An Armenian woman in national costume on a hillside near Artvin (in present day Turkey), circa 1910 (Prokudin-Gorskii Collection/LOC): In 1909 and 1912 Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time. This is an example from the hundreds of color images made available by the Library of Congress, which purchased the original glass plates back in 1948.