Prokudin-Gorsky Sergei Mikhailovich: pioneer of color photography from Kirzhach. Brief biography p. M. Prokudin-Gorsky Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin Gorsky biography

Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky is a pioneer of color photography, who captured for posterity Russia at the beginning of the last century in color.

Photographer and scientist, inventor and public figure, a man who was well ahead of his time. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born on August 18 (30 in a new style), August 1863 and left behind more than two and a half thousand color photographs, looking at which you cannot say that they were taken more than a hundred years ago.

He shot landscapes and sights of tsarist Russia, famous personalities, meteor showers and solar eclipses; Emperor Nicholas II himself was impressed by his work. An extensive collection of his work is now in the US Library of Congress and is available digitally for everyone.

Pioneer digital photography in Russia, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky came from an old noble family. According to legend, the founder of the house was a Tatar prince who converted to Orthodoxy and fought on the side of Dmitry Donskoy in the Battle of Kulikovo. There were soldiers, diplomats and writers in the Prokudins-Gorsky family.

The son of Mikhail Prokudin-Gorsky was born on the family estate, attended the Alexander Lyceum, and later attended lectures at St. Petersburg University. According to some reports, he studied under Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (who at that time was in charge of the laboratory at the university). However, for some reason, Sergei left the university and studied for some time at the Imperial Military Medical Academy (which he also did not graduate from).

Among his interests were painting and music - one of his biographers says that in his youth, the future photographer was seriously involved in playing the violin, but due to a hand injury that he received in a chemical laboratory, he was forced to give it up.

In 1890, Sergei began to study state activities, namely, he entered the service in the House of Charity of Workers, later transformed into a female commercial school. In the same year, he married Anna Lavrova, whose father was engaged in metallurgy and headed a partnership of specialized factories.

For some time Prokudin-Gorsky was engaged in chemistry, even was a member of the chemical-technological department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society. But soon he became interested in photography and in 1898 entered the photographic department of the IRTS. Perhaps it was then that he began to think about creating a color photograph.

In 1901, he opened his own photographic workshop in St. Petersburg, and then even headed the specialized magazine "Amateur Photographer". A year later, he was already working in Germany, in Charlottenburg, under the guidance of Professor Adolf Mite, who developed his own camera for color photography. In 1903, Sergei Mikhailovich was again in Russia and began to print postcards and illustrations on equipment made by his order in Germany. Moreover, he developed his own recipe for an emulsion that gave the best color reproduction for its time.

Around the same time, he first went on a journey across the country to capture its sights and nature in color. In April 1904 he visited the Dagestan mountains, in the summer - on the Black Sea coast, then - in the Kursk province.

In 1905, his project - shooting Russia in color and publishing photographs in the form of color cards - began to finance the St. Petersburg Red Cross. And before, having limited funds, Prokudin-Gorsky continued his trips, filming Petersburg, Kiev, Sevastopol, Crimea, Novorossiysk.

But due to economic problems in the state, the institution was unable to pay for the photographer's work. Sergei Mikhailovich had to temporarily abandon expeditions and engage in social activities. During this period, he directed his studio, worked on a photo magazine, taught, participated in photo exhibitions and scientific congresses, traveled to Europe, where he took a series of color photographs of Italy. In late 1906 - early 1907, he, together with the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society (which he joined in 1900), visited Turkestan to capture a solar eclipse.

In 1908, Prokudin-Gorsky worked in Yasnaya Polyana - filming 80-year-old Leo Tolstoy and his estate. Photos of the famous writer and landscapes of the Tula region were printed in the form of postcards and, as they would be called now, posters. They spread throughout the country and brought wide popularity to the photographer. Soon he received an audience with Emperor Nicholas II himself, who supported his long-standing idea of photographing the sights and sights of Russia. The filmed materials were supposed to be used in schools to acquaint children with all corners of the big homeland.

The king gave permission to work and allocated transport; a few days later, the photographer went on an expedition again. He filmed the Volga and the Urals, Kostroma and Yaroslavl, then the Trans-Caspian region, again Turkestan, the Caucasus, Ryazan, Suzdal ... But the project was never implemented, most likely due to financial problems, since the state paid only transportation costs.

Probably to mend a shaky financial position and raise capital for further work, since 1913 Sergei Mikhailovich seriously took up entrepreneurial activity, with the involvement of large investors. He became a member of the board of the joint-stock company “Biochrom” created in 1914, which rendered services in color photography and printing of photographs.

In parallel with this, he began work on the creation of color cinematography and even received a patent for it. Everything was designed necessary equipment, but then the First World War broke out. Prokudin-Gorsky had to abandon the undertaking and start training pilots in aerial photography. He returned to photography again, but in wartime conditions this activity did not bring much success.

And then there was the October Revolution. In the new state, the photographer continued to actively promote photography, organizing displays of his work in the Winter Palace. His workshop worked as a printing house and received orders from the Soviet authorities. In 1918, Sergei Mikhailovich, on behalf of the People's Commissariat of Education, went to Norway, where he was supposed to purchase projection equipment for schools.

But the civil war prevented him from returning home. He was forced into exile, cut off from his family. First in Norway, then in England, Prokudin-Gorsky continued to work on the creation of color films, but faced great difficulties and competition. In the 1920s, he moved to France, where he was finally able to reunite with his children. His first marriage broke up, in 1920 he married again, to his employee Maria Shchedrina.

After a failure with cinema, Sergei Mikhailovich returned to photography, lectured on photography, arranged shows of his works (most of the collection was taken out of Russia) for his compatriot emigrants, wrote memoirs.

He died in 1944, shortly after the Allies liberated Paris, and was buried in a Russian cemetery near the French capital. In 1948, his collection was bought from the heirs of Prokudin-Gorsky by the Library of Congress. In 2001, these works were digitized and made freely available - the legacy of the pioneer of color photography is now open to the whole world.

1909, Russua. Three generations. A.P. Kalganov with son and granddaughter. The last two work in the shops of the Zlatoust plant.

I recently made a selection of photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky for my English-language blog. Let it hang here and there, once you've done the job. The only thing I don't have the strength to do is to rewrite the signatures in Russian. Sorry, but the signatures will be in English. But in Russian I will add a small accompanying text.

Everyone seems to have heard about Prokudin-Gorsky, especially after Parfyonov's film "The Color of the Nation" (it was curious, of course, to observe the excitement around what has been known for a long time). A good selections photographs of one of the first in the world, by the way, I have not met color photographers. It is clear that Sergei Mikhailovich was primarily a chemist. However, he devoted so many years to his beloved work that over time he began to get good pictures, and not just fixation of reality.

If we talk about history, then formally Prokudin-Gorsky was not the first photographer to shoot in color. At least before him were James Clark Maxwell, Gabriel Lipman, Frederic Ives, Hermann Vogel, Louis Ducos du Oron, Charles Cros, John Jouley, and in parallel with him Rudolph Fischer, George Eastman, Leopold Manne, Leopold Godowsky, the Lumiere brothers and Adolph Mite, whom Sergei Mikhailovich considered to be his teacher and from whom he borrowed the design of the chamber he later improved upon.

However, none of these people left a photographic heritage, almost all of them were primarily scientists, chemists, physicists and discoverers. They created the theory of color separation, developed and improved technology, discovered sensibilizers, light-sensitive plates and chemicals. But none of them took pictures.

Prokudin-Gorsky not only improved the developments of his predecessors from a technological point of view (he has many chemical inventions on his account), but also made more than 4,000 photographs in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, thanks to the events of 1917, slightly less than 2,000 plates have survived to our time, and they have been preserved solely due to the fact that they were taken out of Russia and are currently in the US Library of Congress.

When the photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky are shown, most often they are talking about photographs of Russia. Not everyone knows that, in addition to this, Sergei Mikhailovich filmed in Ukraine, in Belarus, in the territories of modern Georgia and Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Latvia, Finland, France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Austria. But most of the photographs that have come down to us were indeed taken within the territory of what was then Russia.

Usually collections of photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky consist of specific pictures and attract the attention of history buffs rather than photographs. There are special sites where people study their legacy, find places where photographs were taken, take a picture from the same angle, and create a library of comparisons “100 years later”. All this is probably very curious, but personally I have never been interested. More precisely, interest in specific postcards fades away rather quickly, it is worth looking at a couple of dozen. But I can look at photographs of people for a very long time, and return to them many times.

Despite the fact that Prokudin-Gorsky does not have so many photographs with people, they are. In this collection of 64 photos, I decided to collect the best of them, plus I added literally a couple of landscapes to complement the overall picture. All photos in enough good quality(1800 px long side). I corrected some of them in color, but mostly I was satisfied with reproductions from the site www.prokudin-gorsky.org.

2.

1907, Uzbekistan. Chained prisoners, Bukhara

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1911, Uzbekistan. Emir of Bukhara. Bukhara

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1911, Russia. Dagestani types, village of Arakani

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1907, Uzbekistan. Prison of the town of Bukhara.

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1907, Uzbekistan, Bakery in the town of Bukhara

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1916, Russia. On the handcar outside Petrozavodsk on the Murmansk railway

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1910, Russia. Work at the Bakalskii mine, Tiazhelyi iron mine. Irkuskan hill near Bakal

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1907, Kyrgyzstan. At the Saliuktin mines.

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1909, Russia. Peasant girls, Topornya village

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1909, Russia. Dagestan, village of Arakani, Lezgian

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1912, Georgia. Georgian women, in the park of Borzhom

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1912, Georgia, Cotton. In Sukhum Botanical Garden

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1912, Azerbaijan. Mugan. Settler "s family. Settlement of Grafovka, Grafskii

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1911, Uzbekistan. Sart types. Samarkand

16.

1911, Uzbekistan. Nazar Magomet. Golodnaia Steppe

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1911, Uzbekistan, Nomadic Kirghiz. Golodnaia Steppe

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1910, Russia. Spinning yarn. In the village of Izvedovo

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1911, Russia. His Highness Khan of Khiva in Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg

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1912, Russia. Laying concrete for the dam "s sluice. Near the village of Beloomut

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1911, Uzbekistan. Doctors. Samarkand

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1912, Turkey. Mullah with his female students near the Artomelinskaia mosque in Artvin

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1910, Russia. Bashkir switchman. Near Ust-Katav station

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1912, Turkey. Armenian woman in holiday attire, Artvin

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1909, Russia. Ostrechiny. Study. Svir river

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1912, Georgia. Mullahs in mosque. Aziziia. Batum

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1912, Azerbaijan, Mugan Steppe. Georgian woman in a folk costume

28.

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1916, Russia. Baling machine for hay. Near Kondopoga village

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1916, Russia. Austrian prisoners of war near a barrack, near Kondopoga village

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1916, Russia. Group. Near the lake of Vygozero

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1911, Uzbekistan. Bukhara bureaucrat. At the palace In the Emir "s Shir-Budun garden near Bukhara

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1911, Uzbekistan, Shepherd. Samarkand

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1911, Uzbekistan. Sentry at the palace, and old cannons. In Registan square. Bukhara

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1911, Uzbekistan. At work on the upper reaches of the Syr-Darya. Golodnaia Steppe

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1912, Russia. Night camp by a rock on the bank of the Chusovaia

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1911, Uzbekistan. Camel caravan carrying thorns for fodder. Golodnaia Steppe

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1904, Ukraine. In Little Russia. Near the town of Putivl in Kursk Province

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Study with boy. Western Europe

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1912, Belorussia. Harvested field. Vitebsk Province

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1909, Russia. Haying at the Leushinskii Monastery

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1911, Uzbekistan. Group of Jewish children with a teacher. Samarkand

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1908, Switzerland. At veranda in Lugano

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1912, Georgia. Packaging department. Borzhom

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1911, Uzbekistan. On the Registan. Samarkand

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1911, Turkmenistan. Supplying cotton to cotton-processing manufacture in the Murgab Estate. Bairam-Ali

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1911, Uzbekistan. Prime Minister of Bukhara (Kush-Beggi)

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1907, Uzbekistan. Students. Samarkand

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1911, Uzbekistan. Carpenter. Samarkand

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1911, Uzbekistan. Trader in the Registan. Samarkand

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1909, Russia. Northwest part of the town of Zlatoust

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1916, Russia. Group of railroad construction participants. On the pier in Kem-Pristan

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1911, Uzbekistan. Kebab restaurant. Samarkand

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1911, Uzbekistan. In the court of Shir-Dor mosque. Samarkand

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1909, Russia. Pinkhus Karlinskii. Eighty-four years old. Sixty-six years of service. Supervisor of Chernigov floodgate

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1911, Turkmenistan. Tekin with his family. Bairam-Ali area

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1911, Turkmenistan. Supplying cotton to cotton-processing manufacture. Bairam-Ali area, Murgab Estate

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1911, Uzbekistan. Water-carrier. Samarkand

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1911, Uzbekistan. Policeman in Samarkand

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1911, Turkmenistan. Workers packing oil cake. Bairam-Ali

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1911, Turkmenistan. Dzhigit Ibragim. Bairam-Ali area

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1907, Kyrgyzstan. Observing a solar eclipse on January 1, 1907, near the Cherniaevo Station in the Tian-Shan mountains above the Saliukta mines

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1907, Uzbekistan. Elderly Sart man (Babaika), Samarkand

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1912, Georgia, On the Skuritskhali River. Study. Orto-Batum village. Self-portrait

see also

Prokudin-Gorsky Sergei Mikhailovich
Born: 18 (30) August 1863
Died: September 27, 1944 (81 years old)

Biography

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky - 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 the sights of the Russian Empire".

His father, Mikhail Nikolayevich, having served in the Caucasus (in the Tiflis grenadier regiment), in 1862, having retired with the rank of second lieutenant, married.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born on August 18/30, 1863 in the Prokudins-Gorsky family estate Funikova 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 closest to the estate, in the cemetery of which in 2008 the tombstone of the full namesake - Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1789-1841) was discovered.

For three years (until 1886) he studied at the Alexander Lyceum, but did not complete the full course.

From October 1886 to November 1888 he attended lectures on the natural sciences at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University.

From September 1888 to May 1890 he was a student at the Imperial Military Medical Academy, which he did not graduate from.
Studied painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts.

In May 1890 he entered the service of the Demidov House of Charity of Workers, as its full member. it social institution for girls from poor families was founded in 1830 at the expense of the famous patron Anatoly Demidov and was in the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria Feodorovna.

In 1890 he married Anna Aleksandrovna Lavrova (1870-1937) - the daughter of a Russian metalworker and director of the Lavrov association of bell, copper and steel works in Gatchina. Prokudin-Gorsky himself became the director of the board at his father-in-law's enterprise.

In 1897, Prokudin-Gorsky began to give 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 falling stars (star rains)." Already at that time he was a Russian authority in the field of photography, he was entrusted with organizing 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 Paris World Exhibition.

On August 2, 1901, S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky's "photozincographic and photographic technical 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 direction of Dr. Adolf Mite. The latter, in the same 1902, created his own model of a camera for color photography and a projector for showing color pictures on the screen.

On December 13, 1902, Prokudin-Gorsky 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 was significantly superior in quality to similar developments of foreign chemists, including the Mite sensitizer. The composition of the new sensitizer made the silver bromide plate equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum.

The exact date of the start of color filming by Prokudin-Gorsky in the Russian Empire has not yet been established. The most likely fact is that the first series of color photographs was taken during a trip to the Finnish principality 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 major photo trip around the Russian Empire, during which he took about 400 color photographs of the Caucasus, Crimea and Ukraine (including 38 views of Kiev). He planned to publish all these pictures in the form of photo cards under an agreement with the Community of Saint Eugenia. However, due to the political upheavals in the country and the resulting financial crisis, the agreement was terminated in the same 1905, and only about 90 open letters were published.

From April to September 1906, Prokudin-Gorsky spent a lot of time in Europe, participating in scientific congresses and photo 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 the field of color photography from the photo club in Nice.

In December 1906, Prokudin-Gorsky went to Turkestan for the first time: to photograph the solar eclipse on January 14, 1907 (English) Russian. in the Alai mountains near the Chernyaevo station (now Khavast) above the Sulukta 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 made a report on his studies of the Autochrome plates by the Lumiere brothers for color photography, after the report and discussion, color transparencies were designed by N.Ye. Ermilova, Shultz, 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 Nikolaevich 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 the issue of rendering 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; perhaps they are irretrievably lost.

On May 30, 1908, in the halls of the Academy of Arts, a display of color projections of photographs made by Prokudin-Gorsky was held. His photographs of ancient vases - exhibits of the Hermitage - were later used to restore their lost color.

Prokudin-Gorsky lectured on his achievements in the field of color photography, using slides, at the Imperial Russian Technical Society, the St. Petersburg Photographic Society and other institutions in the city.

At this time, Sergei Mikhailovich conceived a project: to capture in color photographs contemporary Russia, its culture, history and modernization. Prokudin-Gorsky in May 1909 received an audience with Emperor Nicholas II, who instructed him to film all sorts of aspects of life in all regions that then constituted the Russian Empire. For this, a specially equipped railway carriage was allocated to the photographer. For work on waterways, the government allocated a small steamer capable of sailing in shallow water with a crew, and a motor boat for the Chusovaya River. A Ford car was sent to Yekaterinburg for the filming of the Urals and the Ural ridge. Prokudin-Gorsky was given documents by the tsarist office giving access to all parts of the empire, and officials were ordered to help Prokudin-Gorsky in his travels.

Sergei Mikhailovich spent all the filming at his own expense, which gradually depleted.

... my work was furnished very well, then on the other hand, it was very difficult, required a lot of patience, knowledge, experience and often a lot of effort.

…

They had to take pictures in a variety of and often very difficult conditions, and then in the evening they had 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 whether it would be necessary to repeat the shooting under different lighting before leaving for the next destination. Then copies were made from the negatives along the way and entered into albums.

In 1909-1916, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled around a significant part of the Russian Empire, photographing ancient temples, monasteries, factories, city views 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, made by Prokudin-Gorsky, took place. In 1910-1912, as part of a planned photographic expedition along the Kama-Tobolsk waterway, Prokudin made a long journey across the Urals. In January 1911, at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, he gave a lecture "Sightseeing along the Mariinsky waterway and the Upper Volga, and a few words about the importance of color photography." In 1911, Prokudin-Gorsky made two photo expeditions to Turkestan, filming monuments in the Yaroslavl and Vladimir provinces.

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.

In 1912, Prokudin-Gorsky photographed the Kamsko-Tobolsk waterway and the Oka. In the same year, the official support of Prokudin-Gorsky's project on the photo review of Russia ended. In 1913-1914, Prokudin-Gorsky participated in the creation of the Biochrome Joint Stock Company, which, among other things, offered services in color photography and printing black-and-white and color photographs.

In the following years, in Samarkand, Prokudin-Gorsky tested the cinema apparatus he had invented for color filming. However, the quality of the filmed film was unsatisfactory. With the outbreak of the First World War, Prokudin-Gorsky created photographic chronicles of hostilities, but later was forced to abandon further photographic experiments and took up censorship of cinematographic tapes arriving from abroad, analysis of 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 for Prokudin-Gorsky's project on Russian photography has been temporarily resumed.

Soon after the October Revolution of 1917, Prokudin-Gorsky participated in the creation of the Higher Institute of Photography and Photographic Technology (VIFF), which was officially established by decree of September 9, 1918, after Prokudin-Gorsky left abroad. His last collection of photographs was shown in Russia on March 19, 1918 at 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 “camera for color cinematography”.

Having moved to Nice in 1922, Prokudin-Gorsky worked together with the Lumiere brothers. Until the mid-1930s, the photographer was engaged in educational activities in France and was even going to take a new series of photographs of artistic monuments of France and its colonies. This idea was partially implemented by his son Mikhail Prokudin-Gorsky.

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

Technology

The color separation technology used by Prokudin-Gorsky to obtain color photographs was invented by James Maxwell back in 1855, and was first implemented by Thomas Sutton on May 17, 1861. The shooting was carried out in turn through color filters of blue, green and red, after which three black and white negatives were obtained, suitable for additive projection onto the screen. The main difficulty was the impossibility of obtaining the green and red components of the image due to the narrow range of natural spectral sensitivity of photographic materials that register only blue-violet radiation. The possibility of optical sensitization to the long-wavelength part of the visible spectrum was discovered in 1873 by Hermann Vogel, who received the first orthochromatic emulsion. However, the red sensitizer pinacyanol was obtained by Benno Gomolka only in 1905, and the production of the first panchromatic photographic plates was started by Ratten and Wainwright a year later.

Up to this point, color photographers sensitized photographic plates to red on their own, and not everyone was able to get a full-fledged display of red at sufficiently short shutter speeds. Prokudin-Gorsky's contribution to the technology consisted in the development of his own methods for sensitizing photographic emulsions, which were more successful than foreign ones. The composition of the new sensitizer, patented by the photographer, increased the uniformity of the silver bromide plate to the entire visible spectrum, excluding the prolongation of the exposure behind the red filter. Petersburg newspaper reported in December 1906 that, while improving the sensitivity of his plates, the researcher intends to demonstrate “ snapshots in natural colors, which is a great success, since until now no one has received it. "

While studying in Germany at the photochemical school in Charlottenburg, Prokudin-Gorsky witnessed the first demonstration of color photographs organized by the teacher Adolf Mite on April 9, 1902. The German inventor showed the first pictures taken with a newly developed camera made in the workshops of Wilhelm Bermpole. Subsequently, the same camera of the Mite-Bermpole system was used by the Russian photographer for most of the filming. In a special cassette in front of an 8x24 cm photographic plate, there were three primary color filters. The cassette moved freely along vertical guides, fixing with a lock in three positions corresponding to different exposures during color separation. After the first exposure, the lock was released by a pneumatic drive with a pear, and the cassette was automatically moved downward by a third of its height under its own weight. As a result, the unexposed part of the photographic plate, located behind the next light filter, was pushed into the frame window. After the second exposure, the cassette was moved even lower in the same way. The cassette lock and shutter actuator was common, reducing the risk of camera movement between exposures. Conventional cameras were also suitable for shooting with this technology, but manual reloading of cassettes increased the risk of misalignment between exposures, and separate negatives made it difficult to subsequently combine partial images.

From the obtained triple color-separated negative, a triple transparency was printed by the contact method, and a projection "Chromoscope" invented by Louis du Aurone in 1868 was used for viewing. The device was a slide projector with three lenses located in front of three frames on a photographic plate. Each frame was projected through a light filter of the same color as the one used during the shooting. With the additive addition of three partial color separations, a full color image was obtained on the screen. Prokudin-Gorsky made a contribution to the two directions of improving color photography that existed at that time: reducing the shutter speed (according to his method, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to make exposure possible in a second) and the development of a technology for replicating photographs on postcards. He presented his ideas at international congresses on applied chemistry.

Despite the technological complexity, Prokudin-Gorsky preferred separate shooting to the popular Autochrome already in 1907 because of the better color rendering and high quality of the rasterless image. The black-and-white color-separated negative, in contrast to the autochromic transparency obtained in a single copy, made it possible to reproduce color photographs, including by the printing method of phototyping. With the passage of time, another advantage of the separate method emerged - the higher durability of the silver gelatin image consisting of silver rather than dyes. Until now, color separation into separate black-and-white negatives is considered the most reliable way of storing color images and is used in color cinematography for archival purposes.

Together with Sergei Maksimovich, Prokudin-Gorsky worked on a color film technology close to the Kinemakolor process. Using his own method, he made an experimental survey in Turkestan in 1911. For the development of color cinema and color printing, with his participation in 1914, several large industrialists established joint-stock company"Biochrom", to which the property rights to the collection of Prokudin-Gorsky were transferred. On the eve of the First World War, Prokudin continued his research and achieved new successes. He patented in Germany, England, France and Italy a method of making cheap color film transparencies for cinematography. In 1922, an English patent was received for a mirror-prism optical system for color separation with simultaneous photography.

With the help of pigment photographic printing, a color image from color-separated photographic plates could be obtained on paper. Typographic reproduction was available through a three-color phototype, patented in 1888. Until 1917, more than a hundred color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky were printed in Russia, of which 94 were in the form of photo cards, and a significant number were in books and brochures. Thus, in the book by P. G. Vasenko “Boyars Romanovs and Mikhail Fedorovich's Accession to the Kingdom” (St. Petersburg, 1913), 22 high-quality color reproductions of Prokudin-Gorsky's photographs were printed, including photographs taken in Moscow. By 1913 latest technology offset printing allowed printing 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 as “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.

Chronology of events related to the life of Prokudin-Gorsky

1878 On the initiative of D.I.Mendeleev, the V photographic department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society was organized.
1889-1891 years. Prokudin-Gorsky undergoes practical training in photochemical laboratories, gets acquainted with the work of Adolphe Mite and Edme Jules Momen.

1897 Prokudin-Gorsky begins to report on the technical results of his photographic research to the Fifth Department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTS). (He will continue these reports until 1918).

1898 Prokudin-Gorskiy publishes the first books in a series of works on technical aspects of photography: "On printing from negatives" and "On photographing with hand-held cameras"

The year is 1898. Prokudin-Gorsky presents his work "On photographing shooting stars (Star Rains)" at the Imperial Russian Technical Society, where he is accepted as a member of the photographic department.

1900 The Imperial Russian Technical Society shows black and white photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky at the World Paris Exhibition.

1901 year. In St. Petersburg, at 22 B. Podyacheskaya, a "photozincographic and photographic workshop" of S.M.

1903 year. Prokudin-Gorsky publishes a brochure "Isochromatic Photography with Hand-Held Cameras".
1904 year. Prokudin-Gorsky takes color photographs in the Finnish principality and the Luga district of the St. Petersburg province.

1905 year. Prokudin-Gorsky undertakes the first big photo tour in Russia, during which he takes pictures of the Caucasus, Crimea and Little Russia.

1906 year. Prokudin-Gorsky became the editor of the Petersburg magazine "Amateur Photographer" and remained in this position until 1909. He writes a series of technical articles on the principles of color reproduction.

1906 year. Prokudin-Gorsky receives a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Antwerp and a medal for "Best Work" in the field of color photography from the photo club in Nice

1907 year. Prokudin-Gorsky takes many color photographs of Samarkand and Bukhara.

1908 year. Prokudin-Gorsky conceives and develops a plan for a journey through the Russian Empire using a camera that exposes one oblong plate three times in quick succession through three filters of different colors. With the help of a projector of its own design, combining three images into one, a color combined image is obtained.

1908 year. Prokudin-Gorsky lectures on his achievements in the field of color photography, using slides, at the Imperial Russian Technical Society, the St. Petersburg Photographic Society, and in other institutions in the city.

May 1908. Prokudin-Gorsky photographs Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana.

1908 year. Prokudin-Gorsky gives several lectures using projections of color transparencies, including to Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who promotes the introduction of Prokudin-Gorsky to Emperor Nicholas II.

May 1909. Nicholas II invites Prokudin-Gorsky to perform with a screening of transparencies in front of the Imperial Court in Tsarskoe Selo. Prokudin-Gorsky receives official support for his plan to conduct a photo review of the Russian Empire.

Summer-autumn 1909. Prokudin-Gorsky makes photo travels along the waterway of the Mariinsky Canal, visited the southern districts of the Olonets province, the industrial part of the Urals.

1915 year. Traveled on the Murmansk railway under construction. I made more than 120 pictures of the road, sights of Olonets province and Petrozavodsk.

The year is 1918. Emigrated to Europe.

1922 year. Prokudin-Gorskiy receives a British patent for an optical system for obtaining three negatives through a single exposure through light filters.

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, he was the only one who used the method of color separation (the method of Adolphe Mite). Other photographers made color photography using a completely different technology, namely the autochrome method (for example, Professor N. Ermilov, General Vishnyakov, photographer Steinberg, Petrov, Trapani). This method was easier to use, but produced a rather grainy image that fade quickly. In addition, only the collection of Prokudin-Gorsky was made (and preserved) in such a significant volume.

The surviving part of the collection of Prokudin-Gorsky's photographs was purchased from his heirs in 1948 by the US Library of Congress and remained unknown to the general public for a long time (until 1980).

Computer processing of photographs by Prokudin-Gorsky

Many photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky before the revolution were published on postcards and as illustrations in books. However, the technology of typographic reproduction of color images from color separation negatives was quite complex at that time, and the results were not of high quality.

Development computer technology image processing at the end of the 20th century made it possible to process these images and show unique species imperial Russia in color.

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

In 2000, JJT, under contract with the US Library of Congress, scanned all 1902 glass negatives from the Prokudin-Gorsky collection. Scanning was performed in Grayscale mode with 16-bit color depth and resolution over 1000 dpi. Scanned image files are approximately 70 MB in size. All these files are hosted on the server of the Library of Congress and are freely available. Scanned images are inverted (digitally converted to positives).

In 2001, the Library of Congress opened the exhibition "The Empire That Russia Was". For her, 122 photographs were selected and color images were restored using a computer.

The staff preparing color photographs for the exhibition faced technical difficulties. When combining three color channels in a raster graphics editor in one place of the frame (for example, in the center), we observed layering of color outlines in other parts of it. The reasons for such discrepancies in color images are not entirely clear: perhaps they are caused by chromatic aberration of the lens and small inhomogeneities in the thickness of the filters used for shooting. To accurately align the contours of the images in the color channels, it is not enough to move and rotate these images: it is necessary to subject them to slight deformations. Manual execution of these deformations is a rather long and laborious process. In addition, the resulting images needed manual color correction. professional photographer based on his experience and taste.

The restoration of the preserved color images of the Prokudin-Gorsky collection was carried out at the Russian Laboratory digital technologies in the restoration of the Scientific Council on Cybernetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Restoration Center "Restorator-M" under the leadership of Viktor Minakhin. For this purpose, special software has been developed that allows you to align the color contours of the image over the entire field of the frame with an accuracy of one pixel. To find the optimal transformation, the numerical Levenberg - Marquardt algorithm was used. The results of this work - 1902 printed color images - were shown at the exhibition "Landmarks of Russia in natural colors: the entire Prokudin-Gorsky, 1905-1916", held November 19, 2003 - February 8, 2004 in State Museum architecture in Moscow. They can also be seen on the World 1900-1917 in Color website.

When photographing by the method of Prokudin-Gorsky, individual photographs were taken not simultaneously, but with a certain period 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 outlines. These distortions are extremely difficult to correct manually. In 2004, Blaise Agwera and Arcas were contracted by the Library of Congress to develop tools to remove artifacts caused by moving objects during filming.

In total, the American part of Prokudin-Gorsky's collection (transferred by his relatives to the US Library of Congress) contains 1902 triple negatives and 2448 black-and-white prints in album 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 there are the following digital files: one of three black-and-white photographic plate frames (about 10 MB in size); the entire photographic plate (about 70 MB in size); color image of rough alignment, without precise information of details over the entire area (size about 40 MB). For some negatives, color images with flattened details have also been prepared (file size about 25 MB). All of these images have reduced resolution files of 50-200 KB for quick access for information purposes. In addition, the site contains scans of the pages of Prokudin-Gorsky's albums and scanned from high resolution those photographs from these albums for which there are no glass negatives. All listed files are available to everyone on the website of the US Library of Congress. A search page is available for searching and / or sequentially viewing images.

After the scanned photographic plates of Prokudin-Gorsky appeared in the public domain on the website of the Library of Congress in Russia, the People's Project for the Restoration of Prokudin-Gorsky's Legacy arose. At the moment (March 2012), 517 photos have already been restored.

In 2007, within the framework of the project "Russian Empire in Color" of the Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate, a special algorithm and program were developed for combining three-component photographs of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky. This made it possible to combine all the pictures and put them up for everyone to see on the website "Russian Empire in Color".

Since some of the glass plates were damaged, the photographs obtained after alignment were retouched to restore the original image, where possible. This retouching did not introduce anything new and did not destroy anything, its purpose was only to restore the original image.

Specialized software allows you to combine the color components of images with an accuracy of one pixel and without loss of quality, which makes it possible to prepress the resulting color images. The album "Russian Empire in Color" was the result of mathematical processing of three-component images, retouching and systematization of photographs. This album contains some of the most interesting and picturesque photographs taken by the artist-photographer during his travels in the Vladimir and Yaroslavl provinces. The publishing house of the Belarusian Exarchate plans to release several more albums.

Study of the life and creative heritage of Prokudin-Gorsky

The beginning of the study of the life and work of Prokudin-Gorsky in his homeland was laid by S.P. N. Tolstoy in a color photo ”. Since then, S.P. Garanina has published numerous works on this topic in the periodicals, including a detailed biography of Prokudin-Gorsky, as well as some archival documents. The result of these studies was the album-monograph “The Russian Empire of Prokudin-Gorsky. 1905-1916 "(Publishing house" Amphora ", 2008).

In Moscow, since 1994, the Center for Digital Technologies in the Restoration of the Scientific Council on the Complex Problem "Cybernetics" of the Russian Academy of Sciences has compiled a database of graphic and written sources on the "Collection of Russian Attractions" and Prokudin-Gorsky. The scientific description of the "American" part of Prokudin-Gorsky's photographic heritage in the work "Collection of Russian Attractions" in the Library of Congress "was given by V.V. topic since the early 1990s.

In St. Petersburg, art critic A.V. Noskov is engaged in the study of Prokudin-Gorsky's work, focusing on the history of publishing open letters based on the master's photographs. In a series of publications (in the journal of collectors of postcards "ZhUK", the Luga regional newspaper "Provincial News") A. V. Noskov highlighted the early period of Prokudin-Gorsky's activity (1904-1905) on the basis of archival documents recently discovered by him.

In the USA, the study of Prokudin-Gorsky's activities was carried out by Robert H. Allshouse, who compiled the first biography of the scientist for the album-monograph “Photos for the Tsar: Pioneer of color photography Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky, authorized by Tsar Nicholas II” (NY, Doubleday, 1980). Despite serious factual errors, this biographical study for many years became the main source of information about Prokudin-Gorsky for English-speaking readers and is often cited in modern Russian-language publications.

In recent years, research into the life and creative legacy of Prokudin-Gorsky has become the target of several Internet projects.

In particular, in 2008, the Open public project"The legacy of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky." Within the framework of this project, more than 300 photographs from the collection were identified and attributed, color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky, previously unknown to the general public, printed in Russia before 1917 (including a number of photographs taken in Moscow) were discovered, and little-known archival documents were published. Various issues are discussed at the project forum: methods of restoring Prokudin-Gorsky's photographs, creating panoramas from his photographs, photo comparisons, dating works, correcting errors in attribution, compiling a bibliography, etc.

In the same 2008, the project of the St. Petersburg researcher S. Prokhorov "Color photographs of S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky" (1902-1915) was opened. The author of this site sets as his main task to present all the surviving photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky in a systematized form with comments. For the convenience of visitors, the site has a geographic rubricator that allows you to quickly find photographs taken in a specific place or area. S. Prokhorov also carried out significant work to identify the works of Prokudin-Gorsky.

On November 28, 2010 in the local history museum of Kirzhach the permanent exhibition “The pioneer of color photography SM Prokudin-Gorsky and the history of the Prokudin-Gorsky family” was opened.

On September 25, 2016, the world's first museum of S.M.Prokudin-Gorsky was opened at the Romanov School in Moscow.

Films about S.M.Prokudin-Gorsky

The Tsar's Last Picture Show for BBC Four (documentary, 2003).
“Album for the Tsarevich. Photographer S. Prokudin - Gorsky. LLC "Cinemedia", Author: E. Golovnya. Producer: B. Grachevsky (documentary, 2004).
"The color of time". Director: Konstantin Kasatov (documentary, 2007).
"History in color". Directed by Ivan Martynov (documentary, 2009).
"Russia in color". Director: Vladimir Meletin (documentary, 2010).
"Inventory of the Motherland ... in the footsteps of Prokudin-Gorsky." Director: Ben van Lieshout (Holland). Filming began in 2011.
"The color of the nation". Author: Leonid Parfyonov (documentary, 2013). The television premiere of the film took place on Channel One on June 12, 2014.

The photographs from the early 1900s show the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and on the verge of revolution.

Photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky was one of the country's leading photographers at the beginning of the 20th century. The portrait of Tolstoy, taken in 1908, two years before the writer's death, gained wide popularity. It was reproduced on postcards, in large print media and in various publications, becoming the most famous work of Prokudin-Gorsky.

The picture in luxurious clothes depicts the last Bukhara emir - Seyid Mir Mohammed Alim Khan. Present Uzbekistan, approx. 1910 g.

The photographer traveled around Russia shooting in color in the early 1900s

An Armenian woman in national dress poses for Prokudin-Gorsky on a hillside near the city of Artvin (modern Turkey).

To reflect the scene in color, Prokudin-Gorsky took three shots, and each time he installed a different color filter on the lens. This meant that sometimes when objects moved, colors blurred and distorted, as in this photo.

The project to document the nation in color images was designed for 10 years. Prokudin-Gorsky planned to collect 10,000 photographs.

During the period from 1909 to 1912 and 1915, the photographer surveyed 11 regions, traveling in a government-provided railway carriage, which was equipped with a dark room.

Self-portrait of Prokudin-Gorsky against the background of the Russian landscape.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born in 1863 into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, he studied chemistry and art. The access received from the tsar to the regions of Russia, which are forbidden for ordinary citizens to visit, allowed him to make unique shots, capturing people and landscapes from different parts of the Russian Empire.

The photographer managed to capture the scenes in color through the use of a three-color shooting technique, which allowed the audience to convey a vivid sense of life at that time. He took three shots: one with a red filter, one with a green filter, and the third with a blue one.

A group of Dagestani women are posing for a picture. Prokudin-Gorsky was accused of capturing bare faces.

Colored landscape in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy.

Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur - Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm (part of modern Uzbekistan).

Prokudin-Gorskiy began to implement his method of tricolor photography after he visited Berlin and got acquainted with the work of the German photochemist Adolf Mite.

Because of the revolution in 1918, the photographer left his family at home and went to Germany, where he married his laboratory assistant. In a new marriage, a daughter, Elka, was born. Then he moved to Paris and was reunited with his first wife, Anna Alexandrovna Lavrova and three adult children, with whom he founded a photo studio. Sergei Mikhailovich continued his photographic work and published in English-language photo journals.

The studio, which he founded and bequeathed to his three adult children, was named Elka after his youngest daughter.

The photographer died in Paris in 1944, a month after the liberation of France from Nazi occupation.

Using his own method of shooting, Prokudin-Gorsky made a good showing and was appointed editor of the most important Russian photographic magazine - Amateur Photographer.

He was unable to complete his ten-year project to create 10,000 images. After the October Revolution, Prokudin-Gorsky left Russia forever.

By that time, according to experts, he had created 3,500 negatives, but many of them were confiscated and only 1902 were restored. The entire collection was bought by the US Library of Congress in 1948, and the digitized footage was published in 1980.