Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, untitled photograph of haloed statues holding keys, a book, and sword, likely the apostles Peter and Paul, ca. 1910. Left is a digital colour composite by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, 2004; right is Walt Frankhauser’s version, 2005–2020
Featured on PDR in the essay In Search of True Color: Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky’s Flawed Images
Archived amid Prokudin-Gorsky’s vast photographic survey of the Russian Empire, we find images shot through with starshatter cracks, blebbed with mildew, and blurred by motion. Within such moments of unmaking, Erica X Eisen uncovers the overlapping forces at play behind these pioneering efforts in colour photography.