The first color photographs of Prokudin Gorsky. Pre-revolutionary Russia in color photographs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky

Prokudin-Gorsky was born and spent his childhood in the Prokudin-Gorskikh Funikova Gora - a family estate. Since childhood, I dreamed of connecting my life with chemistry. According to family records, Sergei Mikhailovich managed to enter the Alexander Lyceum, although this is not confirmed by any documents. After that, Prokurin-Gorsky graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, where he attended the lectures of the famous scientist Mendeleev with great enthusiasm. After this university, the young man decided to continue studying, but already in Paris and Berlin. Having by nature unique abilities, Sergei Mikhailovich collaborated with the most famous inventors and chemists: Momente and Mite. It was with them that the Russian worked on the development of methods for obtaining color photographs.

In the early 1900s, a photographer and scientist developed a grandiose plan, it consisted of a photo review of the Russian Empire, and his idea received the full support of Tsar Nicholas II. Prokudin-Gorsky cultivated eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railway car, which was provided to him by the Ministry of Railways, between 1909 and 1912, and again in 1915. He took photographs in a variety of conditions, very often they were very difficult. Well, in the evenings and at nights, Sergei Mikhailovich was developing these pictures, very often he stayed up late at night at work. Especially if the weather was unfavorable and it was necessary to find out if it would be necessary to repeat the shooting in a different light before leaving for the next intended point. Then copies were made from the negatives on the way and included in the albums. The photographer himself said this: "... my work was very well arranged, but on the other hand, it was very difficult, it required great patience, knowledge, experience and often great effort." So it was, Sergei Mikhailovich could rightfully be considered a fan of his work. He simply breathed and lived at his work, as befits a talented person, despite the fact that his work was not the easiest, but he loved it. Prokudin-Gorsky passed the entire Mariinsky waterway, after which it was the turn of the Volga, as well as its tributaries, along the way, pictures of landscapes, coastal temples were taken, the interior of churches and houses was filmed. A large number of pictures were taken of Lake Onega and Ladoga. Especially many photographs were taken of ordinary people - children, village girls, sawyers on the Svir. To record the history, a photograph was also taken of all the members of the crew of the Sheksna steamer, it was on this vessel that the expedition took place. His path passed through the Urals and the steam locomotive "Compound" with a Schmidt steam heater appeared in the photo, the Old Siberian outpost in the city of Perm. Only thanks to this person can we see today what the gates of the Imperial Lapidary Factory and the blast furnace at the Satka plant looked like, how work was carried out at the Bakalsky mine, and how firewood was rolled for roasting ore. He was not shy about taking pictures of ordinary people. Here a peasant woman crumples flax, but the Bashkir sat down to rest on the porch of his house. In Turkestan, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to capture not only the beautiful views of mosques. In his photographs there is a policeman from Samarkand, and a money changer in the Registan, and a melon merchant, and a water carrier, there are doctors and students, a Bukhara official, and even the Emir of Bukhara. And in the Caucasus, the master captured a tea factory in Chakva, a rare outlandish fish - a triglos and many species from the mountains. Murmansk Railway is a separate section in his Collection. Prokudin-Gorsky filmed bridges and railway dams, railway depots and groups of participants in the railway construction. it unique photos, by which you can personally imagine how the construction of the road took place then. Traveling around the Crimea, he managed to take pictures the swallow nest, and today we can see how this building looked before.

He, thanks to his genius, managed to do quite a lot. But sooner or later his money had to run out, and there was nowhere to store a lot of glass plates with images. Some large firms offered their capital to the master more than once, but the belief that this Collection should belong to the state nevertheless forced him to turn to the government. He writes an appeal to the Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsev with a request to purchase this unique collection from him. Then begins a long business correspondence between the officials, as a result, when all the estimates were finally made, and the amounts for the purchase of rights and the continuation of work were determined, all intentions remained on paper. Perhaps the death of P. Stolypin in September 1911 played a fatal role then.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were no multilayer color photographic materials, so Prokudin-Gorsky used black-and-white photographic plates and a camera own design. Through color filters of blue, green and red, three quick shots of the same scene were taken in succession, after which three black-and-white negatives were obtained, one above the other on one photographic plate. From this triple negative, a triple positive was made by the triple printing method. To view such photographs, a projector with three lenses located in front of three frames on a photographic plate was used. Each frame was projected through a filter of the same color as the one through which it was shot. When three images (red, green and blue) were added together, a beautiful, colorful image was obtained on the screen. "Photography in natural colors is my specialty," wrote Sergei Mikhailovich. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky first announced the creation of color transparencies using the method of three-color photography by Mite on December 13, 1902. The composition of the new sensitizer made the silver bromide plate equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum. In 1922, he received an English patent for an optical system for producing three filter negatives in one exposure. Soon it became possible image transfer from photographic plates to paper. Until 1917, more than a hundred color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky were printed in Russia, of which 94 were in the form of photo postcards, and a huge number were in books and brochures. Thus, in the book by P. G. Vasenko “The Romanov Boyars and the Accession of Mikhail Fedorovich to the Tsardom” (St. Petersburg, 1913), 22 high-quality color reproductions of photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky were printed, including photographs taken in Moscow. By 1913, the technology made it possible to print color photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky in almost modern quality(see "Russian folk art at the Second All-Russian handicraft exhibition in Petrograd in 1913" Pg., 1914). Some color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky were published in large format in the form of "wall paintings" (for example, a portrait of L Tolstoy). The exact number of color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky printed in Russia before 1917 remains unknown.

In 1904, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky produced photographic work, taking color photographs of Dagestan (April), Finland (May, August-September) and the Luga district (December). In the mid-90s of the XIX century, upon returning to Russia, he married Anna Alexandrovna Lavrova (1870-1937). She was a rather enviable bride - the daughter of the famous Russian metallurgist and director of the association of Gatchina bell, copper and steel works Lavrov. Some time later, after their wedding, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky became the director of the board at his father-in-law's enterprise.

In 1918 great empire, which Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky captured in his works, was destroyed. The royal family was shot. Relations with the new government of the photographer did not work out. He did not want to forgive close friendship with royal family. Some of the photographs were confiscated, in the hungry year of 1918 food rations were allocated according to the lowest, “bourgeois” category. At the age of 55, the offended photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky leaves Russia, first leaving for Norway, and then for England. Surprisingly, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky managed to take out 20 boxes of photographic plates with him - a total of about 1000 slides.

Having emigrated, this most talented and great person Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky continues to work on improving color photography and filming. Prokudin-Gorsky patents a new optical system for a movie camera, and then, together with the Lumiere brothers, opens a photo laboratory in Nice. His case, unfortunately, did not work out, then a second one broke out. World War and the “Prokudin-Gorsky archives” were forgotten for a while. Already after the death of the photographer, in 1948, his heir sold boxes of photographic plates that were unique (images of pre-revolutionary Russia that were made on glass negatives) to the US Library of Congress.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky is a talented person who was several decades ahead of his time. It is to him that our generation is grateful, for the possibilities of photo processing that have appeared. An amazing combination of a scientist, a person closely associated with the exact sciences, and a person-Creator. Brilliant and unique, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky left us an invaluable legacy.

03:07 pm - The first color photograph .... Prokudin-Gorsky, Sergei Mikhailovich (1863-1944)
Dedicated to lovers of extended dynamic ranges, and indeed color photos ...

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky spent his childhood in the Prokudin-Gorsky family estate Funikova Gora. According to family tradition, he studied at the Alexander Lyceum, but this is not confirmed by documents. He graduated from the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, where he attended Mendeleev's lectures. Then he continued his studies as a chemist in Berlin and Paris. Collaborated with famous chemists and inventors: Momene and Mite. Together with them he was engaged in the development of promising methods of color photography.
On December 13, 1902, Prokudin-Gorsky for the first time announced the creation of color transparencies using the method of three-color photography, and in 1905 he patented his sensitizer, which is significantly superior in quality to similar developments by foreign chemists, including the Mite sensitizer. The composition of the new sensitizer made the silver bromide plate equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum.
self-portrait

At the beginning of the 20th century, multilayer color photographic materials did not yet exist, so Prokudin-Gorsky used black-and-white photographic plates (which he sensitized according to his own recipes) and a camera of his own design (its exact device is unknown; it probably looked like a camera system of a German chemist - professor Mitya). Through color filters of blue, green and red, three quick shots of the same scene were taken in succession, after which three black-and-white negatives were obtained, one above the other on one photographic plate. From this triple negative, a triple positive was made (probably by contact printing). To view such photographs, a projector with three lenses located in front of three frames on a photographic plate was used. Each frame was projected through a filter of the same color as the one through which it was shot. When three images (red, green and blue) were added together, a full-color image was obtained on the screen.

The composition of the new sensitizer patented by Prokudin-Gorsky made the silver bromide plate equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum. Peterburgskaya Gazeta reported in December 1906 that, by improving the sensitivity of his plates, the researcher intended to demonstrate "snapshots in natural colors, which is a great success, since no one has received it yet." Perhaps the projections of Prokudin-Gorsky's photograph were the world's first slide demonstrations.

Prokudin-Gorsky contributed to two areas of improvement in color photography that existed at that time: the way to reduce shutter speed (according to his method, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to make exposure in a second possible); and, secondly, an increase in the ability to replicate the image. He also speaks at international congresses in applied chemistry.

Pictures are taken not on three different plates, but on one, in a vertical arrangement, which allows you to speed up the shooting process by shifting the plate.

In from the history of these photos. A certain person by the name of Prokudin-Gorsky came up with such a thing: to photograph objects 3 times through 3 filters - red, green and blue. It turned out 3 black and white photography. The projection of the three plates had to be simultaneous. He used a small folding camera like the one designed by Adolf Mieth. Three exposures of the same object were required, taken approximately one second apart, onto the same glass plate 84–88 mm wide and 232 mm long. The plate changed position each time, and the image was captured through three different color filters. The objects being filmed had to be stationary, which was a big limitation.

The projector has also undergone changes. Prokudin-Gorsky improved the model of F.E. Iva, created the apparatus according to his own drawings: three diamond-shaped prisms were fastened together, creating one combined prism. Thus, it was possible to focus all three colors on the screen.

The only thing he could do with all this at the time was put them into 3 different projectors, with red, green, and blue respectively, and point the projectors to the same screen. It turned out a color image.

The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world - the Russian Empire on the eve of the First World War and the impending revolution. This includes images from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia to the railroads and factories of a growing industrial power and Everyday life and the work of the diverse population of Russia.

Rokudin-Gorsky was born in Vladimir in 1863 and was a chemist by training. He devoted all his activity to the development of photography. He studied with famous scientists in St. Petersburg, Berlin and Paris. As a result of his original research, Prokudin-Gorsky received patents for the production of color transparencies and the design of color films. In the early 1900s, Prokudin-Gorsky devised a bold plan to conduct a photographic survey of the Russian Empire, which received the support of Tsar Nicholas II. In 1909, through the intermediary of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who was the Honorary Chairman of the St. Petersburg Photographic Society, he received an audience with Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar invites Prokudin-Gorsky to perform a display of slides in front of the Imperial Court in Tsarskoe Selo. During the show, Sergei Mikhailovich had to comment on the pictures, and he did it simply dramatically. By the end of the demonstration, an admiring whisper was heard in the hall. At the end, the king shook his hand, the empress and the royal children congratulated him on his success.

Control black-and-white pictures for display of slideshow.

Peasants on the mowing

At the harvest.

Pumps for pumping water

Cordon (gatehouse) in the forest

Monks planting potatoes

Monument to Emperor Alexander II in memory of the end of the Mariinsky system.

Kovzha village. Coastal fortifications.

Chapel of Peter I near the village of Petrovskoe.

Beater and boards with inscriptions about visits. Chapel in the village. Petrovskoe.

Type of old sluice gate. Belozersky Canal

Dam of Empress Maria Feodorovna.

Pulling the spoke out of the dam (Poare system).

Church in the name of St. Peter and Paul. Belozersk.

Icon in the Church of Elijah the Prophet. Belozersk 1909.

A group of children.

Gorodetsky and Nikitsky graveyards.

General form Goritsky monastery.Wooden barge.

The city of Kirillov from the mountain.

General view of the mountains. Kirillov from the bell tower of the Kazan Cathedral.

Dam and lock of Emperor Nicholas II. Mariinsky waterway 1909.

Skete of John the Theologian "Cross".

Haystacks.

Sawyers on the Svir.

Crimea. Swallow's Nest.>

Petrozavodsk. General view from railway roads (Olonets province.
Murmansk railway.

The peasant woman crumples flax; Perm province.

A Georgian is a tomato trader.

Polotsk. View from the northeast.

The place of the source of the Western Dvina near the village. Karyakino 3 versts from the lake. Foam of the Tver lips. Ostashkovsky district.

The source of the Volga near the village of Volgoverkhovye.

Lake Peno at the confluence of the Volga

The exit of the Volga from Lake Peno near the village. Izvedovo.

Fire forest tower of the Specific Department for about a month. Bogatyr.

Where did color come from a hundred years ago? How was it done?
After all, quite recently - about 50-60 years ago color photo was not that exotic, but extremely rare. Still in my memory are pseudo-colored painted pictures.

A talented chemist, enthusiastic photographer, graduate of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, Prokudin-Gorsky by 1906 published a number of articles on the principles of color photography. During this period he perfected new method, which provided the same color sensitivity of the entire spectrum, which could already take color pictures suitable for projection. At the same time, he also developed his own method for transmitting a color image, based on the division of colors into three components. He shot objects 3 times through 3 filters - red, green and blue. It turned out 3 black-and-white positive plates.

For the subsequent reproduction of the image, he used a three-section slide projector with blue, red and green light. All three images from three plates were projected onto the screen at the same time, as a result of which those present had the opportunity to see full-color images. By 1909, already a well-known photographer and editor of the "Amateur Photographer" magazine, Sergei Mikhailovich had the opportunity to fulfill his old dream - to compile a photographic chronicle of the Russian Empire.

On the recommendation of Grand Duke Michael, he sets out his plan to Nicholas II and receives the most ardent support. Over the next few years, the government provided Prokudin-Gorsky with a specially equipped railway car for trips with the aim of photographically documenting the life of the empire.
During this work, several thousand plates were shot. The technology for displaying a color image on the screen has been developed.
And most importantly, a gallery of beautiful photographs has been created, unprecedented in quality and volume. And for the first time, such a series of images was decomposed into colors. Then only for the purpose of output using a slide projector on the screen.

The further fate of these photographic plates is also unusual. After the death of Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to go first to Scandinavia, then to Paris, taking with him almost all the results of many years of work - glass plates in 20 boxes.
"In the 1920s, Prokudin-Gorsky lived in Nice, and the local Russian community got the precious opportunity to view his paintings in the form of color slides. Sergei Mikhailovich was proud that his work helped the young Russian generation on foreign soil to understand and remember how she looked their lost homeland - in its most real form, while preserving not only the color, but also its spirit.

The collection of photographic plates survived numerous family moves and the German occupation of Paris.
In the late 1940s, the question arose of publishing the first "History of Russian Art" under the general editorship of Igor Grabar. Then - about the possibility of supplying it with color illustrations. It was then that the translator of this work, Princess Maria Putyatina, remembered that at the beginning of the century, her father-in-law, Prince Putyatin, introduced to Tsar Nicholas II a certain professor Prokudin-Gorsky, who developed a method of color photography by color separation. According to her, the sons of the professor lived in exile in Paris and were the custodians of a collection of his photographs.

In 1948, Marshall, a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, purchased about 1,600 photographic plates from the Prokudin-Gorskys for $5,000. Since then, the plates have been kept in the US Library of Congress for many years.
Recently, only someone came up with the idea to try to scan and combine 3-plate photographs of Prokudin - Gorsky on a computer. And almost a miracle happened - it seemed that the images lost forever came to life.

This list of the most famous photographs of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky was compiled by me almost 4 years ago, but since then the number of blog readers has increased by about 10 times, so it makes sense to repeat the post. However, I updated the material a bit (initially, eight pictures were considered).

The first place, of course, goes to the portrait of Leo Tolstoy, which, back in 1908, was sold in large numbers in the form of postcards, magazine inserts and wall posters:

And in Soviet time this portrait was published in even larger editions (publications in books and magazines). In 1978, he appeared on the cover of the main weekly magazine of the USSR, the Ogonyok magazine, with a circulation of more than 2 million copies! This record will probably never be broken.

Second place will be given to the so-called "self-portrait", which adorns the Wikipedia article about Prokudin-Gorsky.

The picture is pasted into an album with the caption "Along the Karolitskhali River".
Actually, there are two mistakes here. Firstly, the technology of three-color shooting did not allow then to take any "self-portraits", which means that one of the assistants (perhaps one of the sons) was shooting.
Secondly, the widely spread name of the picture, as it has recently become known, is erroneous, it's just that one of Sergei Mikhailovich's assistants mixed up the signature when pasted into the control album. In fact, is it possible to sit "on the river"? But, of course, this is not the point, but the fact that Prokudin-Gorsky sits on the banks of another river - the Skuritskhali (a tributary of the Karolishali). It took a few weeks to figure this out. research work, in which, independently of each other, two local residents, residents of Batumi, participated. The original author's name of the picture is in the album - "On the Skuritskhali River. Etude". Some kind of "left" picture with a waterfall was glued to it.

Third place - the famous portrait of the Emir of Bukhara, 1911:

The portrait is absolutely incomparable in color, not a single exhibition can do without it.
Even avatars based on them appeared:

Fourth place - picture "Peasant Girls". [d. Topornya], which differs, like the previous one, in the boundless brightness of colors.
This photo fell in love with two directors at once: Leonid Parfenov, who dedicated separate plot in the film "Color of the Nation" and a Dutchman named Ben van Lieshout, who made the original poster for the film "Inventory of the Motherland" out of it:

In original:

Fifth place - a picture with Prokudin-Gorsky on a railcar near Petrozavodsk, 1916:

There were craftsmen who animated this image! The trolley runs smoothly along the rails, and if you add a suitable sound range, you get a great clip :-)
By the way, a couple of such animations were included in the latest documentary about Prokudin-Gorsky - "Russia in Color" (director: Vladimir Meletin, 2010).

Sixth place - "View of the monastery from the Svetlitsa". [Monastery of St. Nile Stolbensky, Lake Seliger]. 1910:

This photograph became the emblem of the American exhibition "Empire that was Russia" in 2001, which began the awakening of mass interest in the legacy of the pioneer of color photography.
The view is truly breathtaking in its splendor.

Seventh place - a picture of a family of Russian immigrants in the village Grafovka, Mugan steppe:

The picture is widely known for the reason that it adorns the cover of the very first album of pictures by Prokudin-Gorsky, ed. Robert Allshouse, published in the USA in 1980 (Allshouse, Robert H. (ed.). Photographs for the Tsar: The Pioneering Color Photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II. - Doubleday, 1980).

Eighth place - a photo with the participants in the construction of the Murmansk railway. on the pier in Kem-port. She became widely known thanks to her placement on the dust jacket of the first (and so far only) album of the Veinnikovs " Russian empire in color":

Ninth place - another photo portrait of Prokudin-Gorsky, this time at the famous Karelian Kivach waterfall, sung by Gavrila Derzhavin:

The picture was placed on the cover of the album under the editorship of. S. Garanina, published in 2006

Deciding on the 10th place is quite difficult, because. there are many worthy contenders.
Maybe the masterpiece "Lunch on the lawn"?

According to some reports, a reproduction of this particular photograph hung in Prokudin-Gorsky's room until his death.

It is interesting to know the opinion of readers, which pictures of Prokudin-Gorsky they consider famous?