In search of color

July 3, 2023 8:46 AM

In Search of True Color "But there is something equally arresting about those lesser-seen works among Prokudin-Gorsky’s œuvre, photographs that their maker might well have understood in some sense as “failures”: warped images, off images, images shot through with starshatter cracks where the plate was smashed, blebbed with mold and mildew, scratched with a fingernail, or caked in dust. "
posted by dhruva (7 comments total)

Thanks for posting! Very cool!!
posted by pangolin party at 11:01 AM on July 3, 2023

What the scaly social event said!
posted by y2karl at 11:20 AM on July 3, 2023

But these are all digital compositions so we’re not seeing the actual photographs. Even the Wikipedia version is closer to the original.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:42 PM on July 3, 2023

Ideefixe, that image is a lithograph made to allow wider release of the most famous images. I’m not sure what the original prints looked like - there are very few of them remaining - but it’s my understanding (and supported by the Wikipedia page and article) that the digital compositing was an attempt to get back to the spirit of the original prints.
In any case, the results are astounding and I appreciate the article, thanks for posting!
posted by q*ben at 3:18 PM on July 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

I still have, somewhere, enlargements from a 110 negative that a customer wanted printed. The film had definitely cooked, but the image of a pink beach with frothing orange and rust surf is great, like a snapshot from a holiday on Mars.
posted by winesong at 6:33 PM on July 3, 2023

There is something unique about these photographs, "true color" or not. Thanks for sharing them.
posted by blue shadows at 9:57 PM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

q*ben. I’ve seen the originals at LOC, and nothing on the internet looks anything like those. Getty Images license the digital versions, which seems so wrong.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:33 PM on July 4, 2023