Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, 1907-1915

[jtk]

Many of us have seen Gorskii's 1918 color photos.

Unearthed those I downloaded and printed for myself back in 3/18/2004. I don't think Gorskii would have minded.

Beautiful color, subtle or intense according to the images... thanks to that fine old Epson pigment.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/gorskii.html

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. On the Karolitskhali River, ca. 1907-1915. Digital color rendering. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. (LC-DIG-ppmsc-03991) (1)

"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."

 

[benjiboy]

I have the book Photography For The Czar by Prokudin- Gorsil, it has some stunning colour pictures of pre-revolutionary Russia and of the soon to be murdered Czar and his family, this is a wonderful book and one of my most prized possessions.

 

[michr]

I come back to these from time to time. I find it easier to relate to these images, and get a stronger sense of the people and the setting, than if they were black and white.

 

[removed account4]

I come back to these from time to time. I find it easier to relate to these images, and get a stronger sense of the people and the setting, than if they were black and white.

they were made from black and white panchromatic glass plates.... each image was 3 plates each filtered with separate R G B filters ( trichrome images )...
the camera might have looked similar to this
http://www.vintagephoto.tv/bermpohl_img.shtml

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Amazing work.

It's hard for me to think of color existing prior to the mid-1950's.

 

[Dismayed]

Amazing work.

It's hard for me to think of color existing prior to the mid-1950's.

View attachment 204936

Gone With The Wind and the Wizard of Oz were shot in 1939.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

they were made from black and white panchromatic glass plates.... each image was 3 plates each filtered with separate R G B filters ( trichrome images )...
the camera might have looked similar to this
http://www.vintagephoto.tv/bermpohl_img.shtml

I wondered whether his filtered images were made simultaneously or not. According to Wikipedia, he was familiar with the camera you mention and his images show evidence of being used in that camera.

Amazing work, both technically and aesthetically.

 

[AgX]

they were made from black and white panchromatic glass plates.... each image was 3 plates each filtered with separate R G B filters ( trichrome images )...
the camera might have looked similar to this
http://www.vintagephoto.tv/bermpohl_img.shtml

No, he used a successive exposure camera. A camera invented by Adolf Miethe, academic lecturer on photography at Berlin Technical University.
I got several albums of Miethe myself.
The camera used a sliding triple-frame holder with three filter panes and one long photo plate.
The holder was brought automatically into right position in succession.

These cameras were built by Bermpohl too.

The successive exposure cameras of course had a time parallax, the beam splitting cameras in contrast typically
had an optical parallax due to double reflections at the splitter.



Today Prokudin-Gorskii is much better known due to be hyped on the internet. He also had the more exotic subjects.
(Similar to Autochrome which is much better known than other, even better materials.)

 

[removed account4]

I wondered whether his filtered images were made simultaneously or not. According to Wikipedia, he was familiar with the camera you mention and his images show evidence of being used in that camera.

Amazing work, both technically and aesthetically.

yeah pretty mind blowing stuff. the filter factors are not all the same so the exposures have to be adjusted
( i've done crude versions of these with modern b/w film and filters ( and the eveil elektric thingamabob ) can be nerve racking
would have been a real lesson in humility watching a master like him at work... making it look like childs play and all that.

Amazing work.

It's hard for me to think of color existing prior to the mid-1950's.

View attachment 204936

me too

No, he used a successive exposure camera. A camera invented by Adolf Miethe, academic lecturer on photography at Berlin Technical University.
I got several albums of Miethe myself.
The camera used a sliding triple-frame holder with three filter panes and one long photo plate.
The holder was brought automatically into right position in succession.

These cameras were built by Bermpohl too.

Today Prokudin-Gorskii is much better known due to be hyped on the internet. He also had the more exotic subjects.
(Similar to Autochrome which is much better known than other, even better materials.)

ahhh so it might have looked like this ?
http://www.vintagephoto.tv/mb.shtml
wild stuff .. thanks for the correction !
i guess if there is a will, there's a way
i read somewhere or was told by someone smarter than me
that these trichrome plates were originally projected by some sort of trichrome magic lantern projector
kind of like what bad projection TV tried to do in the roaring me-me-80s...
thankfully we have more humane ways of making full nearly technicolor color out of them these days !
and all the plates with bad exposures an be fixed with a modern alchemy...

 

[benjiboy]

It: amazing to me that many of these pictures were shot before or during WW1. and the Czar and his family were murdered.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

This is the most accurate or real-life view we have of the world 100 years ago. Wow.

 

[AgX]

i read somewhere or was told by someone smarter than me that these trichrome plates were originally projected by some sort of trichrome magic lantern projector.

Yes, Adolf Miethe also designed a three-lens projector for his colour plates.

 

[AgX]

It: amazing to me that many of these pictures were shot before or during WW1. and the Czar and his family were murdered.

Miethe presented his camera 1903.
We should not forget that natural colour photography actually even started in the late 19th century !

 

[benjiboy]

Miethe presented his camera 1903.
We should not forget that natural colour photography actually even started in the late 19th century !

Some of the pictures in my book show German P.O.Ws in Russia so they were probably taken before the treaty of Brest litovsk at the beginning of March 1918 when the armistice was signed.

 

[AgX]

He used a successive exposure camera. A camera invented by Adolf Miethe, academic lecturer on photography at Berlin Technical University.
The camera used a sliding triple-frame holder with three filter panes and one long photo plate.
The holder was brought automatically into right position in succession.

A take took 3-4 seconds.