This photograph was taken around 1910, as part of a commissioned project to show the world of the Russian Empire, in full color, right at the cusp of World War I. I always assumed that everyone lived in a black-and-white world between 1896 and 1944, and before that, only lived in a world that looked like an Impressionist painting. No, this wasn’t on the shoot of a period piece; the dude actually used a layered film and color process that allowed him to shoot in full color. The length of the exposure was longer than the average person could hold, which made for some blurry pictures– but this photograph manages to vividly portray real humans on a neat pile of logs that I assume is part of a large raft. These are logs that I would have otherwise taken for granted as useless, out-of-focus historical background on logging.

Some of his other photos give me an eerie feeling, like the old, dead people are going to reach out and grab me. As if the color can bring back the living dead or something. These photographic anomalies make me feel like I’m seeing something that I’m not allowed to see, like the past was trying to hide behind bland, monochromatic prints.

Russia is like another planet to me, and I feel like the aliens have sent images to earth with this photograph.

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