The first Russian photographer who made a color photograph. Rare color photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I recently made a selection of photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky for my English-language blog. Let it hang here and then, once the work has been done. The only thing I don't have enough strength for is to remake the signatures in Russian. Forgive me, 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 Parfenov's film "The Color of the Nation" (it was interesting, of course, to observe the hype around what has long been known). And I have not met good selections of photographs of one of the first in the world, by the way, 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 a fixation of reality.

If we talk about history, then formally Prokudin-Gorsky was not the first photographer to shoot in color. At a minimum, before him were James Clark Maxwell, Gabriel Lipman, Frederic Ivis, Hermann Vogel, Louis Ducos du Hauron, Charles Cros, John Jouley, and in parallel with him Rudolf Fischer, George Eastman, Leopold Manne, Leopold Godowsky, the brothers Lumiere and Adolf Mitya, whom Sergei Mikhailovich considered his teacher and from whom he borrowed the design of the camera that he then improved.

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

Prokudin-Gorsky not only improved the achievements of his predecessors from a technological point of view (he has many chemical inventions to his credit), but also took more than 4,000 photographs in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, due to the events of 1917, a little 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 they show photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky, most often they are talking about photographs of Russia. Not everyone knows that in addition, Sergei Mikhailovich filmed in Ukraine, 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 are really taken within the territory of what was then Russia.

Usually collections of photographs by Prokudin-Gorsky consist of landscape pictures and attract the attention of lovers of history rather than photography. There are special sites where people study the legacy they left, find the places where the photos 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 postcards is fading 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 selection of 64 photos, I decided to collect the best of them, plus I added just a couple of landscapes to complement the overall picture. All photos are in fairly good quality (1800 px on the long side). Some I corrected for color, but mostly I was satisfied with reproductions from the site www.prokudin-gorsky.org.

2.

1907, Uzbekistan. Chained prisoners, Bukhara

3.

1911, Uzbekistan. Emir of Bukhara. Bukhara

4.

1911, Russia. Dagestani types, village of Arakani

5.

1907, Uzbekistan. Prison of the town of Bukhara.

6.

1907, Uzbekistan, Bakery in the town of Bukhara

7.

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

8.

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

9.

1907, Kyrgyzstan. At the Saliuktin mines.

10.

1909, Russia. Peasant girls, Topornya village

11.

1909, Russia. Dagestan, village of Arakani, Lezgian

12.

1912 Georgia. Georgian women, in the park of Borzhom

13.

1912, Georgia, Cotton. In Sukhum Botanical Garden

14.

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

15.

1911, Uzbekistan. Sart types. Samarkand

16.

1911, Uzbekistan. Nazar Mahomet. Golodnaia Steppe

17.

1911, Uzbekistan, Nomadic Kirghiz. Golodnaia Steppe

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

1911, Uzbekistan. Doctors. Samarkand

22.

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

23.

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

24.

1912 Turkey. Armenian woman in holiday attire, Artvin

25.

1909, Russia. Ostrechiny. study. Svir River

26.

1912 Georgia. Mullahs in mosque. Aziziia. Batum

27.

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

28.

29.

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

30.

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

31.

1916, Russia. group. Near the lake of Vygozero

32.

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

33.

1911, Uzbekistan, Shepherd. Samarkand

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

Study with boy. Western Europe

40.

1912, Belorussia. harvested field. Vitebsk Province

41.

1909, Russia. Haying at the Leushinskii Monastery

42.

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

43.

1908 Switzerland. At the veranda in Lugano

44.

1912 Georgia. packaging department. Borzhom

45.

1911, Uzbekistan. On the Registan. Samarkand

46.

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

47.

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

48.

1907, Uzbekistan. students. Samarkand

49.

1911, Uzbekistan. carpenter. Samarkand

50.

1911, Uzbekistan. Trader in the Registan. Samarkand

51.

1909, Russia. Northwest part of the town of Zlatoust

52.

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

53.

1911, Uzbekistan. Kebab restaurant. Samarkand

54.

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

55.

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

56.

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

57.

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

58.

1911, Uzbekistan. water carrier. Samarkand

59.

1911, Uzbekistan. Policeman in Samarkand

60.

1911, Turkmenistan. Workers packing oil cake. Bairam Ali

61.

1911, Turkmenistan. Jigit Ibragim. Bairam-Ali area

62.

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

63.

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

64.

1912, Georgia, On the Skuritskhali River. study. Orto-Batum village. self-portrait

see also

There are things that are hard to believe, but they really were. We do not always look back in pursuit of our future. Our ancestors performed unprecedented miracles, which not everyone knows about.

1910 On a hillside near Artvin (the territory of modern Turkey), a woman in a national Armenian costume poses for Prokudin-Gorsky.

I propose to fill a huge gap and turn to the times of the early 20th century. It was then that photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky, with the support of Emperor Nicholas II, made a photo review of the Russian Empire. Yes, what!

Prokudin-Gorsky photographed areas, people, architecture of the country using a special camera for photographs of his own design.

This miracle camera was able to make three photographs in blue, green and red channels from three black-and-white photographs. After that, the photographic plates were combined and a color image was obtained. To do this, it was necessary to insert photographic plates into three different projectors and direct them to the screen.

Prokudin-Gorsky at the beginning of the 20th century took color photographs, and with high image quality.

I am sure that you are now looking at these photographs and thinking that all this is not true, and that in fact it is photoshop or, at worst, a modern counterfeit of antiquity. It is hard to believe that the photographs were taken before the First World War. But it is so.

In writing this post, I used materials from the Library of Congress. For more information about Prokudin-Gorsky's work, see loc.gov/exhibits/empire.

1910 Kasli, art casting. From the album "Views of the Ural Mountains, an overview of industrial regions, the Russian Empire."

1910 Woman on the river Sim

1909 Chapel on the site where the city of Belozersk was founded

1910 Georgia, view of Tiflis (Tbilisi)

1910 Khorezm. Khan of the Russian Protectorate Isfandiyar II Jurji Bahadur

An enlarged photo of Isfandiyar. Here he is 39 years old. Ruled Khorezm until his death in 1918

1910 Bank of the river Sim, shepherd boy

1910 Hydroelectric power plant in Yolotan Turkmenistan. The photo shows Hungarian-made alternators installed inside the power unit of the power plant

1910 Dagestan women

1909 In the photo, Pinkhus Karlinsky, 84 years old, head of the Chernihiv lock in the 66th year of service

1910 Artvin (now Turkey)

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 significantly surpassed similar developments of foreign chemists in quality, 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 view of St. 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)

The swallow 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, the main city of the 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.