I’ve always been fascinated by pictures from the past. These color photos from Russian photographer/chemist Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii are simply incredible. Between 1909 and 1915, Prokudin-Gorskii traveled across his home country, using a relatively new technology of color photography to document what he saw along his journey. Outfitting a private train car with his own dark room equipment, Prokudin-Gorskii captured landscapes, buildings, and people in a series of breathtaking images. Without sepia tones’ time-distancing effects, the characters in these images feel right there, full of stories of a bygone era and a diverse, colorful culture on the brink of revolution.
View the entire collection of high res photographs here.