March 27, 2004

Tsarist Russia, caught on film

Posted by shonk at 02:27 AM in Art | TrackBack

More proof that if you’re not hitting up the metablog or feedroll for updates, you’re missing out: John Venlet links to a recent post at Gene Expressions which, in turn, points to this amazing gallery of color photographs from Tsarist Russia (arranged in several categories listed at the top of the linked page, or in this complete list). Everything about these photographs is stunning, not least of which is the fact that they’re almost 100 years old. I think we tend, at least subconsciously, to think of the world before color photography as being fundamentally black-and-white, even though we know, intellectually, that it wasn’t; these photographs shatter that paradigm. Seriously, check them out.

Comments

Blast you and your accursed competing metablog!

Posted by: John T. Kennedy at March 27, 2004 03:12 AM

Glad you enjoyed those photos. I'll be visiting them again soon myself.

Posted by: John Venlet at March 27, 2004 08:34 AM

I think this type of color transfer is also being done with old movies: the DVD of the original "Ladykillers," which I watched a couple of weeks ago, is in vivid color, whereas I am almost certain the film was originally black-and-white.

Posted by: Curt at March 27, 2004 01:25 PM

I think Ted Turner had some project for colorizing, or re-colorizing, old films/teevee shows, also. I don't recall the particulars.

Posted by: John Venlet at March 27, 2004 02:06 PM

I have The Ladykillers, it was shot in Technicolor.

Posted by: John T. Kennedy at March 27, 2004 10:48 PM

thanks for posting that link - the photos are incredible (not doing so much to control my urge to say to hell with everything and pack up and move to russia, but incredible nonetheless)

Posted by: jane at March 28, 2004 08:06 PM