“Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky was a Russian photographer… Outfitted with a specially equipped railroad car darkroom provided by Tsar Nicholas II, and in possession of two permits that granted him access to restricted areas and cooperation from the empire’s bureaucracy, Prokudin-Gorsky documented the Russian Empire around 1909 through 1915.”
[via opus // more about the digital reclamation of Gorsky’s photos at wikipedia]
Turn of the century photog, count me in.