3-006-957 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Observing a solar eclipse on January 1, 1907, near the Cherniaevo Station in the Tian-Shan mountains above the Saliuktin mines, Golodnaia (or Golodnaya) Steppe, 1907. Nine people using two telescopes to view an eclipse from in front of a yurt on a snow-covered mountain. (Prokudin-Gorsky went to Turkestan to photograph the solar eclipse on 14 January 1907 in the Alai mountains near the Chernyaevo station (now Khavast) above the Sulukta mines). Russian chemist and photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) was a pioneer in colour photography which he used to document early 20th-century Russia and her empire, including the vanishing way of life of tribal peoples along the Silk Route in Central Asia. In a railway-carriage darkroom provided by Czar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky used the three-colour photography process to record traditional costumes and occupations, churches and mosques - many now Unesco World Heritage sites - as well as modernisation in agriculture, industry and transport.