Mosque in the Bashkir village Yakhino (1910)

Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) was a Russian chemist and photographer best known for his pioneering work in colour photography. He developed a unique process of taking three separate black and white photographs of a subject, each using a different coloured filter (red, green and blue). These three images were then projected onto a screen using the same coloured filters, creating a full colour image. Prokudin-Gorsky's most famous work is his series of photographs documenting the people, landscapes and architecture of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. He travelled extensively throughout the empire, from the Urals to Central Asia, capturing images of everything from peasants and factory workers to mosques and palaces. Prokudin-Gorsky's photographs are remarkable not only for their technical achievement but also for their historical significance. They offer a vivid glimpse of a world that has now vanished, capturing the diversity and richness of the Russian Empire before its collapse in the aftermath of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Today, Prokudin-Gorsky's photographs are considered a national treasure in Russia, and many of his original glass plates are in the collections of major museums and archives around the world.

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