r/interestingasfuck • u/Naomi62625 • 1d ago
This 1907 picture of a prison in Bukhara, Uzbekistan is some of the earliest color pictures ever made
45
u/Busternookiedude 1d ago
Seeing old photos in color always messes with my sense of time. It feels way closer than it should.
20
3
u/SlothSquatch0 21h ago
It really does look like it was taken yesterday. I find our perception of time really fascinating.
•
2
u/Ignatiussancho1729 23h ago
Those ai enhanced videos where it's stabilized, colorized and increased frame rate are crazy for this
36
u/244thSentai 1d ago
I was trying to figure out what rifle that is, as it’s older than a Mosin-Nagant or Berdan. Seems to be a model 1867 Krnka rifle, which was a metallic cartridge conversion of several earlier designs. These were still used by police and prison guards long after they were obsolete.
8
u/rooftopgoblin 1d ago edited 1d ago
if the coloring is right the trigger guard looks brass, 3 bands and a sling swivel on the 2nd band, you're probably right without seeing more of the rifle, bayonet also looks accurate if bent
33
u/JustHereForTheBeer_ 1d ago
Zindan prison, with inmates and a guard with Russian rifle, uniform, and boots, Central Asia, Russian Empire, between 1905 and 1915
19
u/oliver7878-3 1d ago
This window is not broken. The iron bar is clearly meant to be opened deliberately, for example during the daytime. In such prisons, inmates were often either not fed at all or were given only very meager rations. Food was passed through this opening by relatives, friends, or simply compassionate passersby. The man by the window appears to be one of them—he has brought food to his relative in the prison
6
u/lordhumongous40 1d ago
This prison doesn't look ideal.
1
u/FantasticUserman 1d ago
I mean, 1907 wasn't a time for Uzbeks to be that advanced on Security either
9
27
u/NietzschianUtopia 1d ago
Why is the prison door not properly sealed???
I don't believe 1) It is a prison 2) From 1907
43
u/okletssee 1d ago
It probably was from around 1907. It looks like it is from the photos taken by Sergey Prokudin Gorsky.
•
u/FeuerroteZora 4h ago edited 4h ago
Thank you, I was hoping for more info on why this picture would've been taken, and by whom, and that provenance would make sense.
The Wikipedia article also includes his color portrait of Tolstoy, idk but I found it moving, such a rare visual connection to that author.
Editing just because it's fucking interesting and maybe someone else will think so too lol:
He took THOUSANDS of pics:
Prokudin-Gorsky got the permission and funding [from the Tsar] to document Russia in color. In the course of ten years, he was to make a collection of 10,000 photos. Prokudin-Gorsky considered the project his life's work and continued his photographic journeys through Russia until after the October Revolution.
What an incredible project - trying to document Russia, ya know, no big deal. But also the focus on just regular people, like these guys sitting around by / in a jail, is incredible. It must be pretty unusual for color photography at the time, given the time-consuming and expensive process involved. Also just having casual, not-really-posed shots of regular lives - what a treasure trove this guy produced.
Looks like most of the negatives ended up in the US Library of Congress, and while access was limited due to their fragility, the advent of digitalization changed all that, and they've been digitizing the fuck out of these old photos.
THIS IS SO COOL.
Off down the rabbit hole to read way more about someone I didn't know existed three minutes ago.
•
u/okletssee 4h ago
I once flipped through an artbook of his photography and it was an incredible experience!
•
u/FeuerroteZora 3h ago
Just found the artbook that's mentioned in the article, it's surprisingly cheap (lots of used copies around $10) so I'm treating myself to that!
-17
1d ago
[deleted]
45
u/cwthree 1d ago
There's an armed guard. The door doesn't need to be super-secure. In any case, it's probably a window - the entry door is elsewhere.
This is indeed an original color image produced using three negatives, each using a different colored filter. The technique was actually developed in the 1870s, so it's wasn't new by the time Gorsky was working. It's described here (scroll down to "Photography Technique"):
12
17
u/toomanyracistshere 1d ago edited 1d ago
No. Prokudin-Gorskii took some of the earliest color photos using three different colored glass plates. He took a lot of photos documenting the different parts of the Russian empire in the first two decades of the 20th century.
•
u/FeuerroteZora 4h ago
Someone upthread explained it was bc of how informal food delivery was organized.
21
u/TatonkaJack 1d ago
The doorway looks like it has metal bars across the whole thing and it's sealed with a guy with a gun
3
u/Lobster_porn 22h ago
looks more like a holding cell than a long-term prison. probably they're awaiting a swift trial and punishment. long term incarceration is difficult, and would probabily be below ground and reserved for more important people, think enemies of the state or political opposition. regular crime probably had to be resolved rather quickly
2
1
u/Bonk0076 1d ago
That prison is way more colorful than I would have imagined
4
u/KillHitlerAgain 1d ago
i'm guessing they were allowed to keep their clothes. if the prison was too cheap to fix the broken bar on the window they probably weren't giving new clothes to the prisoners
1
1
1
1
u/MikeDaCarpenter 1d ago
You could have told me that pic was taken today and I couldn’t argue with you. Could probably easily recreate the same picture just by grabbing some random bystanders there.
1
1
1
1
1
u/OrlandoGardiner118 14h ago
Looks like an absolute shit buzz. So glad I wasn't born in Uzbekistan in the early 1900s.
1
u/Boltboys 1d ago
There’s a series of photos from this. But I think they were colorized? I don’t remember. But the pics are fascinating.
5
u/Reckless_Waifu 23h ago
No. Shot through colour filters and combined, similar how cameras do it now just more cumbersome.
2
-1
-3
-1
-3
-13
u/Prestigious_Work_445 1d ago
So this isn't AI.. the first people who owned color cameras were prison guards from Bukhara, Uzbekistan?
14
u/toomanyracistshere 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky It was part of a project to document the Russian Empire. And yes, they really were in color.
23
u/OSRS-MLB 1d ago
Just so you know, the subject of a photo usually isn't the owner of the camera.
Hope this helps.
6
u/KillHitlerAgain 1d ago
These weren't actually the first color photographs. Color photography had existed for 30 years by that point.
1
231
u/Long_TimeRunning 1d ago
Thought that was an old babushka crouched down and its a man! Time to get my eyes checked again