I’ve never been to Spain earlier. And of course I dreamt to visit it. It happened this spring that me and my wife bought inexpensive trip to Catalonia, to the famous sea shore of Costa Brava. Before leaving, we knew that there won’t be hot in the beginning of May, but we have hoped we would be lucky. Plus, we expected that “not hot” in Costa Brava would be exactly what we, citizens of Saint-Petersburg, need. 🙂 It didn’t work out that way and we have seen that relatively not high price for the trip was justified. In one of the ten days there were just +12 in Celsius with frequent cold rain. Even in general was just warm, definitely not hot. Nevertheless, my wife swam twice in the sea: pure, salty, and about +16 degrees. I for one, as a veteran cold and hedonist, decided to stay away. 🙂 In spite of this, we got a whole bunch of emotions bright and memorable – and this was the main thing for what we traveled there. Well, photographs too, of course. One of the days we allocated for a trip to Barcelona, the most beautiful city in the World according to the opinion of one famous Russian sports journalist. As for me, I have visited just a few of World’s greatest cities so far and I haven’t enough to compare with. Still, I can say that Barcelona undoubtedly beautiful, distinctive and very interesting city. I’m not really good in architecture as an art, but, in general, I got the impression that if Saint-Petersburg, for instance, is the city by Carlo Rossi, so Barcelona is the one by Antonio Gaudi (it’s clear that this is a strong simplification, but it sounds great, isn’t it? 🙂 ). But still, nature for me is more beautiful than any cities, and her creations are nicer to the eye than the most beautiful architectural ensembles. That’s why our trip to Montserrat mountain impressed me a lot more than Catalonia capital. What only cost one rise on foot from about 1 km height to the top (1236 meters above sea level) and walking the same way descent to the monastery (725 meters) by narrow and winding paths, then making their way through the mountain forest, then going to the edge of steep slopes with breathtaking views! Well, I guess I can even don’t talk what delight caused me the texture of the rocks of this amazing mountain. 🙂 As Vladimir Vysotsky sang: “To the vanity of cities and car flows We come back because there’s just nowhere to go! And we go down from conquered...
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That’s what one of my regular customers told me about my work a couple of days ago. Only without interrogative and exclamatory intonations. Just affirmative. From surprise, I was just taken aback. Because I used to think that there’s always someone better than you in any activity. But here it is… The point is that this client have launched the new web site of his company. My photos of company’s products he collected and scrupulously selected during all our cooperation, and that’s more than half a year already. His web designer selected from the gotten bunch of images the most appropriate ones for site design (because, the photo can be even ideal at all, but inappropriate for the specific site). And he did it no less thoroughly. The same was about my photos which must present to the visitor samples of the company’s products. And suddenly, like snow on the head, the responses of the first two customers who entered to the site and then phoned and asked where they can see the photos of finished products! One of them, a professional interior designer (as she introduced herself) to their reply “You can see the photos on our web site”, she just refused to believe saying: “I know perfectly well what photographs look like, do not fool me! I make 3D-visualizations by myself and I do can distinguish them from photos!” As the saying goes: Curtain! Just don’t misunderstand me. I do not cherish the illusions about my level as a photographer. This level is quite high but I’m still very far from the leading masters. I know it because I study on their videos and courses. Furthermore, I follow the current trends and know the standards of the industry. Accordingly, an obvious explanation is that by 2018, in my country, the interior photography customers in general still have no idea about which photo is good and how much it should cost. And that’s sad. Therefore, I hope you, the visitors of my site, do not belong to the above. And if you’ve never asked before which interior photography truly good, you can read my articles about it here: “A few words about interior photography” and “Another few words about interior...
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In the lead of my 39th birthday, I, so to speak, pleased myself with another two achievements. First of all, for the second time in a row I won “Best of Houzz” award in the Client Service nomination! Thus, it’ll be perfectly fair to say that I keep my level of commercial photography service on the highest degree for two years! 🙂 Fortunately, in contrast to January 2017, I hadn’t to meet the aggressive envy of my colleagues this time. 🙂 Furthermore, just today, I finished another photography training online course. It was not so long but surely useful. And here’s the certificate: So, stay on tune!...
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The beginning of the new year brought me two achievements! 🙂 First, I finally completed 13 hours of Mastering Architecture and Real Estate Photography online course. This is a course by American photographer Charlie Borland who shoot interiors and real estate for more than 30 years. Although, the most part of the course I had to stoically hold attention to lectures, struggling with boredom 🙂 (because of the information I already knew for a long time ago), nevertheless, some knowledge appeared brand new for me and not only expanded my theoretical base, but also will be very useful in my further work. The course wasn’t free surely, but I never considered investing in education a waste of money. So, I’m proud to show my certificate to you: The second achievement refers to my art photography. I ranked in the Top 10% of most popular photographers in 2017 on ViewBug! 🙂 On the joys, I have even more actively began to process the footage shot in the autumn in Crimea. And it’s worth to see! So, follow me on Instagram:...
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For several years, I dreamed to do such a thing: to come in some beautiful place, to get up early in the morning, before dawn, to go to the mountains in the dark and there, on the edge, to meet up a sunrise. That dream came true in this vacation! We came out in deep twilight, at half past 5 a.m. and got back in the settlement to have a breakfast almost at midday. Moreover, on our way, from the rock, we saw a dolphin in the sea! It was the first time in my life I saw this wonderful animal and I am very glad that this was not in the aquarium but in his natural habitat. Furthermore, for a long time, I wanted to take a photo with a long shutter speed in order to get blurred waves stroking the rock. And I managed it too! 🙂 I’ve already mentioned that the sky was completely clear for almost all days we were there. Excluding the last evening. 🙂 It was the one on which we planned a sunset shooting from The Qaravul Oba mountain. Exactly that evening gave us absolutely terrific sky! Although the path to the mountain’s top became from touristic to “semi-climbing” in some places, and being quite simple for walking at the same time was only 50 cm wide with the steep slope about 200 meters right to the sea in others, and I carried the photo bag on my shoulder, and the heavy tripod in my hand, and I’m absolutely not a climber… Still, I twisted my head so active that it was going to come off and I was completely speechless in admiration! We started our descent in congruent dusk. And at this moment, these wonderful places gave us another gift: right before us, in some 20-25 meters, appeared a fox! Barely noticeable breeze were blowing from her to us, so she took us calmer than I expected. After she did her deeds exactly on the path, she climbed the slope for 10 meters higher us and were running parallel to our way for several minutes not losing sight of us. But then, she decided to get even higher and disappeared behind the trees… It strange, but I didn’t regret that I had just wide angle lens (also, the camera was switched off and put away in the bag by the moment) and hadn’t even theoretical chance to photograph that delightfully beautiful animal. I know that this ideal evening will stay in our memory for ever. Why am I telling all this? Because to my mind, no matter how your financial and...
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