That castle looks like something out of Candyland

I ask myself why it is that I never realized color photography existed before the 1960s. Why are all the photos and things I ever saw from before I was born nearly always in black and white? Here we see some photographer exactly 100 years ago traipsing across rural Russia and the extended steppes and mountains of its empire pre-Bolshevik revolution. It's amazing to see the color of the different people who called these places home. The Jewish teacher with students, the Emirs, the nomads; the white, yellow and mixed peoples...it's insanity that most people don't even have a blip in their minds about this place called Central Asia and the intricacies of it.

Why are we not using these old photographs to teach history and make it more accessible to modern students. We're talking peoples and histories that directly and indirectly mesh and influence the history of the Middle East and Afghanistan. How useful would this be from an anthropological perspective and why is it not more common to stumble upon?

EDIT: I finally realized how to star and flag yesterday, so now I made this officially my first "S&F" as it's called.

[edit on 23-8-2010 by Sphota]

It's hard to believe these were actually taken one hundred years ago. The color, quality, and resolution of these photos suggests they were taken much more recent.

I'm not challenging their validity as I have no evidence to back up such a claim, nor am I claiming to be a photography expert, but just taking a look at the larger photos on the link provided makes me believe they are more recent photographs.

Nonetheless, they are incredible pictures, especially if they were taken at the time they claim to have been taken.

Absolutely perfect , thank you for posting this and also to others regarding the tech.

I did recall some chap at art college using plates, textures and depth of his work was amazing.

marking this thread for ongoing research.

The self portrait is very evocative.

What a fantastic post...

A glimpse of the world as it was before the last 100 years actually happened...phenomenal...

Truly amazing! If you look close at the city shots, you'll see no garbage strewn about. I thought they were being clean until I saw the water carrier; they didn't have anything to throw away. Every thing was used.
Something else, everyone in those pictures is dead, a little morbid but something that I find fascinating.

This is the Mother Russia from literature. Thanx for sharing the site.

It would be interesting to see some of these same sites photographed today to witness changes.

Originally posted by hinky
It would be interesting to see some of these same sites photographed today to witness changes.

That might very well be possible in that most, if not all, of the locations are named with each photograph. I haven't got time to do anything like that at the moment though.

I have always wondered what my life would have been like if I were born in a different century. Hard to believe that not too long ago those people were not even traveling via vehicle or plane whilst getting directions via navigation app through an Ipad. Crazy times they lived in hehe. Just imagine 100 years from now!

Wow.
The colors are so soft and subtle yet extremely natural and vibrant.

Truly amazing.

As wonderful as these pictures are, I believe they could be made even better. A person with access to the original color-separated bw images could apply modern digital techniques to compensate for movement of individual persons, as well as image distortion near the edges. The artists' original intention was photographic perfection, so helping them achieve it posthumously should offend no one.