A general indicator characterizing the use of fixed assets on...
Where there is a huge collection of old high-resolution photographs, there is a section dedicated to colorized photographs. They are not painted by professionals, but by amateur enthusiasts, so most of the photographs are just a taste of the pen of novice Photoshoppers. But there are also some very good works. The main thing to remember is that the genre of colorization is quite free and in most cases people who colorize photographs do not know what everything really looked like. You need to have a very good stock of knowledge and rummage through many archives to know all the details. So this is not a photo in color, but an artist’s view of the events of the past. But in any case it is interesting to study. The color brings out details that I would not have even paid attention to before. I came across a photo of a Studebaker there and couldn’t tear myself away until I looked through all 120 pages. I have collected the photos that I liked most in this post. To view any in its original size (and this must be done given their high resolution), just click on it. All photos have links to sources.
7. New York City Highway Patrol Parade. Mayor George McClellan gets out of his car in Union Square. Photo taken November 5, 1908.
Source: color, original.
11. Lady with a phonograph. New York, 1921.
Source: color, original.
13. Miss Anna Nibel, who won first place in the swimsuit competition.Washington, DC. June 17, 1922. 
Source: color, original.
18. Artist Al Jolson (wiki), who starred in the first-ever full-length sound film, The Jazz Singer. San Francisco, 1927. 
Source:
We offer a selection of interesting and rare vintage photographs that will help you travel back in time.
James Cameron relaxing on the set of Titanic
Beach near the Peter and Paul Fortress, Leningrad, 1970s
Stele about the stay of I.V. Stalin in Polyarny, 1940s
Street trading on Kalinin Avenue in Moscow, early 90s
Experimental Soviet taxi, 1964
Pitsunda, 1982
In a promotional photo of British Petroleum gas stations, Swedish Air Force personnel from the F-16 Uppsala military base refuel and service a SAAB 105 training jet. 80s
Kiosk with ice cream and milkshakes, 1964, Moscow
Watering tram, 1990, Leningrad
Nirvana on Halloween, 1993, Akron, Ohio, USA
From left to right: Kurt Cobain, Big John Duncan, Pat Smear, Krist Novoselic.
The Smoker, 1964, Leatherwood
Girl and dogs, 1977, Miami, USA
Henry Kissinger meeting Dolly Parton, 1985, USA
Search for wives. 1901 Montana
After the landing of five thousand troops of the southern coalition 40-45 kilometers north of the city on October 20, 1950, the capital of the DPRK fell.
The photo shows an interrogation by military police South Korea North Korean prisoners of war.
Disguise of the mausoleum-mosque of the Taj Mahal during the third Indo-Pakistani war in December 1971, as a result of which East Pakistan (Bangladesh) gained independence.
Radiation monitoring of Chernobyl NPP employees, 1990, USSR
All employees of the station, and especially the 4th block, were required to undergo a special radiation test when leaving work. If an employee was not “clean” enough, a red light would come on and the turnstile would not work. Then it was necessary to return and wash in the shower again, using “RADEZ”
Photographer Victoria Ivleva
Father and son supplying water to a rice field, 1952, Vietnam
Four women captured by the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising are photographed through barbed wire at the Stalag VI-C camp after their liberation. Third Reich. April 1945.
MiG-15 fighter of the USSR Air Force in combat. DPRK. 1950-1953.
Winners of the XVth cycling race Around the Kremlin, dedicated to Soviet youth. Moscow. RSFSR. THE USSR. 1979
Vatican Women's Shooting Team. Vatican. Kingdom of Italy. 1937
Tanks in the central square of the city during the Romanian Revolution. Bucharest. 1989
Parade on Red Square on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Revolution. RSFSR. THE USSR. November 1927.
Albert Einstein with his wife Elsa, Grand Canyon, 1931
Sylvester Stallone, 1979.
A girl says goodbye to a soldier leaving for war. London, 1940
3-year-old girl with a pony, 1955
Schoolchildren are engaged in assembling machine guns, Stalinsk (Novokuznetsk), 1943.
Yuri Nikulin before the anniversary evening, 1991.
Defender of the city. Stalingrad, USSR. January 1943.
Sir Thomas Lipton is the inventor of Lipton tea bags.
Library at Prague Castle, 1950.
Film crew and actors of the film "Back to the Future", USA, 1985.
Tennis players, 1964
L. Kuravlev and N. Varley on the set of the film “Viy”.
Elizabeth Birdm is the first female motorcyclist to ride around the world.
Leonid Gaidai on the set of the film "Ivan Vasilyevich is changing his profession", 1973
Soviet soldiers inspect a German carriage of a 240-mm gun carriage, manufactured by Skoda, captured in the Krasnoe Selo area.
The German designation of the gun is 24 cm Kanone M.16 (t). Similar guns were in service with the 2nd Division of the 84th Artillery Regiment (II./AR 84), which took part in the shelling of Leningrad.
Princess Diana, 1960s
"Moskvich 408" right-hand drive (export).
William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw" is under the supervision of armed guards to ensure there is no possibility of escape. He was captured at his home in Germany in May 1945.
Joyce William one of the leaders of the British Nazis.
In May 1945 he was arrested by the British authorities. Convicted by a British court of war crimes and sentenced to death. Executed.
Civilians greet Soviet soldiers on a captured German Pz.Kpfw.III tank.
Retreating Germans blow up a bridge in Florence. Italy, 1944.
Container for holy relics from Basel Cathedral. 1450s.
The cruiser "Chervona Ukraine" was hit by a German aerial bomb, Sevastopol, November 12, 1941.
German aerial photography during the raid on November 12, 1941.
Cruiser standing at Count's pier in Sevastopol, received two bomb hits during the raid, which killed about seventy sailors and caused serious damage to the ship, from which it sank the next day.
1943 North Africa. The wounded before being loaded into a heavy German transport aircraft Messerschmitt Me.323D-8 “Gigant” in Tunisia.
Finnish soldiers near an armored locomotive. The design of the pipe is interesting, apparently this was done in order to direct the smoke to the ground, eliminating the unmasking of the armored train because of it.
Italian People's Militia patrol on the street of Milan. April 26, 1945
Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero Russian Federation doctor medical sciences Lieutenant Colonel Polyakov (who spent the longest time in space in one flight - 437 days) watches through the window the approach of the Discovery shuttle. Research orbital station "Mir", February 3, 1995.
Napoleon Bonaparte's three-barrel 120-caliber pocket pistol, inlaid with gold, was given to him in 1802.
Chechen fighters in Grozny. 90s
THE USSR. Moscow. A bathhouse bus handed over to the sponsored division by the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. Photo beginning 1940s
RF. “Penthouse” No. 1
THE USSR. Moscow. Sale of Brazilian oranges. 1962
Popeye 1940s
TV factory. East Germany. 1954
In-flight cinema. USA 60s
Russian artist Ilya Glazunov paints a portrait of Gina Lollobrigida. Rome 1963
Vincent Spano, Isabella Rossellini & Monica Bellucci by Steven Meisel 1992
Fashionable glasses. 1960
Bosnians in Sarajevo read a message about the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary., 1908.
Six years later, in the same place, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand would be shot dead by Serbian student Gavrilo Princip.
Ship control simulator at navigation school. Glasgow, 1913.
Soviet press 1924:
“Comrade Lunion, a member of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, a representative of the most oppressed, most enslaved part of the working people - French colonial blacks - is resting on... the ancient throne of the Russian tsars, preserved as a museum exhibit in the Kremlin. Now it’s just an ordinary chair.”
London after the Luftwaffe raid, as seen from St. Paul's Cathedral, January 3, 1941.
French actor Jean Gabin on the porch of his house, France, December 1949.
Underwater wedding, San Marcos, Texas, USA, 1954.
Portrait of Woodrow Wilson, 1918.
Soldiers of Admiral Kolchak's army pose next to the bodies of executed Bolsheviks, 1919.
On April 26 - 30, 1991, Cyclone Marian hit Bangladesh (maximum damage: April 29) - 138,000 dead.
Marlon Brando with a cat.
“Dubinushka.” USSR, 1931.
Grigory Alexandrov, Sergei Eisenstein, Walt Disney and cameraman Eduard Tisse.
Girls playing strip cards, 1941.
Woody Allen and Michael Jackson at Studio 54, New York, 1977.
Stalin (third from left) with a group of Bolshevik revolutionaries in Turukhansk, Russian Empire, 1915.
In April 1945, in the Gardelegen concentration camp, the SS forced about 1,100 prisoners into a barn and set them on fire. Some of the victims tried to escape but were shot by guards.
Notes from the newspaper "Stalin's Way" dated August 15, 1935.
Eiffel Tower, July 1888.
Taxi rank near the Bolshoi Theater. Moscow, 1935.
Photographer: Arkady Shaikhet.
Medal for drunkenness: Collar with a cast iron star with the inscription “For drunkenness.” Russia, first half of the 18th century, cast iron, casting, iron, forging.
John Lennon / John Lennon
A group of prisoners from the Tagansk prison return from a matinee performance at the Bolshoi Theater, which they attended as a reward for good behavior, 1902.
The earliest known photograph of the Chernobyl disaster, April 26, 1986.
Led Zeppelin, 1969.
Photographer: Ron Raffaelli.
This is exactly what the ideal female figure looked like in 1938, according to LIFE magazine. The 20-year-old model June Cox was captured as the “ideal” - height about 168 cm, weight 56 kg.
We just didn't have enough nudists here. Photographer Zenon Zhiburtovich, “Ogonyok” N21, 1987.
Cribs. Moscow State University, 1984.
Photographer: Valery Khristoforov.
X-ray installation, Frankfurt, 1929.
A Turk washes his feet for the last prayer while Bulgarian soldiers prepare the gallows for him, 1913.
A T-54 crushes a bus that protesters have blocked the passage. Operation Danube, 1968.
RSO or Raupenschlepper Ost is a full-track multi-purpose tractor, initially used by Wehrmacht troops on the Eastern Front, and at the end of the war - on all fronts.
Studying the very sad experience of using German wheeled, tracked and half-tracked vehicles during the 1941-1942 campaign on the Eastern Front led Steyr specialists to the idea of the need to create a simple in design and reliable artillery tractor with a purely tracked chassis. Taking as a basis layout diagram Soviet transport tractors STZ-5 and Stalinets-2, many captured by German troops in the summer of 1941, they had already prepared a project for such a tractor by mid-1942.
Donetsk airport, 1976.
Dali on the Playboy photo shoot. 1973
Uma Thurman. 1991
1954 Simone Silva and Robert Mitchum.
When Simone posed topless, she caused a stampede in which one photographer broke an arm and another a leg. She was asked to leave the festival.
Warsaw Pact soldiers, 1980s
There are seven flags (Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, USSR, Czechoslovakia), and initially there were eight countries in the Warsaw Pact Organization, including Albania, but Albania actually left the bloc in 1968 - after the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia.
Prisoner in a French prison, 1900s. Mustaches were tattooed as a sign of protest against the administration.
Nalivayka 30s USSR
Aeroflot advertising brochure for foreigners from 1967, advertising flights on the route New York-Moscow and Moscow-Tokyo. Including prices for first and tourist class, as well as the promise of “real Russian cuisine” with black caviar and “the best vodka.”
Hungry prisoners, almost starved to death, used for "scientific" experiments. Concentration camp in Ebensee, Austria.
The camp was liberated on May 7, 1945.
Late 40's Chelyabinsk region, THE USSR. Sherman tank plows instead of a tractor
The demarcation line between the western Muslim and eastern Christian parts of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. 1983
American artillerymen. Living collage on the occasion of victory in the First World War, Germany, 1918.
Female soldiers of the Red Guard in Finnish captivity, Finland, 1918.
Visit American President to Australia.
On October 21, 1966, two brothers bombarded the limousine carrying Lyndon Johnson on a state visit to Australia with paint balloons. This is how they expressed their protest against the Vietnam War.
American officers drink at Hitler's private residence in the Bavarian Alps, May 8, 1945.
Before tablets and laptops, Paris, 1947.
Container for poisons in the form of a book, 17th century.
"Cleaning the barrel" of the main gun (15-inch) of the British battleship HMS Royal Oak, 1916.
Dance of Loyalty - a ritual dance that symbolized the dancer’s devotion to the country’s leader Mao Zedong, 1967.
Currency traders near the Beryozka store, 80s
The boy is holding a poster “All I want for Christmas is a clean white school.”
- protests after Ruby Bridges, a black girl, became the first to attend an all-white school, New Orleans, 1960.
An invoice for the repair of a Renault car that belonged to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich is the son of his full namesake, known as "KR". In 1918 he was killed by the Bolsheviks. He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad.
And also the names of the rivers flowing through Moscow:
Bloodwort, Beggarwoman, Samotyga, Ulcer, Fever, Kabaniha, Zhabenka, Cockroach, Chernushka, Rotten. There was also Sukovo (Sukino) swamp, and Chistye Prudy were called Nasty
As a director, I am drawn to images. The love for film came from old black and white films by such recognized film masters as Bergman, Eisenstein, Buñuel, Lang, Dreyer, Ozu and others. For a time in college, I even felt almost like a traitor when I watched color films. But with age came an appreciation for color, and now I find it difficult to stick to a monochromatic diet. Life is too brilliant for one tone.
I developed a passion for researching old photographs of indigenous peoples while working on the film Moses at Mass. This is the story of a German-Jewish immigrant who falls in love with an Acoma Indian girl and becomes the ruler of her people in New Mexico in the late 1800s.
I looked at the black and white photographs of beautiful, mysterious people, and could not believe that someone wants to destroy them from the continent, pursuing a deliberate policy for more than a hundred years. It seemed so inhuman and barbaric. Digging deeper, I began to find colorized photographs of early Americans. People came to life even more in them. Looking at them, I see individuals with royal dignity, who are no different from historical portraits of European kings, queens and nobles. Except that they not only display majestic regalia, but also strong, natural faces, rather than the weak, dry looks of some overseas rulers that led to their demise.
Most of the photographs discovered were hand-colored, as color film remained an experimental area until the 1930s. Painting on black and white photographs is an art in itself. Many of the colored images demonstrate the talent of photographers who have preserved for us true images of seemingly disappearing people. Of course, the Native Americans did not disappear, despite persistent efforts. They are becoming even stronger, but their historical way of life can largely be found only in these photographs.
Here is a collection of colored photographs of Indians. If you liked them, you can find more pictures in the historical photo archive at Facebook.
Paul Ratner(Paul Ratner).
Here's the story behind these photos. A certain person named Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909-10 came up with such a thing: photograph objects 3 times through 3 filters - red, green and blue. The result was 3 black and white photographs. The projection of the three plates had to be simultaneous. He used a small folding camera like the one developed by Adolf Mith. Three exposures of the same object, taken approximately one second apart, were required on the same glass plate, 84–88 mm wide and 232 mm long. The plate changed position each time, and the image was captured through three different color filters. The objects being photographed had to be stationary, which was a big limitation.
The projector has also undergone changes. Prokudin-Gorsky improved the model of F.E. Iva created the apparatus according to his own drawings: three diamond-shaped prisms were fastened together, creating one combined prism. In this way, it was possible to focus all three colors on the screen.
The only thing he could do with all this at that time was to insert them into 3 different projectors, with red, green, and blue respectively, and point the projectors to one screen. The result was a color image.
He began to actively work on the problems of color cinematography. Maintaining contact with many scientific societies in the country and abroad, he traveled with reports to Berlin, London, Rome. He did not forget about the Russian public.
Back in 1900, he received the Grand Prix at international exhibition in Paris. In 1913, he showed his slides in the largest Parisian cinema. The success was so enormous that large foreign companies bombarded him with job offers. But he could not leave Russia: too much was connected with it.
Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909, through the mediation of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who was the Honorary Chairman of the St. Petersburg Photographic Society, received an audience with Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar invites Prokudin-Gorsky to perform a presentation of transparencies in front of the Imperial Court in Tsarskoe Selo. During the show, Sergei Mikhailovich had to comment on the pictures, and he did it simply dramatically. Towards the end of the demonstration, an admiring whisper was heard in the hall. At the end, the Tsar shook his hand, the Empress and the Tsar’s children congratulated him on his success.
Then the Tsar instructs him to photograph all possible aspects of life in all the regions that then made up the Russian Empire. “Although this project seemed very bold, Prokudin-Gorsky’s ultimate goal was to familiarize Russian schoolchildren with the vast and varied history, culture and modernization of the Empire through his “optical color projections” (most likely also to familiarize the heir to the throne with all this).
For this purpose, the photographer was given two special permits. The first stated that His Imperial Majesty allowed him to be in any place, regardless of secrecy, and to photograph even strategically important objects.
The second was a ministerial decree, which declared that the Emperor considered the mission entrusted to Prokudin-Gorsky to be so important that all officials should assist him “anywhere and at any time.” For the trip, the photographer was given full disposal of an organizational assistant and a Pullman carriage, which was specially adapted: a well-equipped laboratory was set up there, including a dark room, so that photographic plates could be developed even on the road. The carriage accommodated the photographer himself and his assistants, including his 22-year-old son Dmitry. There was hot and cold water, glacier... A special vessel and a small sloop with a motor were provided for work on the Mariinsky canal system.
Between 1909 and 1912, and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorsky conducted a survey of eleven regions of the Russian Empire. The Emperor insistently demanded that Prokudin-Gorsky be provided with everything necessary, and even expressed a desire to accompany him on one of his future trips. In addition to taking photographs, Prokudin-Gosrsky gave many lectures, illustrating his work.
The Tsar's first official viewing of photographs of the Mariinsky Canal waterway and the industrial Urals occurred in March 1910; The last exhibition of photographs was opened in March 1918 in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace. (A detailed biography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky can be found).
Old woman. General form with Volga:
(At first I had this photo, it’s a close-up, it’s very impressive, but they already made a fuss... knocked...)
Prokudin-Gorsky managed to leave for the revolution, and he managed to take with him 20 boxes of photographic plates, about a thousand photographs in total - with the exception of photographs of strategically important objects and photos of the royal family confiscated from him (he managed to take with him only one photo of the young prince). Color photographs of the royal family may remain somewhere in our archives. It was not possible to pick up the equipment and the projector.
In emigration, Prokudin-Gorsky's goal - to reveal the benefits of color photography for education and science - remained unchanged. In England he patented the development optical system for a movie camera. To test it, he moved to Nice in 1922, where, together with the Lumiere brothers, he opened a darkroom.
In 1948, after his death, his son in Paris sold these records to the American Library of Congress. Converting them into regular color photographs proved very difficult due to the fact that most of them had a non-trivial spatial discrepancy between the three color versions. So they lay quietly until recently. And suddenly it occurred to some library official: they need to be scanned, loaded into Adobe Photoshop, and there the contours of the three color options are combined. They did so, and were amazed: a world that had long disappeared, and was known only from bad black and white photographs, suddenly rose up in all its colors...
Perm:
If you want to try to find familiar places or your hometown in this archive, the most convenient way is to use a special search: enter any word in the box (for example, Volga), and you will get the desired result. For each photo there is an uncompressed tif version (up to 50 mb). On it you can see the smallest details.
In order to see an enlarged (about 4 times) version of this photo, just replace the letter “r” with “v” before the last point of the copied address. The resolution of these images is such that the image quality will not deteriorate. In order to get the largest version in .tif format, you need to substitute “u.tif” in the address instead of “r.jpg”. But it will take a very long time to load :)
I don’t know about you, but for me the photographs evoke a feeling not only of the harmony and some special solidity of THAT Russian life, but also of the incredible power and vitality of Russia at that time... In all cities and villages, something is being repaired, built, is being built, electric poles have already been built everywhere, wires have been laid...
modern view of this temple
Old highway to Moscow. City of Rzhev:
General view of Belozersk from the ramparts:
Ryazan. View from the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral:
Ryazan. General view from the north:
Ryazan. View from the southeast:
Ekaterinburg. General view of the southern part:
Ekaterinburg. General view of the central part:
Factory settlements of the Verkh-Isetsky plant (Ekaterinburg)
The place of the former throne in the temporary canvas. Church of the Musketeer Regiment (Ekaterinburg)
Refectory and Church of the Sorrowful Mother of God in the monastery (Tikhvin Monastery) Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg city. General view of the northern part
Yekaterinburg city. Observatory on Bald Mountain:
Planing machine of the Imperial Lapidary Factory. Ekaterinburg:
This is the same place today
View of the Zlatoust plant. In the distance is Mount Taganay:
General view of Perm from the city roller coaster:
View of Perm from the railway bridge over the Kama:
View of the Church of St. George. Staraya Ladoga:
Torzhok. View from the west side:
Torzhok. View of the city from the north:
View of Torzhok from the ramparts:
Torzhok. Camp and barracks:
Torzhok. Boris and Gleb Monastery from the bridge:
City of Smolensk. View from the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral:
City of Polotsk.
View of the Kamensky iron smelting plant:
Rostov the Great. Kekina Gymnasium:
General view of Rostov from the bell tower of the All Saints Church:
General view of the city of Kirillov from the bell tower of the Kazan Cathedral:
View of Suzdal along the Kamenka River:
You can compare with a modern photo of the same area
Vladimir city:
Suzdal. View from the bell tower of the Deposition of Robe Monastery:
View of the riverside part of Tyumen from the monastery:
Tobolsk:
View of Tobolsk from the Assumption Cathedral:
Cherdyn:
Blast furnaces at the Satka plant:
View of the city of Kineshma from the east:
In the hayfield near the rest stop. Russian empire.
Three generations. Andrei Petrov Kalganov (photographer’s note: former factory foreman. He was in the service for 55 years. He had the good fortune to bring bread and salt to His Imperial Majesty), his son and his granddaughter. The last two work in the workshops of the Zlatoust plant:
Staritsa city. Trans-Volga side.
The Moscow River from the Ferapontovsky Monastery. Near Mozhaisk:
Olonchanin type:
Dairy in Dagomys:
School in the village of Perguba:
Ancient boyar cart "Radka":
Antique sleigh from the 18th century:
Peasant hut in the village of Martyanova:
Construction of a lock near the village of Kuzminskoye on the Oka River:
Sawmill on the Oka River:
Construction of the dam (Beloomut):
Oka River. Engine room:
Log sawing:
Dam construction work:
Cherdyn city:
In the city of Zlatoust:
Northwestern part of the city of Zlatoust:
Rock digging machine:
Alexandrov. General view of the Trinity Monastery:
Torzhok. View of the city from the east:
Mill and dam on the Polote River:
Peasants at the mowing:
View of New Ladoga:
City of Dvinsk:
Kasli settlements with a lake:
City of Rzhev:
Pumps for pumping out water:
General view of the northwestern part of Smolensk:
Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Tobolsk:
Cordon (guardhouse) in the forest:
Drying nets on Lake Karyakino:
Vitebsk:
Monks at work. Planting potatoes:
The hut of settler Artemy, nicknamed Kota, who has lived in this place for more than 40 years:
And in this photo the film crew themselves:
I provide almost all captions for photographs in their original form, without any ad-libbing.
In general, the idea was brilliant. It’s interesting: they all fully understood WHAT they were doing for us?..
I also thought: it would be good if a rich person could be found, allocated funds and persuaded an experienced photographer (say, paszec
) drive along the same route, take pictures of the same places, and post photos side by side!
Even then, three years ago, looking at these photos, I was amazed at the integrity, peace and strength that was poured out there. It was felt that all Russian life of that time was permeated with the spirit of a certain unity. And so, I kept wanting to somehow express this spirit in words.
And only now, returning to these photos, did I understand what this calmness means; what does it mean:
"Home owner".
For those who really liked it:
All photos - both those presented on this page and the continuation - can be downloaded in PDF files using the following links:
Part one
Probably, many who saw these photos had the same thought that it would be nice to organize a website where old photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky would be posted, and next to them - photos of the same area, but in our time. This work has already begun. It is planned to post modern photographs of objects photographed by Prokudin-Gorsky on the website of the project “Russian Empire in Color” (http://www.veinik.by/). We are currently collecting materials.
We ask those who have them to post them in my comments or write to the guest book of the specified project (http://www.veinik.by/guestBook.htm).
* * *
Chic, juicy and absolutely technically modern-looking photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia from the Library of the American Congress. This is a fresh and spine-chillingly real look at Russia at the beginning of the century. What it all really looked like. People and architecture, objects and views. It's like a time machine...
A certain person named Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909-10 came up with such a thing: photograph objects 3 times through 3 filters - red, green and blue. The result was 3 black and white photographs. The projection of the three plates had to be simultaneous. He used a small folding camera like the one developed by Adolf Mith. Three exposures of the same object, taken approximately one second apart, were required on the same glass plate, 84–88 mm wide and 232 mm long. The plate changed position each time, and the image was captured through three different color filters. The objects being photographed had to be stationary, which was a big limitation. shows how it was done, and.
The projector has also undergone changes. Prokudin-Gorsky improved the model of F.E. Iva created the apparatus according to his own drawings: three diamond-shaped prisms were fastened together, creating one combined prism. In this way, it was possible to focus all three colors on the screen.
The only thing he could do with all this at that time was to insert them into 3 different projectors, with red, green, and blue respectively, and point the projectors to one screen. The result was a color image. He began to actively work on the problems of color cinematography. Maintaining contact with many scientific societies in the country and abroad, he traveled with reports to Berlin, London, Rome.
He did not forget about the Russian public. Back in 1900, he received the Grand Prix at the international exhibition in Paris. In 1913, he showed his slides in the largest Parisian cinema. The success was so enormous that large foreign companies bombarded him with job offers. But he could not leave Russia: too much was connected with it. Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909, through the mediation of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who was the Honorary Chairman of the St. Petersburg Photographic Society, received an audience with Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar invites Prokudin-Gorsky to perform a presentation of transparencies in front of the Imperial Court in Tsarskoe Selo. During the show, Sergei Mikhailovich had to comment on the pictures, and he did it simply dramatically.
Towards the end of the demonstration, an admiring whisper was heard in the hall. At the end, the Tsar shook his hand, the Empress and the Tsar’s children congratulated him on his success. Then the Tsar instructs him to photograph all possible aspects of life in all the regions that then made up the Russian Empire.
Although this project seemed very bold, Prokudin-Gorsky's ultimate goal was to familiarize Russian schoolchildren with the vast and varied history, culture and modernization of the Empire through his “optical color projections (most likely also to familiarize the heir to the throne with all this). For this purpose, the photographer was given two special permits. The first stated that His Imperial Majesty allowed him to be in any place, regardless of secrecy, and to photograph even strategically important objects.
The second was a ministerial decree, which declared that the Emperor considered the mission entrusted to Prokudin-Gorsky to be so important that all officials should assist him “anywhere and at any time.” For the trip, the photographer was given full disposal of an organizational assistant and a Pullman carriage, which was specially adapted: a well-equipped laboratory was set up there, including a dark room, so that photographic plates could be developed even on the road. The carriage accommodated the photographer himself and his assistants, including his 22-year-old son Dmitry. There was hot and cold water, a glacier...
A special vessel and a small sloop with a motor were provided for work on the Mariinsky canal system. Between 1909 and 1912, and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorsky conducted a survey of eleven regions of the Russian Empire. The Emperor insistently demanded that Prokudin-Gorsky be provided with everything necessary, and even expressed a desire to accompany him on one of his future trips. In addition to photographing, Prokudin-Gosrsky gave many lectures, illustrating his work
The Tsar's first official viewing of photographs of the Mariinsky Canal waterway and the industrial Urals occurred in March 1910; The last exhibition of photographs was opened in March 1918 in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace. (A detailed biography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky can be found).
Prokudin-Gorsky managed to leave for the revolution, and he managed to take with him 20 boxes of photographic plates, about a thousand photographs in total - with the exception of photographs of strategically important objects and photos of the royal family confiscated from him (he managed to take with him only one photo of the young prince). Color photographs of the royal family may remain somewhere in our archives. It was not possible to pick up the equipment and the projector. In emigration, Prokudin-Gorsky's goal - to reveal the benefits of color photography for education and science - remained unchanged. In England, he patented the development of an optical system for a movie camera. To test it, he moved to Nice in 1922, where, together with the Lumiere brothers, he opened a darkroom.
In 1948, after his death, his son in Paris sold these records to the American Library of Congress. Converting them into regular color photographs proved very difficult due to the fact that most of them had a non-trivial spatial discrepancy between the three color versions. So they lay quietly until recently. And suddenly it occurred to some library official: they need to be scanned, loaded into Adobe Photoshop, and there the contours of the three color options are combined. They did so, and were amazed: a world that had long disappeared, and was known only from bad black and white photographs, suddenly rose up in all its colors...
If you want to try to find familiar places or your hometown in this archive, then the most convenient way is to use: enter any word in the window (for example, Volga), and you get the desired result. For each photo there is an uncompressed tif version (up to 50 mb). On it you can see the smallest details. In order to see an enlarged (about 4 times) version of this photo, just replace the letter “r” with “v” before the last point of the copied address. The resolution of these images is such that the image quality will not deteriorate. In order to get the largest version in .tif format, you need to substitute “u.tif” in the address instead of “r.jpg”. But it will take a very long time to load :) I don’t know about you, but for me the photographs evoke a feeling of not only the harmony and some special solidity of THAT Russian life, but also the incredible power and vitality of Russia at that time... In all cities and villages something is being repaired, erected, built, electric poles have already been built everywhere, wires have been laid...
In general, the idea was brilliant. It’s interesting: they all fully understood WHAT they were doing for us.
Even then, three years ago, looking at these photos, I was amazed at the integrity, peace and strength that was poured out there. It was felt that all Russian life of that time was permeated with the spirit of a certain unity. And so, I kept wanting to somehow express this spirit in words. And only now, returning to these photos, did I understand what this calmness means; that it means: "Master of the house."
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) made a significant contribution to the development of photography. A graduate of the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, Sergei Mikhailovich continued his studies as a chemist in Berlin and Paris. He collaborated with famous chemists and inventors: Edme Jules Maumene (1818-1898) and Adolf Miethe (1862-1927), together with whom he developed promising methods of color photography.
On December 13, 1902, Prokudin-Gorsky first announced the creation of color transparencies using the three-color photography method, and in 1905 he patented his sensitizer, which was superior in quality to similar developments by foreign chemists, including the Mite sensitizer.
Since that time, Prokudin-Gorsky has been taking color photographs of L.N. Tolstoy, F.I. Chaliapin, the royal family and many other people. His photographs of ancient vases, exhibits of the Hermitage, were subsequently used to restore their lost color.
In 1909, Prokudin-Gorsky received an audience with Tsar Nicholas II and expressed to him his idea of capturing contemporary Russia in color photographs - its culture, history, all possible aspects of life in all regions that then made up the Russian Empire.
The Tsar approved the photographer’s plans and allocated him a specially equipped railway carriage. Officials were ordered to help Prokudin-Gorsky in his travels and not even interfere with photographing strategic objects, including bridges and factories.
In 1909-1915, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled throughout a significant part of Russia, photographing ancient churches and monasteries, views of cities, fields and forests, and various everyday scenes of the Russian hinterland. During these same years, in Samarkand, Prokudin-Gorsky tested a movie camera he invented for color filming. However, the quality of the film turned out to be unsatisfactory.
After the October Revolution, Prokudin-Gorsky left Russia, taking with him almost all the photographic plates (RGB plates) made, with the exception of photographs of the royal family and strategic objects confiscated from him.
Finding himself in exile, the photographer spent some time in Norway and England. Having moved to Nice in 1922, Prokudin-Gorsky worked with the Lumière brothers. In the early 30s, the photographer was engaged in educational activities in France and even planned to take a new series of photographs of artistic monuments of France and its colonies. This idea was implemented by Prokudin-Gorsky’s son, Mikhail.
Prokudin-Gorsky died in Paris on September 27, 1944, a few weeks after the liberation of the city by Allied troops. He was buried in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.
A collection of color photographs by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was purchased from his heirs in 1948 by the Library of Congress and for a long time was there in the archives. Only the development of computer technology made it possible to process these images and show unique views Russian Empire in full color.
In 2001, the Library of Congress opened the exhibition “The Empire That Was Russia.” For her, glass plates were scanned and the original color photographs, retouched and color corrected, were recreated using a computer.
In total, the Prokudin-Gorsky collection - “Collection of Russian landmarks in natural colors” - includes 1902 colored ones and about 1000 black and white photographs. Their restoration and processing continues to this day.
The documentary film "The Color of Time" is dedicated to the life and work of the photographer and chemist S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky, who made a significant contribution to the development of color photography and cinematography. At the beginning of the 20th century, under his leadership, a collection of color photographic views of the Russian Empire was created. S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky is the author of a color portrait of L. N. Tolstoy. Professor S.P. Garanina, a leading expert on the works of S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky, takes part in the film.
