Some readers may be aware of the work done by Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky.
Commissioned by Tsar Nicolas II to photographically document the Empire, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled in a railroad-car darkroom across Russia from around 1909 to 1915 taking hundreds if not thousands of photographs using a three-image colour process. When projected (or displayed on a computing device) these images created a fabulous coloured record of the time.
Apart from the fact that we can see exactly how the costumes of the people appeared in glorious colour, it also captures village and town scenes, many of which represent what Russian villages had probably looked like for 200 years. It is in this latter aspect that the real value lies for me as a lover of wargames terrain. The detail of the images is superb and inspires me to build models of these rustic structures. It also shows me just how much vegetation stands around these villages and makes me think about how I structure villages and towns on the gaming table. You can expect to see some of the ideas illustrated below crop up on these pages in the future.
The Prokudin-Gorskiĭ photograph collection, can be viewed online at Library of Congress here.
Not the first time you have brought this resource to my attention Mark but it remains really impressive...I look forward to seeing you create the building in the first image for a future game!
ReplyDeleteYes it continues to fascinate me. It is such an incredible record of the time. I think that church may be a little too large for the gaming table...but you never know.
DeleteLovely images there, and I too love the image of the church. Grand Manner I’m the UK do a Borodino church that is massive and would dominate most gaming tables. Looks great though.
ReplyDeleteIt is a truly incredible collection of images. Every so often I go to the site and pick a random page to look through. I find it fascinating to look at some of the traditional costumes. If you saw these images in black and white you would think what a depressing time this was, but in colour there is life and character.
DeleteThese photos are really interesting works. Will some of these buildings be showing up on your wargaming table?
ReplyDeleteI think there will be a number of new buildings added to my collection as a result of viewing these images. I already have a good number of Eastern European buildings (summer and winter) but they are too neat and tidy. If you zoom into images 2 and 7 in those I posted, you can see how roughly constructed and maintained they are.
DeleteConstruction is very rustic. Reminds me of western mining camps in my part of the world in the 1850's -1910. What interests me is the unique cleft in the bluff in the background of Photo 7. I wonder where that is?
DeleteThe credit for the image is “Stone gate and Uzvarian fortress, Uznariani Castle in Tsagvery village” which Google maps show me as being in the middle of Georgia, about 110 km west of Tbilisi.
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