Summer

Before describing how the picture was taken I would like to talk a bit about how significant this work is for me.

It is one of my favorite works! Every photographer should strive to make vivid and memorable pictures. I think that this is the best way to prove their skills, to draw attention to yourself and your creativity. I try all the time to do creative project by inviting well-known models, experienced makeup artists to develop new imaging technology, ideas and images. So this photo is in addition to bringing new knowledge, technologies and experience to my professional baggage also greatly contributes to my advancement in the market. I made a lot of my professional works for clients who came with a single phrase: “We would like the same in my campaign”

Painting…

I like to create my pictures not as a photographer but as a painter. Using my studio as a canvas, light as a paint and my camera as a brush! Here is one of them! No Photoshop was used in creation of this photo!

Above the roofs of Moscow

Sometimes even the most brilliant ideas could be broken over the force majeure. But sometimes it bring nice ideas and views of pictures…

We had a lovely idea to make a shoot on the roof! A huge work had been done to implement our plan. We dragged a ton of equipment to the roof: backgrounds, stands, flash heads, spotlights, fans. But suddenly faced with a number of unpredictable factors: we had to wait for a new model, we had to wait for another dresses, and at last the wind started, and eventually began to rain. We were waiting for sun, and that waiting was stretching to hours.

Hard Light Portrait

Photographers have to learn lighting techniques using just hard lighting sources. Operating with reflectors that produce very hard light and avoiding softboxes as a source of very soft light are the very great steps  to understand lighting. On my masterclasses and workshops I strongly recommend another photographers to try to make portraits with only reflectors.

So here in my masterclass in Kiev I demonstrated how to make very nice, soft, vivid portrait using just reflectors: one as a key light, left and above the model, one as a fill light, just below the lens of the camera, and third one as a background light, behind the model and very close to the background. It is so important to find exact position and exact power of every source and that is what is called “your professional skills and understanding of lighting”.

Try it and you will open the new spaces of your possibilities.

Good luck.

The blue necklace

Every photographer always wants to bring something interesting and original, but it is always interesting to me to make my pictures in the studio, not in Photoshop. When you need a solid, and most importantly, predictable product you can make collages. But if you want to submit your photos as an artist I think you should try using all possibilities that studio lights, gels, precise photography techniques give us. I want to leave the picture in its pure form, and I want to cast magic on this “canvas” – a digital camera matrix.

The shadow

This picture was made for a lookbook of well-known designer of wedding dresses. There were the wishes to escape from the banal, simple lighting setup and create something bright and expressive. Among the photographs attached as examples I got a lot of images with hard shadows which were higher that the model and loomed over her.

Woman in red

Explaining the work of studio lighting in my master classes and workshops, I try to show the students that sometimes with simple accessories they can make an interesting and spectacular photo if they attached smart and good knowledge of shooting techniques.

Going through the thirst

I have just returned from Dubai where I hosted Fashion and Beauty workshop. I will show the pictures we made there later but now I would like to express my thanks to Kumar who gave me an opportunity to make shoot in the real desert. I used just one battery pack Profoto Acute 600 lightening the stage. And the sun. The very hot desert sun! Here it is!!!

Moving

We came up with an idea for this shoot in New York with a stylist Marissa Adele. Our aim was to submit the photographs to fashion magazines and try to get them published. It is a pretty common thing in Western countries when a photographer or a stylist invite models, hair&make up artists, assistants, rent a studio and required props and arrange a shoot, putting their own ideas, skills and time in order to later offer the photographs to magazines instead of waiting to be commissioned (which is, considering the competition these days is almost impossible unless you have a pretty serious connections).