'The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world--the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population'.

Prokudin-Gorskii developed his own method for producing stunning colour prints, which involved using glass plate negatives:

'The negatives served two purposes. Primarily they were used to produce positive glass slides for his illustrated lectures about the Russian Empire. Prokudin-Gorskii projected the slides through the red, green, and blue filters of a device known as a "magic lantern" which superimposed the images onto a screen resulting in a full-color picture. Secondly, Prokudin-Gorskii used the negatives to print reference photographs of his journeys which were mounted in albums.'

(Thanks, B.)

From the Library of Congress online exhibition.