of Kirillov; 1909 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Mills in Ialutorovsk district of Tobolsk Province; 1912 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara, seated holding sword; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Old church of Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, Nyrob; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Group of workers harvesting tea. Greek women, Chakva; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Altar side of the Dmitrievskii Cathedral, Vladimir; 1911 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Isfandiyar, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm (Khiva), full-length portrait, in uniform, seated on chair, outdoors; between 1910 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Dagestani types, Group of women posed outdoors; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Trans-Siberian Railway metal truss bridge on stone piers,

over the Kama River near Perm, Ural Mountains Region;

ca. 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Thank you, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, for documenting your world and preserving your work so it can be viewed in different land in another century.

Is there something beautiful or important you will leave to the next generation? Something that will express your world, your personality, your interests?  What will you leave as your statement?