A Russian photographer combined filters to take color photos in the 1900s
People began experimenting with using color in photography pretty early on. However, the color-sensitive film only became of widespread use during the 1970s. Most colored photos of the era were painted over after the print was developed. Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky found a different way of creating vibrant pictures over a century ago.
He took three photos and overlayed a filter on each one: first a red one, then a blue one, and finally, a green one. That allowed him to create a high-quality composite image that accurately portrayed reality’s colors. These were indeed color photographs since they were not painted after development.