Russian photographer Prokudin-Gorsky

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Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (August 31, 1863, Murom, Vladimir Province, Russia Empire - September 27, 1944, Paris, France) - a famous Russian photographer, chemist (a disciple of Mendeleev), the inventor, a member of the Imperial Russian Geographic and the Imperial Russian Technical Society. He has made a significant contribution to the development of photography and cinematography.

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Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky spent his childhood in a family estate Prokudin-Gorsky Funikova Gore. By family tradition, he studied at the Alexander Lyceum, but the documents are not confirmed. He graduated from the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, where he attended lectures Mendeleev. He then continued his studies at the chemist in Berlin and Paris. Collaborated with renowned chemists and inventors: Momeni and Mitte. Together with them, engaged in the development of promising methods for color photography.

Returning to Russia in the mid 90-ies of the XIX century, married Anna Alexandrovna Lavrov (1870-1937) - daughter of the famous Russian Metalloved and director of the Association Gatchina bell, copper and steel mills Lavrov. Sam Prokudin-Gorsky became director of the Board in the company of his wife's father. In 1898, Prokudin-Gorsky became a member of the photographic department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society and serves with the message "about photographing the falling stars (stellar rain). Already at that time, he is Russia's largest authority in the field of photography, he was responsible for organizing the courses of practical photography for IRTO.

August 2, 1901 in St. Petersburg called "fototsinkograficheskaya and fototehnicheskaya workshop" SM Prokudin-Gorsky, which is home to the laboratory and the editors of "Amateur photographer".

December 13, 1902 Prokudin-Gorsky first announced the creation of color slides by the method of three-color photos [1], and in 1905 patented his sensitizer, significantly superior to a similar formulation of foreign chemists, including sensitizer Mitte. The composition of a new sensitizer did bromoserebryanuyu plate is equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum.

In May 1908 Prokudin-Gorsky traveled to Yasnaya Polyana, where he made a color photographic portrait of Leo Tolstoy. In my notes, Prokudin-Gorsky noted that the writer "particularly lively interest in all the latest discoveries in various fields, as well, and the transfer of images in true colors." In addition, they made known photograph of FIShalyapin. Prokudin-Gorsky photographs as members of the royal family, but these pictures have not been able to discover, perhaps, they lost.

May 30, 1908 in the halls of the Academy of Fine Arts was shown color photos of the projections made by Prokudin-Gorsky. His images of ancient vases - exhibits of the Hermitage - were subsequently used for the restoration of lost color.

Already at that time Sergey planned a grand project: to capture in color photographs of contemporary Russia, its culture, history and modernization. Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909, receiving an audience with Czar Nicholas II, who instructs him to shoot all sorts of aspects of life in all areas, constituted the Rossiyskuyu empire.

Officials were ordered to help the Prokudin-Gorsky in his travels. All shooting Sergey holds on their funds, which are gradually being depleted.

     .. my job was arranged very well, then the other, it was very difficult, demanding great patience, knowledge, experience, and often great effort.
     ...
     Had to take pictures in various and often very difficult circumstances, and then in the evening I had pictures to show in the laboratory of the car, and sometimes the work dragged on until late at night, especially if the weather was unfavorable and had to find out, would it be necessary to repeat the survey at a different light before than go to the next scheduled item. Then with the negatives in the same way to make copies and been made into albums.

In 1909-1915 years Prokudin-Gorsky traveled a considerable part of Russia, photographing the ancient temples, monasteries, factories, cities, and various types of domestic scenes. In the same period in Samarkand Prokudin-Gorsky experiencing invented a movie camera for color cinematography, however, the quality of a film was unsatisfactory. After the outbreak of World War II, Prokudin-Gorsky made news in pictures of hostilities, but was later forced to abandon further photographic experiments and began to censor arriving from abroad, film tape, analysis fotopreparatov and training of aircrew aerial photography.

Shortly after the October Revolution of 1917 became a professor established AVLunacharsky fotokinoinstituta. The last time his collection of photographs on display in Russia March 19, 1918, but soon after that Prokudin-Gorsky left the RSFSR, took with him nearly all the photographic plates taken with the exception of removal from the pictures of the royal family, and strategic facilities.

Once in exile, a photographer for some time spent in Norway and England. Arriving in 1922 in Nice, Prokudin-Gorsky worked together with the Lumiere brothers. In the early 30-ies photographer engaged in educational activities in France and even planned to make a new series of photographs and artistic monuments of France and its colonies. This idea was realized son Prokudin-Gorsky - Michael.

Died Prokudin-Gorsky in Paris, a few weeks after the liberation of the Allied forces. He was buried at the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

At the beginning of XX century, yet there was no multi-color photographs, so Prokudin-Gorsky used a black-and-white photographic plates (which he is sensitized to their own recipes) and a camera of its own design (its exact device is not known, probably because he was like a camera system, German chemist - Professor Mitya). A color filters of blue, green and red sequence does three quick shots of the same story, and then received three black-and-white negatives, one above the other on a single photographic plate. Since this was produced a triple negatives as positive (probably by contact printing). To view these photographs to use the projector with three lenses arranged in front of three frames on the plate. Each frame was projected through the filter of the same color as the one through which he was removed. With the addition of three images (red, green and blue) on the screen turned out full-color image.

The composition of a new sensitizer patented Prokudin-Gorsky, did bromoserebryanuyu plate is equally sensitive to the entire color spectrum. "St. Petersburg newspaper reported in December 1906 that, by improving the sensitivity of their plates, the researcher assumes to show" snapshots in natural colors, which represents a great success, because so far nobody has been received. Perhaps, shows projections of photographs Prokudin-Gorsky became the world's first slide show.

Prokudin-Gorski contributed to the two existing at that time, the direction of improvement of color photography: a way to reduce exposure (by its method of Prokudin-Gorsky managed to make possible the exposure of a second) and, secondly, to increase a possibility to print picture. He also speaks at international congresses on Applied Chemistry.

Snapshots are not made on three different plates, and one, in a vertical arrangement, which allows to accelerate the process of shooting, producing a shift of the plate.

Prokudin-Gorsky working on a design for a color movie camera shooting on his method and produces a shooting in Turkestan in 1911. In order to improve his invention - a color film, he establishes in 1913, Joint Stock Company "Biohrom. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky continues to research and seek new success. He patents in Germany, Britain, France, Italy and cheap method for manufacturing color slide film for motion pictures.

In 1922 he received a British patent for an optical system for exposure of one of the three negatives through filters.

There was also a means by which an image with photographic plates could be obtained on paper. Until 1917 in Russia were published over a hundred color photographs Prokudin-Gorsky, of which 94 - in the form of photo greeting cards, and a significant number - in books and pamphlets. Thus, in the book PG Vasenko "boyars Romanovs and the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich to the kingdom" (St. Petersburg, 1913) was published 22 high quality color reproductions of photographs Prokudin-Gorsky, including images made in Moscow. By 1913, the technology allows printing color photographs Prokudin-Gorsky almost modern quality (see "Russian Folk Art at the Second All-Russia handicraft exhibition in Petrograd in 1913, Pg., 1914). Some color photographs Prokudin-Gorsky were published in large format in the form of wall paintings "(eg, A portrait of Tolstoy). The exact number printed in Russia before 1917 color photographs Prokudin-Gorsky remains unknown.

The fate of the collection Prokudin-Gorsky

It should be noted that Prokudin-Gorsky was not the only one who was shooting color photographs in Russia until 1917. However, only he used the method of color separation (method of Adolf Mitte). Other photographers have done color photography on a completely different technology, namely the method avtohroma (for example, General Vishnyakov, photographer Steinberg, Petrov, Trapani) [3]. This method was easier to use, but gave a rather grainy image, colors that quickly fade. In addition, only a collection of Prokudin-Gorsky was made (and kept) in a significant amount.

Collection of photographs Prokudin-Gorsky was purchased from his heirs in 1948, the Library of Congress and for a long time remained unknown to the public.

Computer processing of photographs Prokudin-Gorsky

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

The development of computer image processing technology in the late XX century to process these images and show the unique kinds of imperial Russia in color.

In July 1991, was first compiled computerized database of images Prokudin-Gorsky, which then continued to replenish and change.

In 2000 JJT under contract with the Library of Congress to scan all 1,902 glass negatives from the collection of Prokudin-Gorsky. Scanning is carried out in Grayscale c 16-bit color depth and resolution than 1000 dpi. Files with scanned images have a size of about 70 MB. All these files are available on the Library of Congress server and available for free download. Scanned images are inverted (converted to positives digital methods).


In 2001, the Library of Congress opened the exhibition "Empire, which was Russia." For her, were selected 122 photographs and computer-reconstructed color images.

Staff members are preparing for an exhibition of color photographs, encountering technical difficulties. When combining the graphical editor of the three color channels in the same place the frame (for example, in the center) observed bundles of colored contours in its other parts. The reasons for these inconsistencies color images is not entirely clear: perhaps they are caused by lens chromatic aberration and slight irregularities thickness filters used in the shooting. For the exact contours of combining images in the color channels is not enough and rotation of these images: to expose their small deformations. Manual performance of these strains - a process rather long and laborious. In addition, the images were in need of color correction, which was conducted by a professional photographer on the basis of his experience and taste.

Restoration of all remaining color images collection Prokudin-Gorsky was first performed in Russia's Laboratories of digital technologies in the restoration of the Scientific Council on Cybernetics Russia Academy of Sciences and restoration center "Restorer-M led by Victor Minahina. For this purpose was developed special software, allowing the combination of color contours of the image-edge sharpness with an accuracy of one pixel. To find the optimal transformation used numerical algorithm Levenberg-Marquardt. The results of this work - 1902 printed color image - were displayed at the exhibition "Splendors of Russia in natural colors: all Prokudin-Gorsky, 1905-1916", held November 19, 2003 - February 8, 2004 at the State Museum of Architecture in Moscow. They can also be seen on the website "The World of 1900-1917 in color" [4].

When photographed by the method of Prokudin-Gorsky individual photographs were not simultaneously, but with some time interval. Consequently, moving objects: flowing water, moving across the sky clouds, smoke, swaying branches of trees, the movement of persons and pieces of people in the frame, etc. reproduced in the photographs is distorted, in the form of displaced colored contours. These distortions are very difficult to correct manually. In 2004, the Library of Congress contracted with Blaise Agvera and Arcas in the development of tools to remove artifacts due to moving objects in the survey [5].

Total "American" (ie stored in the Library of Congress) collections of Prokudin-Gorsky has 1,902 negatives and 2,448 black-and-white prints in the control release (in the aggregate - about 2600 of original images). Work on the reconciliation of the scanned negatives and restoration obtained by such means color digital images continues to this day. For each of the negatives are the following digital files: one in three black and white photographic plate frames (about 10 MBytes); whole plate (size about 70 MB), a color image combining rough, without precise information on the details of the entire area (size about 40 MB ). For some of the negatives also produced color images with the information details (file size approximately 25 MB). For all of these images have a reduced file size resolution 50-200 Kbytes for fast download for educational purposes. In addition, the site pages are scans of control album Prokudin-Gorsky and high-resolution scanned those photos from these albums, for which there is no glass negatives. All the files available to all interested persons at the Library of Congress. To search and /or sequential image viewer has a search page.

When you are available on the Library of Congress site scanned plates Prokudin-Gorsky in Russia emerged the People's project to restore the heritage Prokudin-Gorsky. Currently (March 2007) had already recovered 242 photos [8].

In 2007, the project "Russia Empire in Color" Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate were developed by a special algorithm and program to combine three-SM photos Prokudin-Gorsky. This allowed to combine all the images and posted them on public display at "Russia Empire in color" [9].

Since some of the glass plates were damaged, obtained after combining the photographs were subjected to retouching to restore the original image, where possible. This touch-up has brought nothing new and nothing is destroyed, its purpose was only to restoration of the original image.

Specialized software enables the combination of color component images with an accuracy of one pixel, without loss of quality that enables prepress preparation obtained color images. The result of mathematical processing of three-component images, retouching and organizing photos was the album "Russia Empire in color. In this album, published some of the most interesting and scenic photographs taken by the artist-photographer while traveling through the Vladimir and Yaroslavl provinces. Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate planned to release several more albums.