Yesterday, there were announced the results of the III World Eco Photo Contest by the Russian Union of Wildlife Photographers. More than 1000 participants from 56 countries took part in this contest. And I became one of the finalists in the Landscape nomination! Thus, this is my second final during this year. Plus, at the end of July, one of my photographs participated in the “Art Geography of the Leningrad region” exhibition which was placed in the exhibition center of Saint-Petersburg Union of Artists in the heart of the city. It means that this year is already the richest in achievements for me so far. Nevertheless, I, as usual, believe that the best events are still ahead! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and...
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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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[Read Part 1. The Beginning] [Read Part 2. Don’t Drown!] Fails And Hope Back then, in 2015, I suddenly realized, that there will be no other attempts to live. You can’t load the last successful saving and redo something that you didn’t like previously. Time is leaking out. And nobody shouts you about that, nobody shakes you, nobody force you to change something to finally become happy in what you’re doing. Maybe, only a couple of persons who really love you (and also smart and brave enough) can do it if you’re lucky. In my case, such a person became my wife. She made me stop for a second and think about what I really want to do in my life. In fact, it happened in 2012. Three years more we spent to invent the way of changing our lives, to prepare anything for this change, to make up our minds for this most important step, for doubts of course, and… to fail. But as it always shows in inspiring movies, we didn’t give up. We left our jobs and went to the countryside. I became a pro photographer. We tried to earn money as freelancers. And we failed again. That doesn’t mean we weren’t earning anything at all but we couldn’t make our living. And we slowly but surely spent our modest savings. On the other hand, that was a very useful period of time. We had a lot of time to think. We’ve strengthened our connection, we’ve learned to support each other in the best possible way. Finally, we have decided not to give up. Again. We had to step off our way for a while but we still kept our faith. We came back to the city, found new jobs (my one was in product photography), and were still searching for the possibilities. It’s been three and a half years since that moment. And we failed again. But about a couple of weeks ago, we suddenly found one more way, unexpected for us… I have no idea if we manage to make it in our way. Will it happen just like in mentioned inspiring movies? Or we’ll fail again just like it was so many times? Who knows? But even if we fail, we will know that made everything we could to change what we’re unsatisfied with. We will know that at least we tried. [Read Part 1. The Beginning] [Read Part 2. Don’t Drown!] P.S.: Follow me on YouTube,...
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[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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