Making Color Images from Prokudin-Gorskii's Negatives
Posted on 08/21/2010 3:47:01 AM PDT by Daffynition
Photographer to the Tsar: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii
The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world--the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population.
In the early 1900s Prokudin-Gorskii formulated an ambitious plan for a photographic survey of the Russian Empire that won the support of Tsar Nicholas II. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation.
Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, going first to Norway and England before settling in France. By then, the tsar and his family had been murdered and the empire that Prokudin-Gorskii so carefully documented had been destroyed. His unique images of Russia on the eve of revolution--recorded on glass plates--were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948 from his heirs. For this exhibition, the glass plates have been scanned and, through an innovative process known as digichromatography, brilliant color images have been produced. This exhibition features a sampling of Prokudin-Gorskii's historic images produced through the new process; the digital technology that makes these superior color prints possible; and celebrates the fact that for the first time many of these wonderful images are available to the public.
Born in Murom, Vladimir Province, Russia (originally believed to be St. Petersburg) in 1863 and educated as a chemist, Prokudin-Gorskii devoted his career to the advancement of photography. He studied with renowned scientists in St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris. His own original research yielded patents for producing color film slides and for projecting color motion pictures. Around 1907 Prokudin-Gorskii envisioned and formulated a plan to use the emerging technological advancements that had been made in color photography to systematically document the Russian Empire. Through such an ambitious project, his ultimate goal was to educate the schoolchildren of Russia with his "optical color projections" of the vast and diverse history, culture, and modernization of the empire. Outfitted with a specially equipped railroad car darkroom provided by Tsar Nicholas II, and in possession of two permits that granted him access to restricted areas and cooperation from the empire's bureaucracy, Prokudin-Gorskii documented the Russian Empire around 1907 through 1915. He conducted many illustrated lectures of his work. Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, and eventually settled in Paris, where he died in 1944.
These were posted here a year or so ago. Fascinating nevertheless, especially considering that Kodachrome would not be invented till around the mid-thirties.
Nice pictures. I saw your earlier post from Boston.com. The guy did good work. It must have been a fascinating adventure.
These are really incredible.
Excellent site.
I was wondering if you read the article. What's interesting is that the originals were taken on a 3" x 9" ( 76 mm x 278 mm) black and white plate divided into three 3" x 3" regions each photographed through different color filters. The exposures were taken sequentially in rapid succession. Too bad he couldn't take all three simultaneously. Notice all the pictures are still life and how blurry the stream is in #2 in this series. Originally they were viewed by projection, using the same color filters.
These views were recreated digitally and involve considerable 'touch work' to compensate for limitations in the surviving negatives. I find the original technique more impressive than the digital recreation, though both are pretty awesome.
Especially when you consider that when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun.
I mentioned to the admin mod that the article from *The Big Picture* had actually been excerpted and a search revealed that other posted *Big Picture* articles exist, some w/out excerpting. Oh well.
The Prokudin-Gorskii expedition was rugged and had to be fraught with peril.
I saw these a couple of years ago, very cool. The photographer came up with a really imaginative process. Even with all the challenges involved with the digital recreation, I love it. Old photos have always called to, as windows to a moment in the past (that’s why I love shorpy). My elder kids always poo-pooed the black and white photos, because they were used to color only. But with these photos, suspension of time, even for the young, is relatively easy. Seriously, thank you for posting again. After I finish today’s teachings, I’m gonna have to go back and look at these some more. ;)
Amazing under the times and circumstances.
*He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time.*
One of the few good uses of our tax dollars. ;)
You'll be gone for a week [or more], checking these out! ;)
Smokey Bear might suggest a smaller fire ring in our #8 post.
And your keen observation was the raison d'etre of the original article that I posted [that was deleted].
**With images from southern and central Russia in the news lately due to extensive wildfires, I thought it would be interesting to look back in time with this extraordinary collection of color photographs taken between 1909 and 1912. In those years, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II................**
Amazing. And look at the size of those timbers!
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Thanks Daffynition. |
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Just amazing! Thanks for posting.
Indeed. Kodachrome is (was) essentially three layers of B&W film, each one sensitive to either the red, green, or blue spectrums.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/sets/72157606226772243/with/2678243048/
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