When I was a kid, our family every year went to the village by train. It was still at the end of the Soviet Union. I don’t know why but I always loved to go somewhere already then especially in the case of a railroad trip. I eagerly absorbed the impressions: railway terminal with its bustling, a platform with its locomotive smells, changing of landscapes behind the window, hot tea with a shortcake… When we settled in our seats, I looked forward to the train moving off. I was overwhelmed with a sense of promising “unknown” − for some reason it seemed to me that something exciting and remarkable is ahead. When a conductor brought a hot tea in a faceted glass with a tin or steel glass-holder it was a whole task: to drink a tea with pleasure but simultaneously don’t get burnt and don’t pour with boiling water sitting in a swaying wagon. I remember very well how I burned my palms by these glass-holders! Recently, my mom showed me one such glass-holder. Not the new copy but the original Soviet one. And I got the idea to take a photograph of this item, moreover, it turned out a bit more interesting than the ones that came across to me in the trains. It has a volumetric drawing of the Kremlin. At the same time, I practiced once again in advanced product photography! 🙂 P.S.: Follow me on Instagram –...
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Some time ago, I finished a tutorial by one of the product photography masters, a student of famous Igor Sakharov. Just like in any studying, in photography, all the theoretical knowledge should obligatorily be consolidated in practice. Otherwise, all the learning time would be spent in vain. And I decided to start my practical training from my old familiar – jezveler which I photographed for the first time almost four years ago in order to pass the Shutterstock exam. Here’s that photo: And here’s the result I got using new way mentioned above: Agree, the difference is significant! My cousin seeing these images even didn’t believe that this is the same object on both photographs. 🙂 I should say that this method of photo shooting is much more complex, time and labor-consuming. I even decided to capture the process by my smartphone: One of my mates seeing this photo said: “You’ll soon need to buy a van to bring it all!” 🙂 Nevertheless, the most important thing for me is that the result is much better as well. So, now I can say that I shifted my product photography skills up to the next level! P.S.: Follow me on Instagram –...
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I am periodically asked how much differs a raw file from my camera from the final image I send to a customer? And how much time I spend on post-processing? (The second question often appears when an interested person knows with wonder that shooting itself isn’t even a half of an interior photographer’s work.) First of all, I’ll reply to the second question: about 60-70% of the total time spent. Why so? There are many reasons. One of them is the task to show the light drawing of interior truly as much as possible simultaneously not sacrificing the beauty of colors especially in cases when the daylight from windows is mixed up with the lights of different artificial light sources such as tungsten or fluorescent lamps, LED-lights of different color temperature and so on. And as an illustration, the photo below which is straight out of the camera, without any processing: Well, what turns out after the thoughtful and laborious processing of the photo? That’s what: P.S.: Follow me on Instagram –...
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A few days ago I accidentally found out that in November 2018 I won in the photo contest “How beautiful is this World – show!” by TV and Radio Company “MIR” (means “World” in Russian). Totally, there were announced six winners: three by the opinion of jury and three according to the votes of the Company’s web site visitors. I risk to seem immodest and vain, but to my mind, jury opinion in the contests is much more valued than votes of visitors. My experience of participation in lots of very different photo contests (Russian ones and other World’s as well) during more than 10 years tells exactly about it: in the overwhelming majority of cases, the winners by the opinion of site visitors do not reach by the level of their works even for fifty runners-up. Opposite, jury decision is almost always gives the win to really good works. So, my photo called “The Head of the Dragon” which I took in Crimea in Fall 2017 (it has already appeared here in my blog) won the 1st place by the jury opinion! I won’t hide that I’m very happy with this fact! Even though the organizers didn’t emphasis the difference between places. I guess you got a question: why I knew it accidentally? The point is that the results were published on the “MIR” Company’s web site and their group in Russian social media “Odnoklassniki” (means “classmates” in Russian). Both of these sites are not the places I visit often. To put it mildly. 🙂 Simply, about 10 days ago I suddenly logged in to my account in “Odnoklassniki” and found there a whole bunch of messages from the mentioned group’s admin. He congratulated me with this win and asked for my postal address to send the prize. To my joy, although I replied too late according to the contest’s rules, organizers still decided to send me the prize and I’m very grateful for that. So, I’m waiting. 🙂 The moral of this fable: never give up! Right at that moment when you finally drown in despondency and stop any struggle – right at that moment you need to show a little more patience and endurance, and a holiday will come to your street!...
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When I was 18, I knew exactly how to live, what and how to do, what to strive for. I had a whole bunch of dreams and I tried to make all of them true. When I got about 30, I was already not sure about many things, not always knew what I want, doubted about possibility of making true at least half of my dreams. Now, I almost constantly don’t understand absolutely what’s happening around and for what all of this. I got just one dream left: health of loved ones and life with them in peace and serenity. Even this single dream is vandalized by fate: it breaks off one piece (decease of one loved one), then gnaws out another one (the death of the other). They say tests are sent to us to temper. “What does not kill you will make you stronger”. Where did they get that I want to be stronger? In any case, not at such a price. Perhaps, it’s impossible to understand and explain why do some people become dear to us, grow into our souls, merge with them, while others remain only fellow travelers, often temporary. The same with pets. We love some of them, appreciate and protect but they still remain just our wards, life companions. On the contrary, others grow into us, a special relationship establishes with them, they become a part of ourselves. When dies such creature (no matter human or animal), after, when with great difficulty, but still, finally, you realize this fact, becomes the feeling like a huge piece of you was torn out, and nothing will heal this wound ever. Yes, you slightly begin to get used to the emptiness, to the hole in your soul. But that’s just a habit. It’s not easier to feel this emptiness. And a guilt. No matter how good you showed yourself, how much love, tenderness and care you gave, after his death, all the same it seems that you gave insufficiently, that you could give more. And nowhere to escape from this guilt. Time doesn’t heal. And in general, nothing can heal this. You just can get used to this pain and share it with someone close to you. And to remember the good things that were. After all, until death was a lot of good. And this should not be forgotten in any case because it’s much more important than death. This exactly is really important. We don’t know what is expecting us after the death. We can only believe or hope – who can do what. As for me, I want to believe. To believe in...
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