Description of the attraction
In the center of St. Petersburg, on Malaya Sadovaya Street, which connects Nevsky Prospekt and Italyanskaya Street, next to house No. 3, there is a monument to a St. Petersburg photographer. This two-meter monument was opened on January 25, 2001. The authors of the monument are sculptor B. A. Petrov and architect L. V. Domracheva. The sculpture is made of bronze.
The prototype of this work is the founder of reportage photography in Russia Karl Karlovich Bulla, whose photographic studio was located in a house nearby. Nowadays, after reconstruction, a museum has been opened there, where documents and equipment of the photographer are kept, which are maintained in working order. The statue, although it has similar features with the original, is not his portrait. This is a collective image of photojournalists and photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Karl Bulla is the founder of the famous dynasty of photography masters, whose works reflected the spirit of the times, captured some of the now lost masterpieces of architecture and thanks to which we can see the faces of famous scientists, politicians, artists, statesmen of the past. At one time, Karl Bulla had the exclusive right to photograph everywhere and whatever he saw fit.
Karl Bulla was born in Prussia in the city of Leobschütz. The family moved to the Russian Empire when he was just over ten years old. He first worked as a courier for a company that made photographic supplies. He then became a laboratory assistant and apprentice. In 1875, Karl Bulla, with the help of his relatives, opened his first photographic studio. He was lucky in business. Very soon his establishment began to enjoy success with the Petersburg bohemia. He soon accepted Russian citizenship. The next step in his successful career as a recognized master of photography was permission from the authorities to take photographs outside the home, which was a very great privilege in those days. He was the official photographer of the St. Petersburg City Administration, the Imperial Russian Fire Society, the Russian Red Cross Society, had permission to photograph members of the royal family, and was a regular illustrator of the St. Petersburg Life, Niva, Ogonyok publications.
Karl Karlovich Bulla really loved photography and was a fanatic of his craft. He experimented boldly. So, he asked his clients to be more relaxed in front of the camera, which was new. It was thanks to Karl Bulla that photography from some official work became more "animated".
The photographer left a rich legacy after his death. During his life, he took more than 200 thousand photographs, which are a real monument of history. Glass negatives of Karl Bulla's photographs are kept in the State Archive of Film and Photo Documents in St. Petersburg. His photographs can be seen in the expositions of the Russian National Library and the State Hermitage.
The idea of erecting a monument to the St. Petersburg photographer belongs to the historian S. Lebedev. The figure is made with high precision and believability. In front of the photographer, on a tripod, there is a camera of that era, in his hands he holds an umbrella that did not allow the sun's rays to enter the lens in sunny weather. Modern photographers still use such umbrellas as reflectors. At the feet of the human sculpture is a dog (English Bulldog). The height of the bronze pedestal is 10 cm.
The monument to the St. Petersburg photographer is very popular among residents and guests of the city. Despite its "young age", a sign is already associated with the monument: to be successful in financial affairs, you need to hold the bronze photographer by the little finger.
