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Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was a Russian pioneer of colour photography. This view of Lugano was most likely taken in 1909. Although James Clerk Maxwell made the first colour photograph in 1861, the results were far from realistic until Prokudin-Gorskii perfected the technique with a series of improvements around 1905. His process used a camera that took a series of monochrome pictures in rapid sequence, each through a different coloured filter. Prokudin-Gorskii then went on to document much of the country of Russia, travelling by train in a specially equipped darkroom railroad car. Photo credit: Prokudin-Gorskii |