a bit of documentation from last week … i had to face down this crowd in various guises all last week … it was tough dirty dangerous work … but somebody had to do it.

i’m just now astonished by the immediacy of the color photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii … never heard of him before now. He worked from 1909 to 1915 … and the pictures … the few that i see at the wikipedia article … just shatter that old grainy black & white world …

note especially the portrait of mohammed alim khan taken in 1911 … yes, the blue robe is astonishing … but even moreso are the natural skin tones of the face … and fingers … the date says 1911 but the image is now now now …