My favorite site on the internet at the moment: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, photographer for Czar Nicholas II, made color (!) pictures years before World War I using an ingenious system of colored lenses and multiple exposures. They’ve been rediscovered and are on exhibit at the Library of Congress and its web site.

To me, anything before World War II has a definite black and white feel to it. To see color pictures of an era before color is simply bizarre—it forces a contemporary sheen back onto long-dead people and situations. Interestingly, it seems easier not to judge historical actions of black and white people; but take a color picture of them, and the morality of their actions, such as those of the Emir of Bukhara (above), become suddenly relevant.

Imagine a color photograph of Alexander the Great in an unposed moment, or a video clip of Vercingetorix. Would we think of them differently? We have such things of Hitler—does the banality of Hitler relaxing in a color documentary bring the magnitude of his crimes into even greater focus?

[Sat, Jul 13 2002 – 06:22] Manuel (email) I agree, there’s something about black and white that immediately removes from my-private-zeitgeist. Black and white provides a veneer or prophylactic effect. In calor, these photos give you a different perspective…for one, the color makes you think about the people’s lives at that very instant…then you look at the photograph date and realize they are already dead. I particularly liked the schoolchildren on the side of a hill photo.