Ivan Vasilievich Boldyrev was born in 1850 on the don, in the village of Ternovskaya, where from time immemorial settled by the Cossacks. His father was for many years in the Royal service, and up to fifteen years in the future, the photographer was considered almost an orphan, earning his bread to those that helped his grandfather to herd cattle. Returning home, the father gave it in the service of the officer, in the hope that the son will eventually get a good clerk. But Boldyrev in early childhood more than anything else attracted technique. He, fascinated, looking at how various mechanisms work. The pinnacle of technology then it was a simple watch. Mastering the craft of the clockmaker, began to mend simple mechanisms for the villagers that began to bring some income.
Accumulating a small amount of money, 19-year-old boy left his native village and moved to Novocherkassk. It was there that Ivan found his true calling – photography. The young man, having mastered the basics rare in those years profession, pretty soon quite professionally began to perform his principal works. Inspired by the success and the results of their first shootings, a young man in 1872 he went to St. Petersburg.
Interest in photography led him to St. Petersburg, where he entered the service at a shop of Lorentz, and then began to attend volunteer classes at the Academy of arts, to finish that because of financial difficulties, he failed. Life in the capital did not spoil him. Working as a Retoucher and photographer's assistant, Ivan Boldyrev almost all of your earnings on expensive photographic materials and experiments to improve photography and photographic equipment. Therefore, his constant companions was a needy and destitute.
But nothing could quench the thirst for knowledge. The need for self-education led him to the Imperial public library. In 1873, he met with Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, who at the time was head of the art Department of the library, which received graphic works, Russian and international photographic publications. Stasov at that time engaged in compiling a catalogue of photos stored in the library. Eminent art historian and art critic, took an active part in the fate of a young talented photographer, whose talent he once said. Stasov helped with the orders, repeatedly encouraging his wealthy and sometimes famous customers. For example, preserved a letter in which Stasov wrote to Pavel Tretyakov: "...I beg You to allow for removal of photos of our great photographer Eve. You. Boldyreva, known for his excellent pictures..."
Boldyrev himself, however, considered himself primarily an inventor. Not being able to acquire and order expensive optics, he was forced to use homemade lenses. For days on end with persistence was beating on a universal short-throw lens. Studying the laws of optics and testing different combinations of glass, Boldyrev has achieved notable success. Of several lenses placed in a makeshift cardboard frame, it's got a simple, but very good lens, which allowed him to get an acceptable image.
Moreover, some parameters collected by the optical system exceeds existed in those years the factory lenses. Picture angle and aperture boldyrevsky design was superior to the brand, only a few giving them the quality images. On the recommendation of the V (photographic Department) of the Imperial Russian technical society (irto) lens Boldyrev in 1878 was tested at a shop A. Denyer (Nevsky PR., 19) and showed an amazing result, "allowing for group portrait photography to convey not only the linear and air perspective." However, experts of the Department of the inventor refused to send him "the two-inch lens" to the world exhibition in Paris.
Obsessed with their groundbreaking improvements in photographic technique Boldyrev did not fully realize the importance of his activities as a photographer, in which he clearly excelled. In one of his articles he reluctantly wrote about what he at one of the exhibitions was given a Bronze medal for photography "meanwhile, I haven't put a work of photographic, and the machine with all accessories through which they were taken". But even more bitter was the disappointment caused by the reluctance of the Russian technical society to recognize the authorship of I. V. Boldyrev to the invention with a short-focus lens, snapshot photostore and flexible "solovinoj tape" made by them instead of breakable glass plates, commonly used as the basis for applying a photosensitive emulsion.
At that time all the negative material was made on the basis of glass. Glass is an excellent material for negatives, but it had two significant drawbacks. First – glass is heavy. And when you go to shoot, especially if you need to take some pictures of you to carry a lot of weight. Therefore, photographers had to resort to the help of various assistants. But there were more significant disadvantage – glass is fragile. And often, the footage was lost from-for the slightest negligence in work. Boldyrev himself has repeatedly faced with such situations.
At first he tried to put the emulsion on paper tape that then in the laboratory, transfer it to glass before the copy, but this procedure was very laborious and time-consuming. In addition, the transfer process, the emulsion is transformed, resulting in image distortion. Needed to find easy, flexible, and transparent material for the base. In 1878, Boldyrev proposed a new type of photographic material – soft film. She possessed remarkable properties: "elastic so that no clotting in the tube, no tightening into a ball can't make it to bend" – so wrote the newspaper about the invention Boldyrev.
For many years he spent in defending the priority of the proposed prototype of the modern photographic film, which failed not only to implement but even to obtain a patent or, as they say, privilege. Russian craftsman failed to scrape 15O rubles, which were required for the registration of his invention. But at the same time, or rather, two years later, the ocean successful businessman George Eastman founded his which soon became famous all over the world, the company "Eastman Kodak", used in camera material is offered by the Russian inventor.
In addition to the above, Boldyrev in 1889 constructed technogati instant photonator for the lens, which at the meeting of the Imperial Russian technical society in 1889, was recognized as "the best available".
With its short throw lens and instant fotostore Boldyrev has achieved "notable successes during photographing the landscape from the window of the train and portraits".All these inventions and improvements Boldyrev remember a few, but before we got pictures of him which made a strong impression on his contemporaries.
Many of the works of Boldyrev Stasov called "household art., just created by the talented artist". The greatest interest, undoubtedly, is the collection of photographs he made at home.
We are talking about the so-called "the don album" a collection of images, entitled "the Types of the 2nd Dragoons of the County, taken in 1875-76 years." There are several dozen great images taken by a photographer in the village of Tsimlyanskaya, Kamenskoi, Eeuumuscle and other Cossack settlements, where he often came for the summer.
These images are a real document that tells about the life of the don Cossacks, its manners and customs. They are made by a person who knows absolutely all the details of life of the local population. I must say that his photographs do not live, and a subtle, unobtrusive arrangements made by the skillful Director. These are the "Parade of the Cossack parts of the ataman", "Seeing the Cossacks in the service", "Cossack family in the holidays" and other scenes from the everyday life of his countrymen.
We are faced with a gallery of representatives of the don Cossacks loyal campaigners, often tough, loyal to their customs and habits, keenly value freedom. Not without reason in the people they were called "free Cossacks".
Pictures don Boldyrev is a unique phenomenon in the history of domestic photography, interest in them continues unabated for over a century, and it is not only ethnographic, cognitive in nature. In these photographs all the more clearly emerges the originality of the author's vision, flair situation, the ability in a simple visual form to give a precise imaginative response. In this sense, it is reasonable to talk about Boldyrev as a great original artist that has made a significant contribution to the development of domestic photography.
In 1879 Vladimir Stasov in order to preserve for posterity valuable information about the unique architectural monument – the Palace of Bakhchisarai – suggested Boldyrev to make there photography. With interest and excitement the photographer went to work. Apparently, in the Crimea were receptive to his arrival. It is known that three months from October to December 1879 (according to other sources 1880), he was engaged not only to take pictures of the Palace, but his most interesting research areas. Khan's Palace – a unique monument of Tatar architecture of the XV-XVI centuries – the time was still poorly understood.
According to researcher Bakhchisaray state historical and cultural reserve L. Goncharova, the result of the curiosity and perseverance of Ivan was the discovery of the original paintings on the walls of the "Golden Cabinet", discovered under a layer of later coloring. Realizing the importance of this discovery for historians, researchers and restorers, Boldyrev drew found the ornaments and return from Bakhchisarai handed over the drawings together made him a photo album of the Imperial public library, where they are kept today.
I must say that his images are not just photographs of the external appearance of the architectural monument and its most interesting interiors that in itself was at that time a formidable undertaking. The imperfection of the negative material created many difficulties to get the full image when shooting objects with high contrast, especially when the frame was visible fragments of the interiors and bright Crimean sky.
Photographer solves complex creative task was to show the Palace surrounded by a landscape, trying to convey the unique atmosphere of the place. To do this, he creates a panoramic composition, which includes parts of the architectural structures and surrounding the Palace orchards.
In the summer of 2005 in the Bakhchisarai state historical and cultural reserve is opened the exhibition of photographs of the Khan's Palace, made Boldyrev. The exhibition presents several dozen images. So the residents and guests of Crimea could see the Palace immediately and personally at the photos more than stopwatchdisplay ago. Interestingly, the Crimean album Boldyrev, about which we told above, was made by the photographer, as it turned out, in six copies. One of them and gave the Palace-Museum of famous doctor-health resort, a native of Crimea and a passionate patriot Ivan Sarkisov-Serazini. In 1925, the then young scientist bought this album in the expert of the Moscow Fund, and in 1957 gave the Bakhchisarai Palace-Museum.
The last years of his life I. V. Boldyrev little documented. According to the extant fragmentary information we can assume that he continued shooting and tried to continue work on various improvements in technology.
(From the article Vladimir Nikitin "don Cossack Ivan Boldyrev: photographer and inventor")
