Rare color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky. Pre-revolutionary Russia in color photographs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky Photos of Prokudin Gorsky in high resolution
Rare color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky (70 photos)
Having recently accidentally stumbled upon a colorful photograph of an old Sart man online, I did not attach much importance to the fact that the photograph was in color. Well, a photograph is just like a photograph. Some old man in a robe, no different from the refugees from Tajikistan-Afghanistan who often appear on TV screens lately, and even on the streets of our city. Photographer Prokudin-Gorsky.
Soon, during a conversation online, this name came up again in a conversation about the virtual library of the US Congress. Hastening to go to the Library of Congress website, I spent the rest of the night online, downloading file after file of amazing pictures of the life of the Russian Empire, captured in color by photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky at the beginning of the last century.
Having become interested primarily in photographs from the Central Asian series taken in 1911, I involuntarily looked through dozens of photographs in search of the necessary material. Gradually the shock that these were COLOR photographs of the early 20th century wore off. I saw animated paintings and illustrations of Russian classics. Magnificent landscapes. A series of ethnographic photographs depicting representatives of many peoples of the empire. Household sketches, industrial paintings of the era of young Russian capitalism.
Looking through slide after slide, I felt a change in my understanding of pre-revolutionary Russia. She turned out to be somewhat different than what she had seen from the books she had read and the films she had seen. Books make the imagination work - and it is subjective. Old photographs are usually of such poor quality that they appear dead and contrived. Films are generally staged, and there were practically no documentary films at that time. Photographs by Prokudin-Gorsky captured full-color paintings from real life. Later I read a statement by Sergei Mikhailovich about photography’s contribution to the cause of education: “Memory, supported visually, thanks to an interestingly presented subject, will far surpass our usual methods of memorization.”
And yet, where did color come from a hundred years ago?
How was this done?
After all, just recently - 30-40 years ago, color photography was exotic. I also remember pseudo-colored painted photographs...
A talented chemist, a keen photographer, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, Prokudin-Gorsky by 1906 published a number of articles on the principles of color photography. During this period he improved so much new method, which ensured equal color sensitivity across the entire spectrum, which could already take color photographs suitable for projection. At the same time, he developed his own method of transmitting color images, based on dividing colors into three components. He shot objects 3 times through 3 filters - red, green and blue. This resulted in 3 black and white positive plates.
To subsequently reproduce the image, he used a three-section slide projector with blue, red and green light. All three images from the three plates were projected onto the screen simultaneously, as a result of which those present were able to see full-color images. Being by 1909 already famous photographer and editor of the magazine "Amateur Photographer", Sergei Mikhailovich got the opportunity to fulfill his old dream - to compile a photo chronicle of the Russian Empire.
On the recommendation of Grand Duke Michael, he outlines his plan to Nicholas II and receives the most ardent support. Over the next few years, the government provided Prokudin-Gorsky with a specially equipped railway carriage for travel to photographically document the life of the empire.
During this work, several thousand plates were filmed. The technology for displaying color images on the screen has been developed.
And most importantly, a gallery of beautiful photographs has been created, unprecedented in quality and volume. And for the first time, such a series of photographs was separated into colors. Then only for the purpose of displaying it on the screen using an overhead projector.
The further fate of these photographic plates is also unusual. After the death of Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to travel first to Scandinavia, then to Paris, taking with him almost all the results of many years of work - glass plates in 20 boxes.
“In the 1920s, Prokudin-Gorsky lived in Nice, and the local Russian community received the precious opportunity to view his paintings in the form of color slides. Sergei Mikhailovich was proud that his work helped the young Russian generation on foreign soil to understand and remember what it looked like their lost homeland - in its most real form, preserving not only its color, but also its spirit."
The collection of photographic plates survived both the numerous moves of the Prokudin-Gorsky family and the German occupation of Paris.
At the end of the 40s, the question arose about the publication of the first “History of Russian Art” under the general editorship of Igor Grabar. Then - about the possibility of supplying it with color illustrations. It was then that the translator of this work, Princess Maria Putyatin, remembered that at the beginning of the century her father-in-law, Prince Putyatin, introduced Tsar Nicholas II to a certain professor Prokudin-Gorsky, who developed a method of color photography by color separation. According to her information, the professor’s sons lived as exiles in Paris and were the custodians of a collection of his photographs.
In 1948, Marshall, a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, purchased about 1,600 photographic plates from the Prokudin-Gorskys for $5,000. Since then, the plates have been kept in the Library of Congress for many years.
Recently, someone just came up with the idea of trying to scan and combine 3-plate photographs of Prokudin - Gorsky on a computer. And almost a miracle happened - it seemed that the images, lost forever, came to life."
Author Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky
These color photographs were taken between 1909 and 1912 by photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) with the support of Tsar Nicholas II.
He used a special camera that successively took three black and white photographs through red, green and blue filters. This allowed them to later be recombined and projected using flashlights with filters to produce photos with almost natural colors. The high quality of the photographs coupled with the vibrant colors makes it difficult for viewers to believe that these photographs were taken 100 years ago, before October Revolution and even before the First World War.
Post sponsor: The series is in excellent quality.
Armenian woman in national costume posing for a photograph on a hill near Artvin (now part of Turkey) in 1910.
Self-portrait near the Korolistskhali River, ca. 1910. Prokudin-Gorsky, wearing a suit and hat, sits on a rock by a river in the Caucasus Mountains, near Batumi, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.
Kasli craftsmen at work, around 1910. Photo from the album “Views Ural mountains, overview of the industrial area, Russian Empire."
A woman sits in a quiet place on the Sim River, which is part of the Volga basin, 1910.
Chapel on the site where the city of Belozersk was founded, 1909.
View of Tbilisi from the Church of St. David, 1910.
Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur, Khan of the Khorezm region (Khiva, now part of modern Uzbekistan), c. 1910.
Detailed photograph of Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur. This photograph was taken early in his reign in 1910, when he was 39 years old. He ruled Khorezm until his death in 1918.
Generators made in Budapest, in the hall of the generating station in Yolotan, Turkmenistan, on the Murghab River, 1910.
Pinkhus Karlinski is 84 years old, 66 of which he served in the army. Controller of the Chernigov sluice gates, which are part of the Mariinsky Canal system. The photo was taken in 1909.
A group of Jewish children with a teacher in (now Uzbekistan), 1910.
Laying cement for the dam's sluice in 1912. Workers and foremen pose for a photo after taking a moment to prepare for the pouring of cement for the foundation of the sluice gate of the dam across the Oka River, near Beloomut.
A Sart woman wearing a burqa in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, circa 1910. Before the revolution of 1917, the word “sarts” was used to describe Uzbeks living in Kazakhstan.
Prokudin-Gorsky rides along the rails of the Murmansk railway on a handcar near Petrozavodsk, along Lake Onega in 1910.
In our opinion, we present to your attention the most interesting material - everything 2500 unique color photographs Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944)
from the US Library of Congress. They show live portrait of Russia on the eve of the First World War and the impending revolution. This includes images from medieval churches and monasteries old Russia to the railroads and factories of a growing industrial power and everyday life and the work of Russia's diverse population.
In the early 1900s, Prokudin-Gorsky developed a bold plan to conduct a photographic survey of the Russian Empire, which received the support of Tsar Nicholas II. Between 1909 and 1912, and again in 1915, he surveyed eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railway carriage provided to him by the Ministry of Railways.
Prokudin-Gorsky used the most unique photography technology at that time, which made it possible to form color image
How did you manage to make the photos color?
As you know, color film was invented by the AGFA company only in the 1930s. A Prokudin-Gorsky photographed using special filters that made it possible to obtain three black and white images with different color information. At that time, a special projector with three lenses was used for viewing, each of which projected its own frame through a filter of the desired color shade. And only nowadays, especially with the advent computer technology, it has become possible to most accurately restore unique photographs in color. You can read more about the technology at Wikipedia >> .
About Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-GorskySergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky(August 31, 1863, Murom, Vladimir province, Russian Empire - September 27, 1944, Paris, France) - famous Russian photographer, chemist (mentor of Mendeleev), inventor, publisher, teacher and public figure, member of the Imperial Russian Geographical and Imperial Russian Technical Societies. He made a significant contribution to the development of photography and cinematography. Pioneer of color photography, creator of the “Collection of Landmarks of the Russian Empire.” More detailed biography >>
Works of Prokudin-Gorsky
In 1909-1916 Prokudin-Gorsky traveled throughout a significant part of Russia, photographing ancient churches, monasteries, factories, views of cities and various everyday scenes.
The archive contains works from the following regions:
Examples of photographs by Prokudin-Gorsky:
Information about the archive of photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky:
The archive consists of photographs from the following sources:
From the library: 3400x3200 (1902 pieces + 122 restored) (All + rendered)
- Restoration on a folk project: 1024x1000 (242 pcs.) (museum)
- Foreign restorers: from 199x465 to 1280x1024 (64 pcs.) (low quality, for collection)
Sources:
1. Library of Congress - here you can find photographs in high quality, and also find information about a photo by file name.
2. Complete database of color images by S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky
Download the complete collection of color photos of Prokudin-Gorsky (2500 photos / JPEG / 5+GB)
!! ATTENTION!! Full archive has a size over 5.2 GB, and for your convenience it was divided into 5 almost equal parts measuring 1 GB. The division into archives is carried out in alphabetical order of file names.
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The beginning of the 20th century was marked by amazing scientific discoveries and inventions, many of which were decades ahead of their time. Among them is color photography using the color separation method, which is technically very complex, but produces results of amazingly high quality.
In 1903, one of the pioneers of this method and the first color photographer in Russia was Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944), a representative of an ancient noble family of the Vladimir region. This man devoted all his talent as a scientist and the ebullient energy of an ascetic to one grandiose goal - to capture “in natural colors” the entire breadth and wealth of the great country, which was called the Russian Empire.
Images of the Russian people in the photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky
(based on materials from the website http://www.prokudin-gorsky.org/, which conducts research and popularization of the heritage of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky and the blog of the project “The Legacy of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky” https://oldcolor.livejournal .com/)
By “people,” Sergei Mikhailovich, like many Russian intellectuals, understood primarily the peasantry - the guardian of Russian identity, the traditional way of life, the basis of the Russian state.
Therefore, the main ethnographic photographs are presented with downright poetic, picturesque images of peasant labor against the backdrop of nature, mainly in the northern provinces (now the Vologda region). Other layers of the “people” are represented mainly by Ural workers, some of whom are hardly distinguishable from peasants. Ordinary townspeople, townsfolk, merchants came into the frame only by chance general views cities. Other representatives of Russian society are captured in photographs of a sketch nature, but this is, as it were, a separate topic for one of the next review posts - “Serving Russia”.
In single copies, Prokudin-Gorsky also has photographs of cultural figures (L. Tostoy, F. Chaliapin), statesmen(rulers of Bukhara and Khiva), clergy, portraits of unknown ladies, incl. clearly of the nobility.
Let's start the review with the most beautiful photo "Lunch in the Mow". taken in July 1909 on the banks of the Sheksna near Cherepovets:
I think no one will argue that this work deserves the name “photo painting”, it is distinguished by the perfection of composition, radiates a light “aura”, and fills the viewer with a feeling of serene peace. It is no coincidence that a reproduction of this particular photograph stood in Prokudin-Gorsky’s room during the years of emigration.
In general, the largest and most beautiful series of peasant sketches was made on the banks of the Sheksna.
Here are peasants mowing near the ancient settlement of Krokhino: 
Nowadays, this place, flooded by the waters of the Volga-Balta, has become notorious for the sight of the Krokhino temple dying before the eyes of cruisers, left in 1964 to die among the waves. This temple is a kind of symbol of “Russian Atlandita”. The authorities don’t care about him; only a small group of enthusiastic volunteers is trying to save the ruins of the walls by covering them with sacks.
However, in 1909 this land was full of life and strength and nothing seemed to foretell trouble: 
What happened to these peasants of Belozerye? In Belozersk there is a monument in honor of the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War. On its granite wall are countless names of the dead. This small town and the Belozersky region then lost more of their fellow countrymen than, for example, the United States lost its soldiers in the ten-year Iraqi campaign.
At the Leushinsky Monastery, long ago flooded by the waters of another reservoir, a photograph of the “Monastic hayfield” was taken: 
Probably somewhere nearby, off the banks of the Sheksna, “In the hayfield near the halt” was filmed: 
Another “Haymaking” there: 
The crowning glory of Sheksna's ethnographic series are portraits of peasant girls made in the village of Topornya (where the Duke of Württemberg's canal branches off from the Mariinsky system).
“Peasant girls” with berries have become one of the symbols of the Prokudin-Gorsky collection; a fragment of this photograph is used in the corresponding section of the US Library of Congress website: 
In this photo, the remarkable brightness of the colors of the peasant outfits is mesmerizing.
One of the participants posed separately for the photo “Girl with Strawberries”: 
For this occasion, she put on four types of beads at once: 
I'm already dressed up like that!
The Mariinsky album is completed by two mysterious photographs “At the Harvest”: 
The same two plus three more: 
Could wheat be harvested in July in what is now the Vologda region?
I have an assumption that these photographs were “attached” to the Mariinsky album by the author due to the similarity of the plot, but in reality they were taken in the Urals in the summer of 1907. What is this assumption based on?
As is known, Prokudin-Gorsky often had to visit the Urals on business with the Partnership of Gatchina Copper Smelters and Steel Foundries. He writes about one of these trips, which took place in the summer of 1907, in his address to readers of the magazine “Amateur Photographer” (1907. No. 8. pp. 227-229): “I recently returned from the Urals, where I had to visit not only cities and towns, but also many villages and hamlets. Photography was not a special task of my trip, and although I had cameras with me, I expected to use them very little. For the same reason, a camping tent for equipping cassettes was not taken. The beauty of some of the places captivated me, however, so much that I used up all the cassettes I had loaded at home and had to use the courtesy of a photographer from one of the small factory places. In that small part of the Urals that I saw, I was struck by the size and prosperity of the villages and many hamlets - I was in one of the districts rich in harvests.
Most villages had two. three and four churches. Already a superficial examination showed that there was no question of need here, and if one could desire something, then add even better to the good. I had to spend a week in one of these rich villages. Some motives interested me, and I started photographing. As soon as I appeared on the street with a camera, I immediately became the object of attention of peasants, both men and women. Offers immediately began to take portraits, and upon the statement that I don’t take portraits, everyone said, “Don’t hesitate, we’ll pay the money.”
This story was repeated day after day, both in this village and in others that I visited, and one could count 100 people in each village who willingly took photographs. (...) Out of courtesy to the hosts, with whom I had to live for several days, I agreed to rent a family group. Of course, they went to put on their best dresses, and the women never wanted to stay in the light blue skirts they were wearing, saying that this color would look like white, which is ugly. Everyone knew well that on direct sunlight It’s not good to film, but they themselves showed me a place with excellent lighting for filming. Everyone treated the group's setup with due attention and without the slightest buffoonery. From the conversation after the shooting, I learned that there is a photography lover in the village, but a very bad one. His presence still brings its benefits, and in such villages it will be much easier for a visiting photographer to work.”
Apparently, the photographs “At the Reaping” are the result of one of these impromptu photo sessions.
It is likely that that summer of 1907 Prokudin-Gorsky took another wonderful ethnographic photograph, not associated with any of the expeditions known to us - “Peasant woman crumpling flax. Perm province.”: 
The photo is clearly staged: the peasant woman dressed up and even put on gold jewelry. Well, in two frames she has a serious face, in the third she couldn’t stand it and broke into a smile :-)
Prokudin-Gorsky photographed Russian peasants not only in the “indigenous” provinces, but also on the distant outskirts of the empire.
Thus, in the sun-scorched Mugan steppe of the Baku province, the photograph “Settler’s Family. Village of Grafovka” was taken: 
This photo became famous because it adorned the cover of R. Allhouse’s album “Photographs for the Tsar” (New York, 1980) - the first publication dedicated to Prokudin-Gorsky and his collection.
The tsarist government tried to carry out Russian colonization in some outlying areas, creating compact areas of Russian settlements. In addition to Mugan, another site of a major colonization project was the so-called Hungry Steppe, a desert area on the border of modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The disgraced Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, exiled to Tashkent, but own funds began construction of irrigation canals in the Golodnaya Steppe to transform the barren land into a cotton and livestock oasis. He invited thousands of Russian peasants, to whom he distributed the land to be developed and helped them settle in a new place. Soon, villages named Nadezhdinsky, Nikolsky, Spassky, Romanovsky, Dukhovskoy, and Promised appeared on the left bank of the Syrdarya.
Prokudin-Gorsky in 1911 made a detailed photographic report about this irrigation and colonization project, including a wonderful photograph “Resettlement farm in the Nadezhdinsky village with a group of peasants”: 
Here is a fragment of it, somewhat reminiscent of images from the film “White Sun of the Desert”: 
Prokudin-Gorsky’s working people are represented quite diversely; these are not only industrial workers.
A photograph was taken on the Mariinskaya system, captioned as “Sawmillers on the Svir”, although in fact it was taken at the mouth of the Vytegra River:
People's faces are brightly illuminated by the setting evening sun. They are serious and full of dignity:
Even larger: 
It is difficult to imagine that soon they will all be overwhelmed by a historical whirlpool: they will go to fight with the Germans, then they will begin to create councils, revolutionary committees, and will find themselves on the civilian fronts.
It would be interesting to know the real fates of the people in this and other similar photographs, but this is almost impossible to do.
Builders of the dam in Kuzminsky, Ryazan province, 1912: 
This is one of the best staged shots because it creates the illusion of a momentary shot of people in motion, but in reality the sawyers froze for three seconds.
Workers on the construction of a dam in Beloomut near Moscow (photo fragment): 
Of course, Prokudin-Gorsky captured most of the working people in the Urals.
Here is the famous portrait photograph “Three generations. A.P. Kalganov with his son and granddaughter. The last two work in the workshops of the Zlatoust plant”: 
The most interesting thing is that in 1987 Ronald Reagan gave this photograph (obviously in the form of a reproduction) to Gorbachev. The photograph was transferred for storage to the museum... of Nizhny Tagil.
The photo “Work at the Bakal Mine” makes a strong impression: 
What is striking here is the primitiveness of mining methods in the 20th century. At the same time, the photo was taken at the Heavy Mine, where literally on the eve of Prokudin-Gorsky’s arrival, the first cable car in Russia for lowering ore (by the way, foreign-made) was built: 
At the same Heavy Mine, an interesting group photo “Rolling wood for roasting ore” was taken, which is better viewed as a fragment: 
This motley fraternity of Ural workers seems to carry no less Russian originality than the peasantry: 
In the Urals, workers often lived in small settlements near factories, and often their appearance really differed little from that of the peasants.
By Ural standards, the Bakal mines were still an advanced mining industry. Prokudin-Gorsky also came across a much more primitive level of management, as, for example, in the photograph “Washing brown iron ore at the Shilovsky mine, 7 versts from the village of Makarova” (fragment): 
The master can also find scenes of the labor of skilled workers, for example, “Molding artistic casting” (Kasli): 
Shipping scene finished products, fragment of the photo “Mechanical workshop for finishing artistic castings”: 
The gallery of images of the Russian people is complemented by various sketch works.
In the album of the Volga expedition, which was not rich in filming live nature, you can find such a wonderful story as “For yarn. In the village of Izvedovo”: 
And this is a peasant guide at the source of the Western Dvina River (photo fragment): 
The plot of the photograph “Monks at work: planting potatoes,” taken in the Gethsemane monastery of the Nile Hermitage on Lake Seliger, is quite dynamic: 
A very interesting photo is “Fishing settlements on Lake Seliger”: 
As a result of an exciting investigation that lasted several weeks, it was possible to establish that this is a view of the central embankment in the city of Ostashkov!
When zoomed in, you can see a basket with a fairly rich catch: 
Prokudin-Gorsky devotes two more sketches to fishermen.
This is a fragment of the photo “On the Lake”, which, as a result of an equally interesting investigation, turned out to be Lake Zyuratkul in the Chelyabinsk region: 
Another fragment shows a grandfather fisherman on the Ural River Iset: 
It is only sometimes possible to catch a glimpse of city dwellers in general views.
Here, for example, are the residents of Zlatoust: 
And these are the young ladies of Yekaterinburg: 
Ostashkovites: 
Photographs from the early 1900s show the Russian Empire on the eve of the First World War and on the verge of revolution.
Photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky was one of the country's leading photographers at the beginning of the twentieth century. The portrait of Tolstoy, taken in 1908, two years before the writer’s death, gained wide popularity. It was reproduced on postcards, in large printed publications and in various publications, becoming the most famous work of Prokudin-Gorsky.
The photo shows the last Emir of Bukhara, Seyid Mir Mohammed Alim Khan, in luxurious clothes. Present-day Uzbekistan, ca. 1910
The photographer traveled through Russia photographing in color in the early 1900s
An Armenian woman in national costume poses for Prokudin-Gorsky on a hillside near the city of Artvin (modern Türkiye).
To reflect the scene in color, Prokudin-Gorsky took three frames, and each time he installed a different color filter on the lens. This meant that sometimes when objects moved, the colors would wash out and become distorted, as in this photo.
The project to document the nation in color images was designed to last 10 years. Prokudin-Gorsky planned to collect 10,000 photographs.
From 1909 to 1912 and again in 1915, the photographer explored 11 regions, traveling in a government-provided railroad car that was equipped with a dark room.
Self-portrait of Prokudin-Gorsky against the backdrop of a Russian landscape.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born in 1863 into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, he studied chemistry and art. The Tsar's access to areas of Russia that were prohibited for ordinary citizens allowed him to take unique photographs, capturing people and landscapes from different parts of the Russian Empire.
The photographer was able to capture scenes in color by using a three-color shooting technique, which allowed viewers to convey a vivid sense of life at that time. He took three frames: one with a red filter, the second with a green filter, and the third with a blue filter.
A group of Dagestani women pose for a photo. Prokudin-Gorsky was accused of capturing uncovered faces.
Colored landscape in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Portrait of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur - Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm (part of modern Uzbekistan).
Prokudin-Gorsky began implementing his three-color photography method after visiting Berlin and becoming familiar with the work of the German photochemist Adolf Mithe.
Because of the revolution in 1918, the photographer left his family in his homeland and went to Germany, where he married his laboratory assistant. The new marriage produced a daughter, Elka. He then moved to Paris and was reunited with his first wife, Anna Alexandrovna Lavrova, and three adult children, with whom he founded a photography studio. Sergei Mikhailovich continued his photographic work and published in English-language photo magazines.
The studio he founded and bequeathed to his three adult children was named Elka in honor of his youngest daughter.
The photographer died in Paris in 1944, a month after France was liberated from Nazi occupation.
Using his own method of photography, Prokudin-Gorsky established himself well and was appointed editor of the most important Russian photographic magazine, Amateur Photographer.
He failed to complete his ten-year project to take 10,000 photographs. After the October Revolution, Prokudin-Gorsky left Russia forever.
By that time, according to experts, he had created 3,500 negatives, but many of them were confiscated and only 1,902 were restored. The entire collection was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948, and the digitized footage was published in 1980.
A group of Jewish children in bright coats with their teacher.
Beautiful and peaceful landscape in pre-revolutionary Russia.
A girl in a bright purple dress.
Overseer of the Chernigov spillway
Parents with three daughters are relaxing in a field, mowing at sunset.
Master of artistic forging. This photograph was taken at the Kasli Metallurgical Plant in 1910.
View of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Mozhaisk in 1911
Photographer (front right) on a handcar outside Petrozavodsk on Murmanskaya railway along Lake Onega.
This image especially shows how difficult it was to capture the photo in color when the subjects couldn't sit still. The colors were washed out.
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