I think nobody will argue with it. For me, it was so difficult that I think without my wonderful wife’s financial support I would have already returned to sales and worked in some pitiful store at best. Moreover, in the first half of the year, we were planning to move to another country. Obviously, we couldn’t make it due to the COVID-19. Another dream crashed. Best of all it could be described by the amazing song “Nothing Left To Say” by Imagine Dragons. Every word is just like my life and feelings during this no simple year. http://www.denischurin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Imagine-Dragons-Nothing-Left-To-Say-kissvk.com_.mp3 2020 also took several greatly talented people who were the landmarks in their spheres. One of them is Sean Connery (I won’t mention the others because they were Russians and you unlikely know them). But as for the creative side of my life, it was a great year. The best so far. I not only took part in an exhibition and got to the final in three photo contests but also have grown very much as a photographer. I compare my photographs taken a year ago to my latest ones and can see an enormous difference. I can even say that I got to the next level. And even more. Exactly this year, I launched my YouTube channel and started to do videography much more seriously. It was a year of immensely huge progress for me. And to walk this year off, I traditionally summing up with nine best photographs. Just like the last year, it is two nines but this time no commercial works at all. All of them were published during the year (but it doesn’t mean all were taken in 2020). The first group is the most liked on my Instagram account (I didn’t even consider Facebook because my photographs have too little attention there). The second one are the best photographs in my opinion. And as always, I believe that all the best is ahead! Thanks to everyone who follows me and liked my photographs! A special, most warm gratitude to those who commented on photographs, watched my videos, rated, and wrote comments on them! You have been really helping and supporting me! Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to everyone, my friends! Take care of yourself and your beloved ones. See you next year! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to SUPPORT my YouTube channel or me personally, you can do it here: for the World, for...
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Recently, I have uploaded quite an interesting video on my YouTube channel. Actually, it called “Near The Old Fortress” because it was filmed not far from our local (Leningrad region, Russia) landmark called Krepost’ Oresheck or also known as Shlisselburg Fortress. That’s an ancient Russian stronghold placed on the island in Ladoga lake near the Neva river head. But although this fortress appears in the video and it really looks great, the main and most interesting part of the film to my mind is duck tales caught in the frame. It’s not only a sort of mallard yoga exercises but also a small confrontation between two types of ducks. You can check it by yourself: It was a real pleasure to me to work on this short story and, frankly speaking, I assess it as one of my best videos so far. Therefore, I really hope that you like it either. Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to SUPPORT my YouTube channel or me personally, you can do it here: for the World, for...
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If you watch my YouTube videos regularly, you may notice that some of them have been presented in several parts. I would like to explain why and gather the parts of such videos in this post. For your convenience. At some moment, I made sure that my videos that are longer than say 5 minutes have less percentage of viewing. I mean the longer the video is the fewer people watch it completely. Of course, it didn’t surprise me a lot. I just had a weird hope that this tendency around the World to prefer videos less than a minute in length won’t touch my ones because “these videos are about nature!” or something like that. Quite naively isn’t it? Frankly speaking, I am still convinced that this tendency doesn’t affect the videos on middle-size and especially big channels. At least, not as substantially as it happens to small and tiny ones such as mine for instance. Therefore, I decided to divide my video called “Forest Flowers” which turned out about 7 minutes long into two parts. Here’s the first one: The good thing about this video is that it could be watched in both ways: as a whole story in two parts and as two separate stories. You can assess it by yourself watching the second part: My next video called “Field, Flowers, And Storm” turned out even longer. That’s why I divided it into even three parts! And if the story in the previous video was very simple (just a walk through the wonderful spring forest with its first flowers), this one is a bit more complex. It starts with the first part in which we can see quite usual events for my trip videos: I came to some location, look over it and then go photographing. But this time, the video ends with the sounds on the black screen. Sort of hint about what will happen in the second part. And the second part doesn’t deceive expectations: it shows the raging element, thunderstorm in all its terrifying beauty. Here I want to mention that I was caught by the thunderstorm in real and got completely wet, and at some moment was even scared a lot by the thunder that boomed exactly above me. So, according to the art laws, this is the climax of the story: The third part is a quite calm ending of the story. According to the laws, again. It shows nature after the thunderstorm: clean, green, and happy. But this part contains a little bit tense moment yet when I found a strange construction in the field and realize its purpose: Well,...
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At the end of June, I became a finalist in the “RGB” international contest of visual arts by Moscow Government Culture Department. Both my photographs, “Quiet” and “Cold Dawn”, were qualified for the final. Therefore, I decided to share with you the small stories behind these photographs. This photo is called “Quiet” and it was taken in December 2019 when it was abnormally warm even for the territory near the Baltic Sea. I deliberately came to that forest because of the weather: rainy, foggy, quite warm (for winter), and cloudy sky. I’ve been waiting for such weather for several months and planned the trip. The only problem was to find a decent plot and catch it before dark due to very short daylight hours. Now, I tend to think that this very shot became one of the first which marked my transition to the next level as a photographer. The “Cold Dawn” photo was taken during my trip to the Ladoga lakeshore in January this year. Actually, I managed to tell the story behind this (and several others) photo in my “Sun, ice, and snow” video on my YouTube channel. You can watch it right here, below. And I can only add that this was a planned trip, again, and I had to wake up at 4:30 am in order to get to the spot, which is 150 km far from my home, before the sunrise. Although the temperature was just -15 degrees C it was very cold because of the strong and icy wind. Moreover, in one moment I suddenly fell through the ice so had to wander the most part of the day with my feet wet. In conclusion, I just want to say that if you want to support me and my channel, you can do it here: for the World, for Russia. You don’t need to spend a lot by the way! It would be a great help anyway! P.S.: Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and...
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As you may already know, I launched my YouTube channel at the end of February. Is it so or not, you are unlikely one of my subscribers due to there is only 27 of them yet. Therefore, I decided to tell a bit what my channel is about and what I’m going to do there in the future. The first two types of videos with which I started my channel are the short films about a landscape photographer’s trips and slide shows of my best photographs shot before 2020. I’m hardly going to keep making slide show videos further because the idea was just to introduce my channel newcomers with my best previous photographs. To my mind, three of them are enough. As for the short films about my photographic trips, I’m going to proceed to make them especially considering that I already shot a small bunch of footage. Furthermore, now I think that it could be interesting to many people because I always try to show something special be it an interesting foreshortening or a whole story told in the video like it was, for example, in the “Escape From Home” short film: Besides, I already started to shoot the footage which will become a series of videos all connected with one general line. And this line will come to its climax and reveal the sense in a few months. To be clear, I made a welcome video that automatically shows on my channel’s main page. You can watch it here: Now about my future plans. Honestly, I already posted one video that I differ from photographic trip films. It differs not much actually. The point is that this type of video is not about photographer trips but about landscapes and wildlife. So, there’s no ugly me in the frame, 🙂 only beautiful nature! Additionally, I’m going to start my tutorial video series. They won’t be about post-processing the images so far due to I don’t have the equipment to catch the screen, and I don’t plan to buy it for the time being. Of course, it would depend on my channel viewers’ requests first of all. If there’s enough to start, I will do it for sure. By now, that’s not so. Therefore, I will start with “in the field“ tutorials. I don’t want to make another obvious video about the rule of thirds, equipment for long exposure photography, etc. in addition to the tons of thousands similar ones already existing on YouTube. It makes no sense. Opposite, I’m going to talk about some simple tips and, maybe, reveal small secrets of landscape photography. About the things...
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