Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was a Russian photographer who took some of the earliest color photographs between 1909 and 1915. Using a specialized three-lens camera and color separation process, he captured over 2,000 color images documenting the people and landscapes across the Russian Empire. His photographs provide a unique historical record of life in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century, as the quality of the color images makes it difficult to believe they were taken over 100 years ago.