171
In 1872 he moved to St. Petersburg. During this
time, only low depth lenses were used in photography
studios. Boldyrjev, with no special knowledge of optics,
simply by combining elements, created a short-focus,
large aperture lens which enabled him to make high ly
detailed photographs of large groups. The characteristics
of this lens made possible photograph under poor light,
while retaining good depth of fi eld. As Boldyrjev did
not patent his design, the precise confi guration of the
elements is not known, although images taken by the
lens survive.
In 1878 the fi fth department of Russian Emperor’s
Technical Society in Saint Petersburg (RETS), the
photography department, was established by a group
of photographers including Boldyrjev. The fi rst public
meeting of the society was devoted to the discussion
of technical potentialities of the lens. Photographic
test were carried out in the studio of the famous pho-
tographer, Andrey Denier, and in the presence of such
Russian authorities in photography like Sergey Levitsky
and others. Being aware of the typical problems of
studio photography, they stood in the depth of the hall
at about 8.5 meters from the photographer thus trying
to create the maximum hard photographic conditions.
As a result, they got a photograph of high acutance on
the foreground as well as on the background with the
linear perspective wonderfully rendered. Nevertheless,
even the positive results of the experiment didn’t gain
approval of the specialists.
In 1875, Boldyrjev returned home and developed an
interest in photographing the Don kazaks’ way of life
with his lens. Some Russian photographers had already
created superb ethnographic photographic series, for
instance, William Carrick made a series of photographs
in the Simbirsk region in 1870s.
Boldyrjev’s camera recorded scenes of folk life with
its routine and holidays, and the same scenes Boldyrjev
witnessed in his childhood. The lens he used made his
photographs multidimensional, so the images seemed
to be snatched from real life as there was practically no
posing or staging by the photographer. His photographs
combined reality with refi ned taste, and artistic render-
ing of life fi lled with energy is found in his works. He
only used photographic methods and thought of the real-
ity of his photography as an expressive means. Choos-
ing different plots from the lives of common people,
Boldyrjev tried to get away from posing and costumes
and instead sought reality in his works. Additionally,
one of Boldyrjev’s techniques was to render linear and
aerial perspective and consciously employ depth as an
expressive device.
His photographs were highly regarded by a lead-
ing Russian art critic of the time, Vladimir Stasov. He
even bought an album of prints for the collection of the
Emperor’s Public Library in St. Petersburg. Stasov men-
tioned, “The 75 pages comprise not only neighborhoods
and people that are very interesting and are brilliantly
done, but also picturesque and so naturally presented
groups of the Don kazaks, men and women, at their fi eld
and house work, at service. Lots of the groups are real
“true life pictures” created by an artist of talent.”
Boldyrjev was one of the pioneers of Russian realistic
photography and the aesthetic principles he lived up to
were later developed by some other prominent photogra-
phers in the trend, such as Maksim Dmitrijev. Differences
about the assessment must have led to the tense relation-
ship of Boldyrjev with the members of RETS.
Boldyrjev kept inventing and making photographs.
Because he traveled round Russia frequently he often
felt uncomfortable using fragile glass negatives. It was
out of this concern that he had the idea of inventing a
fl exible photographic. In 1881, following a period of
diligent work and experiments, he invented fl exible
fi lm for negatives, which he presented at the All- Russia
Industrial Exhibition in Moscow in 1882. The fi lm was
an plastic transparent fi lm that was resistant to high
temperature and humidity. It is regretful that neither
the description of the chemical elements of this kind
of fi lm survive, nor photographs take with this fi lm,
as Boldyrjev didn’t patent this either. Only the basic
review of its properties, mentioned in the newspaper
The All-Russian Exhibition (No. 30 1882) exist: the
fi lm was a fl exible resin-like plate, similar to glass by
its density and transparency. This plate did not deform
while being rolled up into a tube. The well-known chem-
ist D. Mendeleev expressed his approval of the fi lm.
Vyachjeslav Sreznevsky, a famous Russian expert in
photography labeled the fi lm as “a rather useful inven-
tion,” even though the invention was not commercially
implemented.
However the fi fth department of RETS paid due at-
tention fi rst to Eastman’s paper-based fi lm that entered
the market in1885 and then to Hannibal Gudwin’s
(1822–1900) celluloid fi lm, which he patented it in
1887, and then to the fi rst mass produced sheet fi lms
in 1888. The photography press was full of reviews of
Russian photographers who admired the fi lms produced
abroad and the advantages of using them for outdoor
photography.
As Boldyrjev didn’t fi nd much support as far as his
inventions were concerned, he kept taking photographs.
The range of events he recorded in 1870–1890s was
really wide. In the funds of Russian National library
in St. Petersburg, the former Emperor’s Public library,
there are photographs of physiological experiments in
the hospital named after S. Botkin, where Ivan Pavlov
worked as a young man, of curing séances through
electroshock therapy in the Military medical academy
in St. Petersburg. One can also fi nd photographs of the
celebration of Rafael’s 400th anniversary at the Russian