Thread: Oldest color photos

They aren't colorized, these are real color photos taken with three exposures with different color filters. They are from pre-Communism Russia under the Czar.

https://no.pinterest.com/kasidahb/se...orsky/?lp=true



The above one is from 1909. I see a person much closer to nature yet distinctly aware of her being supposed to be something higher than nature. Whether that is cultural in origin or religious in a personal way I do not know.

Incredible photo

I made it a bit sharper :

These are of course my personal impressions. The photographer travelled all over Russia and among all kinds of tribes. There is a Chinese looking guy in one of the photos, probably a Buddhist. There are lots of people from Muslim tribes. I don't see much more than a thick coating of Islam there, even when the photo is otherwise interesting or beautiful. Thicker than but similar to what I've seen when travelling in areas of Europe that are largely Muslim, like Bosnia and Albania. The common denominator may be that they are all non-Arabs and Islam fits the Arab culture better. The coating seems sickly sweet in some sense, which fits the fact that it's a false religion.

Such a shame communism came 10 years later and ruined the nation.

I wonder if the Tsar was a decent leader and helped the people how different Russia would be today

Originally Posted by Cardinal TT

Such a shame communism came 10 years later and ruined the nation.

I wonder if the Tsar was a decent leader and helped the people how different Russia would be today

I'm currently reading a book written in 2011 about Russian history that takes into account lots of material released progressively since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It's part of the Cambridge Concise series so it's not particularly controversial. The prologue claims that the material revises Soviet history but also pre-Soviet history now that they have gone through masses of material surpressed by the Soviets. I haven't gotten further than the Napoleon wars in the early 1800s yet. Peter then Catherine the great were very enlightenment minded tsars of the 1700s but the later tsars became more counter reform due to fear of the intellectual aftermath of the extremely radical French revolution in about 1790.

Serfdom became a huge problem early on in the Russian empire but it wasn't quite as bad in practical terms, nor as universal as Communist history will have it. The peasant family of the photo I posted may have been serfs, technically. But not poor or particularly oppressed like some of the people in some of the photos seem to be.

Beautiful photos! I will have to take some time to study the one's on pinterest. I love history.

Originally Posted by Colonel

They aren't colorized, these are real color photos taken with three exposures with different color filters. They are from pre-Communism Russia under the Czar.

https://no.pinterest.com/kasidahb/se...orsky/?lp=true



The above one is from 1909. I see a person much closer to nature yet distinctly aware of her being supposed to be something higher than nature. Whether that is cultural in origin or religious in a personal way I do not know.

So this photo is over 100 years old? That is incredible! It looks like it could have been taken yesterday.

Originally Posted by Cardinal TT

Such a shame communism came 10 years later and ruined the nation.

I wonder if the Tsar was a decent leader and helped the people how different Russia would be today

Unfortunately, the people suffered greatly under both regimes.

Originally Posted by Susan

Unfortunately, the people suffered greatly under both regimes.

Serfdom was practiced mainly in Russia plus the adjacent countries Poland and Lithuania according to the book. Absolute monarchy paved the way for an atheistic revolution in France and serfdom for Communism in Russia.