Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Astonish me.





The Russian-born photographer, designer and instructor Alexy Brodovitch often began his classes by shouting "Astonish me!" at the assembled students. I had a teacher in design school who sometimes did the same, but in a conspiratorial let's not abide mediocrity, shall we? sort of way.
Color photos (that have almost nothing to do with the above random non-story) of southern and central Russia, made by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii between 1909 and 1912. The images were created by taking 3 black & white photos in rapid succession, using red, green and blue filters - then recombined and projected with filtered lanterns with heartbreakingly (astonishingly) beautiful results.
From here, via here, by way of here.

2 comments:

  1. Stunning, love the rendering of the colors in those pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "heartbreakingly (astonishingly) beautiful results", just about sums it up perfectly. I'm stunned.

    ReplyDelete

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