Color photographs of Trofim Gorsky. Rare color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky (70 photos)

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863 - 1944) - a famous Russian photographer, scientist, inventor and public figure. One of the pioneers of color photography.

Prokudin-Gorsky. Self-portrait at the river Karolishali, 1912

Since the 90s of the 19th century, Prokudin-Gorsky, together with other scientists and inventors, has been developing promising methods of color photography. In December 1902, he announced the creation of color transparencies using the A. Mite method of three-color photography, and in 1905 he patented his sensitizer, which is significantly superior in quality to similar developments of foreign chemists, including the Mite sensitizer.

Color photograph of Leo Tolstoy taken by Prokudin-Gorsky in Yasnaya Polyana, 1908

Since 1904, Prokudin-Gorsky has been taking color photographs in various regions of the Russian Empire and abroad. In those years, he conceived a grandiose project: to capture contemporary Russia, its culture, history and modernization in color photographs. In 1909, Sergei Mikhailovich received an audience with Tsar Nicholas II, who instructed him to photograph all sorts of aspects of life in all areas that then made up the Russian Empire. Officials were ordered to help Prokudin-Gorsky in his travels.

Filming map by S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky, 1904-1916. (clickable).

In 1909-1916, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled a significant part of the country, photographing views of cities, temples, monasteries, factories and various everyday scenes. As a result, several thousand pictures were taken, but a significant part of them was subsequently lost. In the same years, he tested the camera invented by him for color filming. .

1911. Monument on the Raevsky redoubt. Borodino. Moscow province

1911. View from the bell tower of the Spaso-Borodino Monastery to the area where Marshal Ney led the attack on Bagration's fleches. Borodino. Moscow province

1911. In the Borodino Museum.

1911. General form Nicholas Cathedral from the southwest. Mozhaisk. Moscow province

1911. Nicholas Cathedral. Side view. Mozhaisk. Moscow province

1912. General view of the northern part of Smolensk from the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral. Smolensk. Smolensk province

1912. Assumption Cathedral from the east. Smolensk. Smolensk province

1912. The miraculous icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria in the Assumption Cathedral. Smolensk. Smolensk province

1911. Assumption Cathedral (1158-1160) from the east side.

1912. General view of Suzdal with the cathedral from the bell tower of Dimitrevskaya Church. Vladimir province

1911. A chapel on the site where the wife of Ivan the Terrible was resolved, 3 versts from the monastery of Theodore Stratilat. Pereslavl-Zalessky. Vladimir province

1911. General view of the coast and the Kremlin from the bell tower of the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery. Rostov. Yaroslavl province

1911. Gate under the Church of the Resurrection (outside, below). Rostov. Yaroslavl province

1911. Church of St. John Chrysostom in Korovniki (1649-1654), general view from the mill, from the southwest. Yaroslavl. Yaroslavl province

1911. Entrance to the Church of John the Baptist from the gallery (from the porch). Yaroslavl. Yaroslavl province

1910. Church of the Resurrection on Debre (1652). Kostroma. Kostroma province

1908. Yasnaya Polyana. Tula province

1908. Leo Tolstoy's office in Yasnaya Polyana.

1908. Yasnaya Polyana. Children.

1912. Construction of a dam near the village of Kuzminsky on the Oka.

1912. Sawmill. Kuzminskoe

1910. For yarn. Izvedovo village. Tver province. Ostashkovsky district

1910. View of the monastery from the Svetlitsa. Nile Desert. Tver province

1910. Skete of Gethsemane. Monks at work. Planting potatoes. Nile Desert. Tver province

Blooming roses. Gatchina. St. Petersburg Governorate

1909. Pinkhus Karlinsky, 84 years old. 66 years in the service. Overseer of the Chernyakhovsky waterway. St. Petersburg Governorate

1909. At a hayfield near a halt. Novogorodsk province

1909. Peasant girls with berries. Kirillov village. Novogorodsk province

1909. Stone scooping machine of single-bucket type "Svirskaya 2". Novgorod province

1915. Austrian prisoners of war at the barracks. Karelia.

School in the village of Perguba. Povenets county. Olonets province.

Residential factory buildings. Kovzha village. Vytegorsky district. Olonets province

View of the sawmill. Kovzha village. Vytegorsky district. Olonets province

Vytegra. The crew of the steamship "Sheksna" M.P.S. Olonets province.

Continents. Olonets province. Etude.

Construction of a dam for roads in Sorocha Guba. A group of railway participants the buildings. Kemsky district of the Arkhangelsk province.

Solovetsky Monastery. Corner tower of the Trinity Cathedral.

View from the bell tower of the Belgorod Holy Trinity Monastery on Cathedral Square during the celebrations of the glorification of St. In the background is the Women's Nativity-Bogoroditsky Monastery. Belogorod

Ukrainian peasant woman

Catholic church. Dvinsk. Vitebsk province.

Finland. Lake Saimaa

Palace in Massandra. Decorative design of the retaining wall in front of the main entrance. Taurida Governorate (Crimea)

Swallow's Nest. Taurida Governorate (Crimea)

Tiflis (Tbilisi)

Dagestanis

Dagestan. In the mountains.

On a tea plantation. Chakva. Batumi district. Kutaisi province.

Tea factory. Distribution department. Chakva. Batumi district. Kutaisi province.

Mullahs in Azizia Mosque. Batum. Batumi district. Kutaisi province

Stone gates and Uzvaryan fortress. Caucasus

Forest plantations. View from the Vorontsovsky plateau. Place of Borzhom, Gori district, Tiflis province

Mosque. Vladikavkaz, main city Terek region

Coast. Gagra. Sukhumi district of Kutaisi province.

New hotel. Gagra. Sukhumi district of Kutaisi province.

General view of Sochi from the east from the batteries. Sochi (Dakhovsky Posad), Sochi District of the Black Sea Governorate

Hill of weapons in the Arsenal Museum. Zlatoust plant, Zlatoust, Ufa province.

Sequential course of dressing knives and forks. Zlatoust plant, Zlatoust, Ufa province.

Sequential course of dressing knives and forks. Grinding and engraving. Zlatoust, Ufa province.

Tombstone on the grave of Hadji-Hussein-bek, delivered by Tamerlane. Ufa province. Ufa district

On the river Sim. Ufa Uyezd, Ufa Governorate.

General view of the Bashkir village Ekhya. Ufa province.

Young Bashkir. Ekhya village, Ufa province.

View from the mountain to Ilmenskoye Lake near the station. Miass. Chelyabinsk district of the Orenburg province

Bridge over the river Kamu. Perm province.

Perm. General form.

Permian. Church of Mary Magdalene

Yekaterinburg. General view of the northern part. Perm province

1910. A peasant woman crumples flax. Perm province

Peasant hut in the village of Martyanova. Chusovaya river. Perm province.

Damn Fort. Perm province.

Church of the Holy Mother of God (1744). Tobolsk.

Camel loaded with sacks. middle Asia

Uzbeks in front of the yurt. Uzbekistan

Emir of Bukhara Alim Khan (1880-1944), Bukhara

Khanate of Bukhara, city of Bukhara. Detail inside the tomb of Bayan-Kuli-Khan.

Khanate of Bukhara, city of Bukhara. Kush-madrasah (inside on the right side).

Cotton. middle Asia

Cotton processing. middle Asia

Barbecue. Samarkand region. Samarkand.

Cake merchant. Samarkand region. Samarkand.

Samarkand region. Samarkand. Part of the left minaret. Bibi Khanim.

Karagach is a kind of elm. Near Samarkand

Gothic cathedral in Milan. Italy

Venice. Cathedral of St. Brand.

On the island of Capri. Italy

Italians.

On the Danube.

The work of the famous Russian photographer, inventor, teacher Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky has about two thousand color-separated glass negatives that captured the centuries-old culture of the Russian Empire on the eve of grandiose upheavals.

During the first 15 years of the 20th century, he implemented a grandiose project - color photography of the Russian Empire.

By 1906, Prokudin-Gorsky had published several articles on the principles of color photography. By that time he had perfected new method, which guaranteed the same color sensitivity across the entire spectrum, which could produce color frames suitable for projection.

It was Prokudin-Gorsky who, at the same time, developed a new method for transmitting a color image: he shot objects three times - through 3 filters - red, green and blue. As a result, 3 black-and-white positive plates were obtained.

To reproduce the resulting images, he used a three-section slide projector with blue, red and green light. All 3 pictures were simultaneously projected onto the screen, and as a result, one could see a full-color photograph.

In 1909, Prokudin-Gorsky was already a well-known master and editor of the Amateur Photographer magazine. At this time, he finally manages to realize his dream of creating a photo chronicle of the entire Russian empire.

Having listened to the advice of Grand Duke Mikhail, Prokudin-Gorsky talks about his plans to Nicholas II and, of course, hears words of support. For several years, specifically for trips with the aim of photographically documenting the life of the empire, the government provided Prokudin-Gorsky with a railway car equipped with everything necessary.

During the work on his grandiose project, Prokudin-Gorsky shot several thousand plates. During this period, the technology for displaying a color image on the screen has been worked out almost perfectly. Thus, a unique gallery of beautiful photographs was created.

After the death of Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky, together with his collection - glass plates in 20 boxes - managed to go first to Scandinavia, then to Paris. In the 1920s he lived in Nice. Sergei Mikhailovich was very glad that his work helped the young Russian generation abroad to understand what their homeland looks like.

The Prokudin-Gorsky collection of photographic plates had to endure repeated relocations by the Prokudin-Gorsky family and the German occupation of Paris.

At the end of the 40s, the question was raised of publishing the first "History of Russian Art" under the general editorship of Igor Grabar, and supplying it with color illustrations.

In 1948, Marshall, a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, purchased about 1,600 photographic plates from the Prokudin-Gorskys for $5,000. Thus, the plates ended up in the US Library of Congress.

Already in our time, the idea arose to scan and combine the 3-plate photographs of Prokudin - Gorsky on a computer. So we all managed to bring the unique archive back 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 devoted a separate story to it in the film "The Color of the Nation" and a Dutch director named Ben van Lieshout, who made the original poster for the film "Inventory of the Motherland" out of it:

In the 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 the only) album of the Veinikovs "The 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 do they consider famous?

Last summer, I almost accidentally got to a completely unique exhibition of photographs in the Livadia Palace in Crimea (visiting the palace for a completely different purpose). The expressive portrait of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy in color attracted my attention: in the photo he is sitting against the backdrop of a grove in Yasnaya Polyana, apparently not far from home. And although his posture is closed, his whole figure, as it were, speaks of calm self-confidence.

I thought that the photo was processed and made in color these days. But my companions, employees of the Livadia Palace, explained that this was a color photograph by the photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky.

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Portrait. Yasnaya Polyana. 1908:

The rest of the photographs were no less memorable for me: positively emotionally colored views of the nature of the middle zone, ancient churches, peasants and their way of life, simple faces of workers, engineers at the construction of dams, even Central Asia - all pre-revolutionary Russia in colors seemed to stand before me as if alive. The genre of these photographs is somewhere between reportage and staged: on the one hand, they reflect real life, and on the other hand, artistically, their production is impeccable.

Yes, yes, it turns out that already 100 years ago in Russia there was a color photograph and there lived a passionate person who made it his life task to capture Russia of that time in colors. After my return home, I continued to study the photo album with the works of Prokudin-Gorsky, which I got by some incredibly happy accident. This book, by the way, is a real bibliographic rarity, its circulation is only 200 copies. Flipping through the pages of a book, how would you make virtual journey in Russia of that time, the sensations are completely unusual: you involuntarily begin to compare what you see in the photo with modernity today.

Here is an old woman spinning yarn on the porch of her house (Tver province) - there is a calm smile on her face; children sit after the service at the church, their faces are concentrated and calm, despite the hot summer weather, they are completely covered with clothes, except for their hands and bare feet; here is a peasant family on a summer day - full of health, calm faces of children and mothers in the rays of the sun, a total of 6 people; here is a factory for the production of cardboard, only 4-5 one-story log huts, and around the open spaces of the Central Russian strip (for some reason, I immediately remembered Kopotnya (Moscow region) and columns of smoke above it, which never dissipate). And there are a lot of churches that shine with their domes and whiteness against the backdrop of endless green expanses. Yes, this is the Russia that cannot be returned.

A group of children in front of the Pyatnitskaya church, Vologda province:

Peasant girls. Vologda province:

Kirillovo-Belozersky Monastery:

At the harvest. Cherepovets county. Novgorod province:

Monastery mowing:

Church of the Savior and Protection of the Holy Mother of God:

River (Malaya) Satka:

View of a hemp field (1910):

Smolensk. Assumption Cathedral from the east side:

Who is the person who gave us this opportunity to look back at ourselves and wonder if we have become better off in these past 100 years?
I wanted to know and, here is what open sources say about him.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born on August 18, 1863 in the family estate of the Prokudin-Gorsky Funikov Gora in the Pokrovsky district of the Vladimir province. The Prokudin-Gorsky family is one of the most ancient noble families in Russia, older than the Rurik family. Many Russian military men with an outstanding track record belonged to this surname.

The education of Sergei Mikhailovich was very versatile, we will clarify that not a single educational institution he never graduated. Prokudin-Gorsky studied at the Alexander Lyceum (1883-1886), but did not finish full course. From October 1886 to November 1888 he listened to lectures on the natural section at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University.
From September 1888 to May 1890 he was a student of the Imperial Military Medical Academy, which he also did not graduate from. In addition, Sergei Mikhailovich studied painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts. By the way, later this fact will help him get closer to the circle of Wanderers and take part in their exhibitions with his photographs.

Followed by new stage in the life of Sergei Mikhailovich: in 1890 he married Anna Alexandrovna Lavrova (1870-1937) - the daughter of a Russian metallurgist and director of the association of Gatchina bell, copper and steel works Lavrov. Prokudin-Gorsky himself became the director of the board at his father-in-law's enterprise.

Only by 1897 (at the age of 34) Prokudin-Gorsky began to make reports on his photographic research to the Fifth Department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTS, he continued these reports until 1918).

Soon he became the main Russian authority in the field of photography, he was entrusted with the organization of courses practical photography with IRTO. In 1898, Prokudin-Gorsky published the first books on the technical aspects of photography: "On Printing from Negatives" and "On Photographing with Hand-Held Cameras".
The turning point in his passion for photography was in 1902, when he studied for a month and a half at the photomechanical school in Charlottenburg (a suburb of Berlin) under the guidance of Dr. Adolf Miethe.
It must be said that Adolf Mite played a very important role in the development of color photography. In 1902, Mite created his own model of a camera for color photography and a projector for displaying color images on a screen.

Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. View of the [Pleshcheyevo] lake and the city from the village of Veskovo:

Peasants. Ufa:

Etude "Network" Soroca village:

Iset river, Kamyshevka village:

Church of the Transfiguration inside the ramparts. Churches of Basil the Great, Nicholas the Wonderworker and the Transfiguration Cathedral. Belozersk:

Bridge across the Kama River near Perm:

Austrian prisoners of war at the barracks [near the Kivach station].

However, Prokudin-Gorsky also played an important role in the development of color photography: already in 1902, Sergei Mikhailovich first announced the creation of color transparencies using the method of three-color photography by A. Mite, and in 1905 he patented his sensitizer, which significantly surpassed similar developments of foreign chemists, including the sensitizer Mite. The composition of the new sensitizer made the silver bromide plate equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum.

How it works? A bit of photography history

The camera obscura (literally from Latin “dark room”), which is the basis of any camera, is essentially a dark closed box with a hole in one of the walls. The principle of its operation is based on the laws of optics: light passing through a tiny hole is transformed and creates an image on the encountered surface, which is the wall of the box.

A modern analog camera works in much the same way, differing only in the presence of a mirror and a film to preserve the image created by the light.
Photography and the way it was created has always been called a killer. visual arts. However, it is believed that the principles of photography were widely used by Renaissance artists - Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and others. In the middle of the 16th century, the Italian scholar Giovanni Battista della Porta wrote an essay on how the camera obscura could be used to make drawing easier. He projected an image of people standing outside the camera obscura onto a canvas inside it (the camera obscura in this case was a large room) and then painted from the resulting image or copied it.

The process of using a camera obscura looked very strange and frightening for people in those distant times, and Giovanni Battista was forced to abandon his idea after he was arrested on charges of witchcraft.

The first photograph was taken in 1825 by the French inventor Joseph Niepce. It depicts the view from a window in Le Gras. This image has little artistic value other than the fact that it is the first photograph ever taken and has come down to us.

Due to the peculiarities of the technology, the exposure lasted eight hours, so that the sun in the photograph managed to pass from east to west, illuminating both sides of the depicted building. There is, of course, no composition in this photo, because at that time photography was not seen as an art, but as a technical innovation.

As I mentioned above, by this time people knew how to project images, but they couldn't store and "record" light. Niepce came up with the idea of ​​using an oil product, the so-called "Jewish bitumen." The bitumen hardens when exposed to light, and the unhardened material can then be washed off. Niépce used polished metal plates as a carrier, and the negative image obtained on them could be covered with ink and printed as a lithograph. One of the many difficulties with this method was that the metal plates were heavy, expensive to manufacture, and time consuming to polish thoroughly.

In 1839, Sir John Herschel found a way to make the first glass negative instead of a metal one. In the same year, he coined the term "photography", derived from the Greek words meaning "light" and "write". Although the process became easier and the result better, it took a long time for photography to become widely known.

In the beginning, photography was either used by artists as an aid. The first widely known photo portraits were single or family shots for memory. Finally, after decades of improvements and fixes, mainstream use of cameras began with Eastman Kodak cameras. They entered the market in 1888 with the slogan "You push the button, we do the rest."

In 1861, the English physicist James Maxwell was the first in the world to obtain a color image, which was the result of three shots of the same object with different filters (red, blue and green).

The wider use of color photography was made possible by Adolf Miet. He invented sensitizers that make the photographic plate more sensitive to other regions of the spectrum. An even greater contribution to the development of this type of photography was made by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, who developed technologies that allow reducing shutter speed.

As a result, the first working color photographic plate appeared on the market in 1907. The method used in it was based on a screen of filters. The screen allowed red, green and/or blue light to be filtered. The photographic plate was then treated to produce a positive image. Using the same screen in the photo printing process made it possible to obtain a color photograph. This technology, slightly modified, is still used today. Red, green and blue are the primary colors for television and computer screens, and the RGB (red+green+blue) mode in many graphics applications is associated with this.

Basic terms:

Film or matrix: matrix used in modern digital cameras, and film is a photographic material on a flexible polymer substrate, intended for various kinds Photo. The film is a transparent base with a light-sensitive photographic emulsion applied to it. As a result of exposure in the emulsion, a latent image is formed, which, upon further chemical processing, is converted into a visible one.

exposition: The amount of light that hits the camera sensor or film at the appropriate aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings.
Shutter speed: The length of time during which a given amount of light enters the aperture or film.
ISO: The sensitivity of the camera's image sensor to incoming light.

Diaphragm: Controls the amount of light that enters the camera sensor or film.

_________________________

The biographers of Prokudin-Gorsky have not yet established the exact date for the start of color filming in the Russian Empire. Most likely, the first series of color photographs was taken during a trip to the Principality of Finland in September-October 1903. In 1904, Prokudin-Gorsky took color photographs of Dagestan, the Black Sea coast and the Luga district of the St. Petersburg province.

In April-September 1905, Prokudin-Gorsky made the first big photo trip around the Russian Empire, during which he took about 400 color photographs of the Caucasus, Crimea and Ukraine. He planned to publish all these pictures in the form of photo postcards, however, due to political upheavals in the country and the financial crisis caused by them, the contract was terminated in the same 1905, and only about 90 of his works saw the light of day.

In 1906, Prokudin-Gorsky spent a lot of time in Europe, participating in scientific congresses and photography exhibitions in Rome, Milan, Paris and Berlin. He received a gold medal for International Exhibition in Antwerp and a medal for " best work”, that is, his talent as a photographic artist received international recognition.

At home, he was truly glorified by the photo portraits of Leo Tolstoy: Prokudin-Gorsky himself made him an offer to shoot in color, and he agreed with great pleasure and interest. Sergei Mikhailovich wrote that Lev Nikolaevich: “... was especially keenly interested in all latest discoveries in various fields, as well as the issue of image transmission in true colors.

It was these photographs, published in the magazine "Amateur Photographer", that attracted the attention of Nicholas II's brother, Mikhail Alexandrovich Romanov, who was able to organize an audience with the Sovereign for Prokudin-Gorsky.
By that time, Sergei Mikhailovich had already hatched an idea that he could implement alone, however, he was not able to: capture contemporary Russia, its culture, history and modernization in color photographs.

Prokudin-Gorsky subsequently described his meeting with the Sovereign as follows: “The most crucial moment has come, for I was sure that the fate of my business depended to a large extent on the success of this evening. For this first demonstration to the Sovereign, I chose shootings from nature of an exclusively sketchy nature: sunsets, snowy landscapes, portraits of peasant children, flowers, autumn sketches, and the like. After the very first picture, when I heard the approving whisper of the Sovereign, I was already confident of success, since the program was selected by me in increasing order of effectiveness ... ”- today one can only imagine the degree of enthusiasm that this very enthusiastic about his work felt at that moment and his idea (which he often called “task” in his correspondence) is a man.

So, in 1909, Nicholas II instructed Sergei Mikhailovich to photograph all sorts of aspects of life in all areas that then made up the Russian Empire. For this, the photographer was allocated a specially equipped railway car. To work on the waterways, the government allocated a small steamer capable of sailing in shallow water with a crew, and for the Chusovaya River - a motor boat. A Ford car was sent to Yekaterinburg for filming the Urals and the Ural Range. Prokudin-Gorsky was issued by the tsarist chancellery with documents that gave access to all places of the empire, and officials were ordered to help Prokudin-Gorsky in his travels.

Sergei Mikhailovich spent all the shooting at his own expense, which gradually depleted. Any compensation for current expenses the conversation with the Sovereign was simply not conducted from the very beginning.

Here is how he himself described his work: “... My work was furnished very well, on the other hand, it was very difficult, it required great patience, knowledge, experience and often great effort ... I had to take pictures in a variety of and often very difficult conditions, and then in the evening it was necessary to develop the pictures in the laboratory of the car, and sometimes the work was delayed until late at night, especially if the weather was unfavorable and it was necessary to find out if it would not be necessary to repeat the shooting in a different light before leaving for the next scheduled point. Then copies were made from the negatives on the way and included in the albums.”

In 1909-1916, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled to a significant part of the Russian Empire, photographing ancient temples, monasteries, factories, views of cities and various everyday scenes. The photographer visited the Urals, Turkestan, Yaroslavl and Vladimir provinces, photographed places associated with the Napoleonic campaign in Russia.

After 1912, the official support for the Prokudin-Gorsky project for a photo survey of Russia ended.

During the First World War, Prokudin-Gorsky created a photographic chronicle of military operations, censored cinematographic tapes arriving from abroad, analyzed photographic preparations, and trained aircraft crews in aerial photography.

Shortly after the October Revolution of 1917, Prokudin-Gorsky participated in the creation higher institute photography and photographic equipment (VIFF), which was officially established by decree of September 9, 1918, after Prokudin-Gorsky's departure abroad. His last collection of photographs was shown in Russia on March 19, 1918 at the Winter Palace.

Prokudin-Gorsky decided to leave Russia after he learned about the murder of the royal family in July 1918.

Sergei Mikhailovich went into exile with his new family: with his first wife, from whom he had three children, by that time he managed to leave. In exile, he lived first in Finland, then in Norway, England, in the south of France, in the early 20s he reached Paris. In Russia it was widely famous person who fulfilled their dream, and in Europe it was necessary to start life anew. In Paris, Prokudin-Gorsky, together with his children, opened a photo workshop, where he worked almost until the end of his life.

Sergei Mikhailovich died in Paris, a few weeks after the liberation of the city from the German troops by the Allies, in the Russian House, where many Russian emigrants found their refuge. According to some testimonies, towards the end of his life, the photographer became addicted to strong alcoholic beverages which was part of the reason for his departure. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

This is the end of this, to be honest, a little sad story of the life of a talented photo artist.

What happened to his priceless photo legacy? Amazing Facts: Sergei Mikhailovich after the revolution exported most of his artistic heritage abroad, for which he managed to obtain official permission from the authorities, after his death, his children became the copyright holders of the negatives, who sold the collection in the 1980s to the American Library of Congress.

The development of computer imaging technologies at the end of the 20th century made it possible to process these images and show the unique views of imperial Russia in color.

In July 1991, a computer database of Prokudin-Gorsky's images was compiled for the first time, which then continued to be replenished and changed.

In 2000, JJT's contract with the Library of Congress scanned all 1902 glass negatives from the collection Prokudin-Gorsky. Scanning was performed in Grayscale mode with 16-bit color depth and resolution over 1000 dpi. The scanned image files are approximately 70 MB in size. All of these files are hosted on the Library of Congress server and are freely available.

Now a collection of color photographs in in electronic format also forms part of the Presidential Library (St. Petersburg). The photographic heritage of Prokudin-Gorsky is in the public domain and is often used during a variety of events, it was this collection that became the basis for the exhibition of photographs by Prokudin-Gorsky in the Livadia Palace in July 2017, where your obedient servant saw it.

Instead of an afterword: since the printing of color photographs in the time of Prokudin-Gorsky was a very difficult task, the artist had no opportunity to fully “monetize” all this baggage. Expeditions were carried out by a photographer on own funds which were soon exhausted. The remarkable Russian artistic heritage was first taken abroad and then sold by the artist's descendants to the Library of Congress for $3,500.
It seems to me that a great success for all of us and the great merit of Sergei Mikhailovich is the fact that the photographs have been preserved, have come down to our days and can be appreciated today by the modern inhabitants of Russia, yes, and the whole world. In these pictures - Russia, which cannot be returned, in these pictures our past, and therefore ourselves.

S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky

August 30 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky. A pioneer of Russian color photography, he developed a unique method of photography, thanks to which one can see not in the usual black and white retro image, but as if yesterday photographed in color that Russia that we lost ... Prokudin-Gorsky accomplished an amazing task - he shot between the first Russian Revolution and the First World War, several thousand objects on the territory of the Russian Empire. Thanks to the miraculously preserved negatives, we can see what the Russian Empire looked like in color - and be surprised that "dark, impoverished, backward Russia" dressed brightly, in multi-colored clothes ...

Young Russian peasant women near the Sheksna River. 1909

Builders of Murmansk railway, Kem-pier.

And it’s not even about the form, it’s enough to look into the faces of that Russia that we have lost ...

Well, about the notorious comparisons with 1913 - now, 100 years later, it is very instructive to look at photographs (which in themselves are a remarkable achievement in photography): a document of the era.

For example, "Ilyich's light bulb", you say? And without the Bolsheviks, would they illuminate the huts with torches? Oh well... :)

The engine room of the Hindu Kush hydroelectric power station on the Murghab River. 1911

And here is a new hotel in Gagra, 1905-1915.
And the pole with wires is visible in the frame.

The photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky help to visually see that bygone era, to feel its charm.

Under the cut - a biography of the photographer, briefly about his method and photographs of Ryazan, taken a hundred years ago ...


Self-portrait of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky near the Skuritskhali River, 1912. Full version

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky(18 (30) August 1863, Funikova Gora, Pokrovsky district, Vladimir province, Russian Empire - September 27, 1944, Paris, France) - Russian photographer, chemist (student of Mendeleev), inventor, publisher, teacher and public figure, member of the Imperial Russian geographical, Imperial Russian technical and Russian photographic societies. He made a significant contribution to the development of photography and cinematography. Pioneer of color photography in Russia, creator of the Collection of Landmarks of the Russian Empire.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born on August 18/30, 1863 in the family estate of the Prokudin-Gorsky Funikov Gora in the Pokrovsky district of the Vladimir province. On August 20 (September 1), 1863, he was baptized in the church of the Archangel Michael of the Arkhangelsk churchyard, the closest to the estate.
Until 1886 he studied at the Alexander Lyceum, but did not complete the full course.
From October 1886 to November 1888 he listened to lectures on the natural section at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University.
From September 1888 to May 1890 he was a student of the Imperial Military Medical Academy, which he also did not graduate for some reason. He also studied painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts.
In May 1890, he entered the service of the Demidov Charity House of Workers, as its full member. This is social institution for girls from poor families was founded in 1830 at the expense of the famous philanthropist Anatoly Demidov and was in the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria Feodorovna. In the same 1890, he married Anna Alexandrovna Lavrova (1870-1937), the daughter of a Russian metallurgist and director of the association of Gatchina bell, copper and steel works Lavrov. Prokudin-Gorsky himself became the director of the board at his father-in-law's enterprise.

In 1897, Prokudin-Gorsky began to make reports on the technical results of his photographic research to the Fifth Department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTS) (he continued these reports until 1918). In 1898, Prokudin-Gorsky became a member of the Fifth Photographic Department of the IRTS and made a report "On photographing shooting stars (star showers)". Already at that time he was a Russian authority in the field of photography, he was entrusted with the organization of practical photography courses at the IRTS. In 1898, Prokudin-Gorsky published the first books in a series of works on the technical aspects of photography: "On Printing from Negatives" and "On Photographing with Hand-Held Cameras". In 1900, the Russian Technical Society showed black and white photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky at the World Exhibition in Paris.

On August 2, 1901, S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky’s “photocincographic and phototechnical workshop” was opened in St. Petersburg, where in 1906-1909 the laboratory and the editorial office of the Amateur Photographer magazine were located, in which Prokudin-Gorsky published a series of technical articles on the principles of reproduction colors.
In 1902, Prokudin-Gorsky studied for a month and a half at the photomechanical school in Charlottenburg (near Berlin) under the guidance of Dr. Adolf Mite. The latter in the same 1902 created his own model of a camera for color shooting and a projector for demonstrating color images on the screen.

On December 13, 1902, Prokudin-Gorsky first announced the creation of color transparencies using the A. Mite method of three-color photography, and in 1905 he patented his sensitizer, which was 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.
In 1903, Prokudin-Gorsky published a pamphlet called Isochromatic Photography with Handheld Cameras.
The exact date of the start of color filming by Prokudin-Gorsky in the Russian Empire has not yet been established. It is most likely that the first series of color photographs was taken during a trip to Finland in September-October 1903.
In 1904, Prokudin-Gorsky took color photographs of Dagestan (April), the Black Sea coast (June) and the Luga district of the St. Petersburg province (December).

In April-September 1905, Prokudin-Gorsky made the first big photo trip around the Russian Empire, during which he took about 400 color photographs of the Caucasus, Crimea and Ukraine (including 38 views of Kyiv). He planned to publish all these pictures in the form of photo postcards under an agreement with the Community of St. Eugenia. However, due to political upheavals in the country and the financial crisis caused by them, the contract was terminated in the same 1905, and only about 90 open letters saw the light.
From April to September 1906, Prokudin-Gorsky spent a lot of time in Europe, participating in scientific congresses and photography exhibitions in Rome, Milan, Paris and Berlin. He received a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Antwerp and a medal for "Best Work" in color photography from the photography club in Nice.

Alim Khan (1880-1944), emir of Bukhara. 1907

In December 1906, Prokudin-Gorsky went to Turkestan for the first time: to photograph the solar eclipse on January 14, 1907 in the Tien Shan mountains near the Chernyaevo station above the Salyukta mines. Although the eclipse could not be captured due to cloudiness, in January 1907 Prokudin-Gorsky took many color photographs of Samarkand and Bukhara.
On September 21, 1907, Prokudin-Gorsky makes a report on his studies of Lumiere plates for color photography, after the report and discussion, color transparencies were designed by Ermilova N. E., Schulz, Natomb and others.

In May 1908, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled to Yasnaya Polyana, where he took a series of photographs (more than 15), including several color photographic portraits of Leo Tolstoy. In his notes, Prokudin-Gorsky noted that the writer "was especially keenly interested in all the latest discoveries in various fields, as well as in the issue of transmitting images in true colors." In addition, two photographic portraits of Fyodor Chaliapin in stage costumes made by Prokudin are known. According to some reports, Prokudin-Gorsky also photographed members of the royal family, but these photographs have not yet been found.

On May 30, 1908, color projections of photographs taken by Prokudin-Gorsky were shown in the halls of the Academy of Arts. His photographs of ancient vases - exhibits of the Hermitage - were subsequently used to restore their lost color.
Prokudin-Gorsky gave lectures on his achievements in the field of color photography using transparencies at the Imperial Russian Technical Society, the St. Petersburg Photographic Society and other institutions of the city.
At this time, Sergei Mikhailovich conceived a grandiose project: to capture contemporary Russia, its culture, history and modernization in color photographs.

Prokudin-Gorsky in May 1909 received an audience with Emperor Nicholas II, who instructed him to photograph all sorts of aspects of life in all areas that then made up the Russian Empire. For this, the photographer was allocated a specially equipped railway car. To work on the waterways, the government allocated a small steamer capable of sailing in shallow water with a crew, and for the Chusovaya River - a motor boat. A Ford car was sent to Yekaterinburg for filming the Urals and the Ural Range. Prokudin-Gorsky was issued by the tsarist chancellery with documents that gave access to all places of the empire, and officials were ordered to help Prokudin-Gorsky in his travels.

Sergei Mikhailovich spent all the shooting at his own expense, which gradually depleted.
... my work was very well arranged, but on the other hand, it was very difficult, requiring great patience, knowledge, experience and often great effort.
…
Photographs had to be taken in a variety of and often very difficult conditions, and then in the evening it was necessary to develop the photographs in the carriage laboratory, and sometimes the work dragged on until late at night, especially if the weather was unfavorable and it was necessary to find out whether it would be necessary to repeat the shooting in a different light before leaving for the next destination. Then, copies were made from the negatives on the way and included in the albums.

Steam locomotive with Schmidt superheater, 1910.
A steam locomotive with a compound steam engine and a Schmidt superheater is shown on the railroad between Perm and Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains region of eastern European Russia. The car in the background is believed to be Prokudin-Gorsky's mobile photographic laboratory.

Nilo-Stolobenskaya desert on Lake Seliger. 1910

In 1909-1916, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled to a significant part of Russia, photographing ancient temples, monasteries, factories, views of cities and various everyday scenes.
In March 1910, the first presentation to the tsar of photographs of the waterway of the Mariinsky Canal and the industrial Urals, taken by Prokudin-Gorsky. In 1910-1912, as part of a planned photographic expedition along the Kama-Tobolsk waterway, Prokudin made a long journey through the Urals.

Three generations, 1910.
A.P. Kalganov poses with his son and granddaughter for a portrait in the industrial city of Zlatoust in the Ural mountain region of Russia. The son and granddaughter work at the Zlatoust arms factory, which has been the main supplier of weapons to the Russian army since the early 1800s. Kalganov displays traditional Russian dress and beard style, while the two younger generations have a more Western-oriented, modern dress and hair style.

In January 1911, he gave a lecture at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg "Sights along the Mariinsky waterway and the Upper Volga, and a few words about the importance of color photography." In 1911, Prokudin-Gorsky twice made photographic expeditions to Turkestan, photographed monuments in the Yaroslavl and Vladimir provinces.

Iconostasis Orthodox Church in Smolensk. 1912

In 1911-1912, to celebrate the centenary of the victory in Patriotic war 1812 Prokudin-Gorsky photographed places associated with the Napoleonic campaign in Russia.

1911. Monument on the Raevsky redoubt

1911. Iconostasis in Borodino Church

1911. Icon of the Mother of God of Smolensk, owned by Bagration

1911. In the Borodino Museum

In 1912, Prokudin-Gorsky photographed the Kama-Tobolsk waterway and the Oka. In the same year, official support for the Prokudin-Gorsky project on a photo review of Russia ended. In 1913-1914, Prokudin-Gorsky participated in the creation joint-stock company Biochrom, which, among other things, offered color photography services and printing black and white and color photographs.

Construction of a gateway near the village of Kuzminsky

AT subsequent years in Samarkand, Prokudin-Gorsky tested a movie camera he invented for color filming. However, the quality of the filmed film was unsatisfactory. With the outbreak of World War I, Prokudin-Gorsky created a photographic chronicle of military operations, but was subsequently forced to abandon further photographic experiments and began censoring cinematographic tapes arriving from abroad, analyzing photographic preparations and training aircraft crews in aerial photography.

In the summer of 1916, Prokudin-Gorsky made his last photo expedition - he photographed the newly built southern section of the Murmansk railway and the Solovetsky Islands. Official support the Prokudin-Gorsky project on the photo review of Russia has been temporarily resumed.

Shortly after the October Revolution of 1917, Prokudin-Gorsky participated in the creation of the Higher Institute of Photography and Phototechnics (VIFF), which was officially established by decree of September 9, 1918, after Prokudin-Gorsky left abroad. The last time his collection of photographs was shown in Russia was on March 19, 1918, in the Winter Palace.

In 1920-1922, Prokudin-Gorsky wrote a series of articles for the British Journal of Photography and received a patent for a "color cinematography camera". Having moved to Nice in 1922, Prokudin-Gorsky worked with the Lumiere brothers.
Until the mid-1930s, the photographer was engaged in educational activities in France and was even going to make new series photographs of artistic monuments of France and its colonies. This idea was partially realized by his son Mikhail Prokudin-Gorsky.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky died in Paris a few weeks after the city was liberated from the Germans by the Allied forces. Buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois

Prokudin-Gorsky method

For those who are interested in photography: 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 on the camera system of the German chemist A. Mite). 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. Pictures were taken not on three different plates, but on one, in a vertical position, which made it possible to speed up the shooting process by only shifting the 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 so far no one has received it. 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: reducing shutter speed (according to his method, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to make exposure in a second possible) and, secondly, increasing the possibility of replicating the image. He presented his ideas at international congresses on applied chemistry.

There was also a method by which the image from photographic plates could be obtained on 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 significant number 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 Prokudin-Gorsky's photographs were printed, including photographs taken in Moscow. By 1913, the technology made it possible to print color photographs of 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.

The fate of the Prokudin-Gorsky collection

It should be noted that Prokudin-Gorsky was not the only one who took color photographs in Russia before 1917. However, only he used the color separation method (the method of Adolf Mite). Other photographers did color photography using a completely different technology, namely, the autochrome method (for example, Professor Ermilov N. E., General Vishnyakov, photographer Steinberg, Petrov, Trapani). This method was easier to use, but produced a rather grainy image that faded quickly. In addition, only the Prokudin-Gorsky collection was made (and preserved) in such a significant volume.

The surviving part of Prokudin-Gorsky's collection of photographs was bought from his heirs in 1948 by the US Library of Congress and for a long time (until 1980) remained unknown to the general public.
In 2000 JJT under contract with the US Library of Congress scanned all 1902 glass negatives from the Prokudin-Gorsky collection. The scan was performed in grayscale with 16-bit color depth and over 1000 dpi resolution. The scanned image files are about 70 MB in size!
All of these files are hosted on the Library of Congress server and are freely available. Scanned images are inverted (digitally converted to positives).

In 2001, the Library of Congress opened the exhibition The Empire That Was Russia. For her, 122 photographs were selected and color images were restored using a computer. When photographing according to the Prokudin-Gorsky method, individual photographs were taken not simultaneously, but with a certain interval of time. As a result, moving objects: flowing water, clouds moving across the sky, smoke, swaying tree branches, movements of faces and figures of people in the frame, etc., were reproduced in photographs with distortions, in the form of displaced multi-colored contours. These distortions are extremely difficult to correct manually. In 2004, Blaise Agwera and Arkas were contracted by the Library of Congress to develop tools to eliminate artifacts caused by object shifts during a survey.
In total, the “American” (that is, stored in the US Library of Congress) part of the Prokudin-Gorsky collection includes 1902 triple negatives and 2448 black-and-white prints in control albums (in total - about 2600 original images). Work on combining scanned triple negatives and restoration of color digital images obtained in this way continues to this day. For each of the negatives, the following digital files are available: one of three black-and-white frames of a photographic plate (about 10 MB in size); whole photographic plate (size about 70 MB); a color image of a rough alignment, without accurate details over the entire area (about 40 MB in size). For some of the negatives, color images with reduced details were also prepared (file size about 25 MB). For all of these images, reduced resolution files of 50-200 KB are available for quick access for informational purposes. In addition, the site contains scans of pages from Prokudin-Gorsky's control albums and scanned from high resolution those photographs from these albums for which there are no glass negatives. All of these files are available to everyone on the site of the US Library of Congress.

After Prokudin-Gorsky's scanned photographic plates appeared in the public domain on the website of the Library of Congress, the People's Project for the Restoration of Prokudin-Gorsky's legacy arose in Russia.
In 2007, within the framework of the project "The Russian Empire in Color" of the Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate, a special algorithm and program were developed for combining three-component photographs by S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky. This made it possible to combine all the pictures and put them on public display on the Russian Empire in Color website.

Of course, it was especially interesting for me to look at Ryazan. :)

1912. Assumption Cathedral from the east.

1912. Detail of the wall of the Assumption Cathedral.

1912. Entrance to the Assumption Cathedral.

1912. In the Kremlin: Cathedral of the Nativity, Assumption Cathedral (from the west) and the bell tower.

1912. The Trubezh River and the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ.

1912. Spassky Monastery from the northwest.

1912. Church in the name of the Archangel Michael, the former Grand Duke, next to the Assumption Cathedral.

1912. Bishop's house.

Church of Boris and Gleb, view from the southeast.

1912. General view of Ryazan from the north.

1912. General view of Ryazan from the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral from the northwest.

1912. View of Ryazan from the southeast.

Zaraisky district of the Ryazan province.