Dean's World

Whoa.

Here's a collection of color photographs from Russia— in the *nineteenth* century. They weren't actually photographs but three slides taken through filters and then re-projected; Photoshop (and similar programs) has enabled these pictures to be reconstructed.

They're utterly crisp and stunning. Yeah, they had professionals cleaning them up to begin with, but the source material is amazing... and the slightly offset nature of the individual slides gives an almost three-dimesional look to the finished product.

Here's the photographer. And some architectural and industrial photos.

I think that color photographs, especially good ones, help us identify with people. Those 19th-century folk don't seem nearly as far away (or, let's face it, backward) when you can see them as they saw each other. Black and white photography imposes a step of isolation and unreality on its subjects, useful in art but distancing.