Using a technique essentially identical to that perfected by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, the renowned physicist James Clerk Maxwell produced the world's first colour photograph in 1861.

A proud Scotsman, Maxwell's subject matter was a tartan ribbon

He had the photographer

Thomas Sutton

photograph a tartan ribbon three times, each time with a different colour filter over the lens. The three images were developed and then projected onto a screen with three different projectors, each equipped with the same colour filter used to take its image. When brought into register, the three images formed a full colour image.

   

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