[Read Part 1. The Beginning] Don’t Drown! In fact, I hadn’t really dived into photography till my 36. To my mind, that was that actual moment in life when you take a look back on years behind and realize that it’s about a half of an average lifetime has passed, and you still didn’t have enough time to enjoy what you’re doing. Because your job isn’t interesting you; on your weekends, you feel tired and too lazy to go out somewhere for shooting or even to stay at home and learn some processing technique; only on your vacation, you feel and notice a life, the taste and vision come back to you, and you shoot, shoot, shoot, and then come back home, and… return to your job and, again, have no time (actually, strength and wish!) to process all this bunch of RAW files. If you now are in such a situation, let me give you a bit of tiny advice. If you don’t mind. Just shoot in jpeg with the picture style you like. Then either show the best images you took to anyone you want or find and download free Lightroom presets, install Lightroom on your computer, learn its basics in one or two days, and get the result that won’t be looking dull and boring as unprocessed RAW files. That’s it! Eventually, the most important is to enjoy what you’re doing. If you don’t like to spend much time processing your images, so don’t do it! Don’t turn your favorite hobby into another dull work! Of course, you should understand that doing this way you won’t get outstanding results. Your photos won’t look like the best examples of the World’s best photographers. But they’re living with photography. Every single moment is in it. Even if they don’t photograph or process at the moment, they plan a forthcoming shooting and learn the location. If not so, they think over how exactly, where, and what to shoot. If not all that previous, they study a new technique or some unfamiliar equipment. Even if not all the mentioned, then they just look around and find the interesting object, the good foreshortening, probably simultaneously with some other activity be it just a walk with their dog or washing the dishes, whatever. For them, that’s not already a hobby. That’s their entire life. Read further: Part 3. Fails And Hope [Read Part 1. The Beginning] P.S.: Follow me on YouTube,...
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The Beginning Actually, I wasn’t really interested in photography till my 23. I had a couple of times when I took several photos by that moment but, honestly, it wasn’t serious. It was like “OK! If nobody else wants to take a shot, I’ll do it!” But then it happened that I occurred in the photo equipment store just a couple of weeks after my university graduation. And there I had to study cameras, films, flashes, tripods, and so on. Quite natural to my mind that after I’ve learned the technical basics, I started to interest photography itself, as a human activity, as an art. But the only interest as it is not enough for getting decent photographs. Nowadays, I know and notice, many people think that you became a photographer immediately after purchasing your first DSLR or mirrorless. Why does nobody think that way about music? (Here’s the answer I invented just now: because not a single musical instrument plays music after you give it an introductory pair. And that’s the main trap of digital photography to my mind.) As for me, I’ve stopped to shame call myself a photographer only when I started to earn with photography. Honestly, that’s another extreme. Now I think that even if you’re not working as a photographer but spend much of your free time for shooting, processing, and, of course, learning photography, you are a photographer. Not a pro, yes, but sometimes that’s really better. Frankly, I hadn’t an idea what exactly and how to shoot properly in order to express myself, to transfer what I feel till my 29. That’s when I bought my first camera. It was a Canon EOS 450D, the simplest and cheapest DSLR at that moment. But I didn’t buy a starter kit (my ambition didn’t let me!). I’ve purchased it with Canon EF 50mm/f1.4 USM lens. And I still have it in my bag! Honestly, now I use it quite rarely but when I take it that means I really need it. I think that in some way this limit (I mean the focal length of my sole lens in combination with the camera crop factor) pushed me to find something, to invent the ways of how to show the beauty I saw with the equipment I had. Of course, now I know much more about using almost any lens in nature photography but at that moment it was quite hard for me. I very seldom got the results I really liked. Nevertheless, there are few photos from that time I still love. Read further: Part 2. Don’t Drown! P.S.: Follow me on YouTube,...
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Today, on my 41st Birthday, I decided to congratulate myself by launching my channel on YouTube. Actually, technical launching was a couple of days ago – I have uploaded three slide show videos with the collections of my photographs in different genres which I took from 2008 till 2019. Sort of an introduction to my photography for those who haven’t seen it yet. But the factual launching when I uploaded not a slide show but the real video, my first one ever, has been today. Therefore, you have the opportunity to be the first witness of this event quite important to me. So, I invite you to watch it, give the video any thumb you want, and even write something! If you decide to subscribe, it’ll be weird of course but I’ll manage it! 😉 By the way, I have a whole bunch of plans for my future videos! That’s why I’m sure it’ll be interesting to follow. P.S.: Follow me on Instagram –...
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You might think that an absence of glory. There’s a myth between people that any creative human is suffering without fame, that we all need to be admired and adored. That’s not so. I mean probably some of us really need all that stuff but to the most – no. Moreover, a lot of creatives are quite modest and don’t like an excess of attention. We do it not for fame, we just can’t not to create. The majority of people are absolutely convinced that this thing is the critique. That creatives are very painfully perceived any negative opinions about their art. That’s much closer but, again, far not all of us so inadequate. Those creative persons who have a working brain would be happy to get some constructive critiques. The problem is that so many critics have no idea what is that – the constructive critique. They for some reason think that any negative reaction is good without even an attempt to find the advantages in the artwork, and also don’t try to advise what exactly to fix. So, what is that then? What’s the most awful for creative persons? I think that’s indifference. You see, almost every one of us make extraordinary efforts to create our artwork, to make it perfect (at least we always do our best to do so). For that, we learn and practice for years (and never stop either the first and the second one), we spend an endless amount of attempts, we critic ourselves mercilessly, we don’t notice time and inconveniences trying to perfect our artwork and to express ourselves in it in the best possible way… And after all that to face the indifference… This is the most terrible outcome. P.S.: Follow me on Instagram −...
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And here’s my top 9 (in my own opinion) of art photos 2019. Thank you all who followed me! Special thanks to those who put likes, and the warmest gratitude for those who commented on my social media accounts. See you next year! Happy New Year! P.S.: Follow me on Instagram –...
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