shawn

And Photoshop Trickery )


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Edited Version ;)

Маша

Маша и я давно дружим. Мы познакомились в Лос Анджелесе и так уж посчастливилось что мы с ней оказались в одно и то же время в Москве.
Ну нельзя же не пофотографировать старую подругу! Андреевский Мост, отлично подошел для нашей фото прогулки. впервые я оказался в нужном месте, в нужное время с моделью в нужном гардеробе! Цвета подошли идеально! мне оставалось лишь нажать на кнопки. Я попытался создать некий загадочный, чуть отстраненный образ для Маши, каким человеком она в сущности и является. Снимал все на Машину камеру Canon Rebel XSI + kit. Натуральное освещение.

slightly mad

a lady is always a lady

Streetz

Я решил таки устроить маленькую съемочку с моей новоприобретенной камерой Panasonic GF1. Мы выбрались в центр Москвы, с друзьями и нашли вот эту классную арку, где мы укрылись от дождя и смогли создать незамысловатые кадры. Что скажу по поводу качества фото. Да это правда - камера шумит на ISO 400. Но в рот мне ноги - это почти что пленочный шум за который совсем не стыдно! его хочеться шарпить и выделять! Видимо это просто особенность матрицы, так как даже на топовых Canon шум лично меня раздражает.

Все таки маленькая камера упрошает наше грязное дельце обнаженных съемок в людных местах. Чик=чик и все снято в пять десять кадров и никакого привлечения внимания! Правда мы были не на оживленной улице, но все же, я понервничал. А в вдруг загребут? )
Очень доолен моим этим тестом! Денюжки потрачены не зря!

Street with GF1

yes this cam is my new GF1 - girlffriend number 1 by Lumix! a truly great piece of photo equipment.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicGF1/

No - now granny is safe!!

some street photo exercises and space resolving/geometry practice shots.
Moscow Subway


Да - теперь эта маленькая камера - моя девченка номер один )
охрненская штучка для тех кто хочет зеркального качества в карманном варианте. не жалко ни цента на такое незаменимое орудие развития фото видиния!

московское метро

Fall in the Forest

Вчера мне было скучно и как обычно в такие моменты я кидаю клич в сеть для начнающих и не очень моделй чтобы посниматься. На этот раз мои поиски не заняли много времени и на зов откликнулась моя хорошая подруга, Алина. Мало того что она прекрасная модель, так она еще и визажист! В общем круто!
Мы были ограничены в плане гардеробы так что пришлось импровизировать с чем было, а то есть с оранжевым платьем. Она отлично подошло к зеленке Битцевского лесопарка и сделало кадр. По моему снимать без подготовки в лесу является одной из самых сложных задач для фотографа которому надо решить пространство и сочинить кадр где нет переизбытка деталей. В этом случае мы отыграли на контрасте цветов и поваленное дерево дало некоторую структуру, зацепку для глаза. Я подумал что оранжевый свет тоже не помешает и добавил один осветительнвй прибор за моделью. Я решил оставить оранжевые всполохи на листве чтобы закрепить оранжевый цвет платья. В общем вот так! фото джаз удался! )

Yesterday I was bored and as always I called out for models through the usual online resources available here in Russia. This time my search didn't take too long and my call was responded to by an old friend (not old by age by any means) Alina? who is not only a great model but also an amazing makeup artist. Cool beans!

We were verey limited as far as the wardrobe goes so the orange dress was chosen to compliment the greenery of the Bitza Forest. In my opinion shoots in the woods are one of the most challenging ones since it is incredibly hard (for me) to "resolve the space" and remove all the busy detail from the photo. You can try to blur it with a fast prime lens of course, but that's an easy way )
This time the dress made the shot and the color contrast played out nicely separating the model from the rest of the scene. I also put a Ranger Quadra with an orange gel behind the model which put some orange accents to compliment the dress.

visitor

enjoy some natural light surreal stuff )

Zebra Composite Shot

needless to say that I am super glad that this project is about to be over. Super fun and exciting but strict deadlines and long hours are kicking back at me.
This shot is similar to Arda's Promo poster in terms of the technique, instead that there is a photoshopped guy from the other shot (poster) )) creating that was fun - i had to remember the old times ))) the hardest part were burning the shadows right...
I am too tired to write more tonight (16 hour day - 7 to shoot and 7 to create this shot in photoshop) I need at huge octa to shoot big groups )) Donations anyone? )

Storm and the City

Moscow. Day 31 of the heat wave. Seriously when will this stop? Gear fails, people fail. it's like 102 degrees every day and humid. Global warming is NOT about the ice age dammit! )
Meanwhile we had a wonderful easy going shoot with Kathy. Perhaps the easiest person to work with EVER. She wanted some artistic stuff on her walls with her in the main role. I had this whole concept developed, we get to the location and/// BAM!!! a storm, falling trees, knocked out windows and all hell broke loose. We hid in a cal tunnel and there you go - perfect natural light. We used Cali Sunbounce to do some rim lighting and it was beautiful. The only thing is that Victor, my friend, who was kindly helping me with the shoot, was almost taken by the wind while holding the reflector ))) kind funny, watching a 5.3 dude almost taking off in a tunnel ))

yeah. fun! hot!

Zebra Project

No, no real zebras here, just an architectural bureau who wants to display its employees in a fun way for the Moscow Autoshow in late August. So the concept is such: each employee will have his/her unique concept with unique style and photographic approach. So far I've photographed 7 people and apart from hard work, it is lots of fun! The most challenging part were the concepts and the heatwave that we are experiencing here in Moscow. It hasn't rained for a month and the tempretures are in the upper 90F's... so... here's what we have done so far :)
starting from the bottom -

Architectural Draft Design Dude
Secretary
Designer
Head Architect
Architect (Travels alot)
Architect Drafter
Company Driver
two Company CEOs
Accountant
Architect

arda

Промо группы Арда.
Композитный кадр, совмещенный за очень коротокое время в фотошопе из шести кадров. Идея была общая что-то типа "пикник на обочине ганстеро-нарко-алко команды" или 6 еще живых друзей оушена )
Ребята просто наиприятнийшие в плане работы и слушались каждого мановения моих густых бровей! 2 ассистента (Ник и Женя) были просто на высоте, а если еще все это снимать под урчание 5б7 литрового Chevy Camaro прибывшего к нам на съемку, так вообще, повеяло духом Нового Света!
Вообще как все это снималось - да просто -

штатив, на нем камера. Камеру не двигаем, а меняем точки фокуса.
Ассистенто бегает по площадку с освещением и мы в редакторе аккуратненько вырезаем понравившиеся кадры и составляем их в единое целое. Очень выжно перед началом работы составить общую композицию, и гланое чтобы модели помнили как и где они сидят. Вот собственно и все. На обработку кадра ушло смешные (без иронии) 3 часа.
Желаю Арда дальнейших творческих успехов!!

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This is a promo poster for a pretty famous metal band from Moscow, Russia, Arda (3rd pic) (the rest are just for fun)
What a fun day! The guys were an absolute delight to work with and listened and paid attention to the ever slight movements of my bushy eyebrows ) Yeah - they were THAT good! )
The idea was to create something like a picnick of a gangster hangout who just finished robbing someone. I know, i know :)))
so// how did we shoot this?
I had only one light source available yesterday (my quadra head is burned, the new one is supposed to be delivered to me today (can't wait!!) and the only viable way to create this ws to combine 6 separate photos. So yeah. Fun times in photoshop for laughable (no irony here) 3 hours.
Special thanks to 2 awesome assistants Nick and Zhenya. So awesome to work with professional assistants and technicians! Their task was to run around the set with the power pack, helping with the Cali Sunbounce thingly... awesome day, and I do like the result.
now - back to bed!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcISTVyN6vk&feature=player_embedded

POTN

Sayonara POTN. It's been fun. Too bad the moderators are so busy posting there that they don't even have time to shoot. :)

a Couple

Все таки решил писать на родном...
В последнее время мне очень захотелось сделать масштабную серию съемок в стиле близкому к Ренессансу. Вот первый результат, так сказать, проба перы в этом стиле. Пока что я не видел чтобы кто-то делал нечто подобное (ок видел, но их 2 человека) ))
Со светом пришлось бороться така как он то появлялся из за облаков - то исчезал. Все отсняли за 40 минут (36 кадров в общем ради 3х) Свет - Elinchrom Ranger RX SPEED (Deep Octa)
Я стал тратить очень мало времени на съемки так как уже знаю что буду делать.
час от силы не считая мэйка мы потратили вчера и около 2х часов на обработку всех 3х кадров - не считая обработки начальной, где я пробовал идеи.

Lately I have been wanting to do a project, a long term one, in a style close to the Renaissance artists of the past. Caravaggio and Fragonar are my guides here.


I have seen only a couple of photogs doing something similar (Annie Leibovitz and David LaChapelle. We shall see were this journey will take me...
Light - the sun was harsh harsh harsh and in and out from the clouds. We shot 36 frames and kept three for the sake of the story. My shoots are quick now since I know what I will be doing prior the day of the shoot. My advice - do the same.

Blondes

For some reason I am shooting only blondes lately. Or maybe it is the dominant hair color in Russia? No idea. But with me picking up longboard skating (lol) and having some severely unpredictible weather, I have been taking a short break from shooting and spending more time thinking about what to shoot. I do enjoy the preparation wuite a bit. It doesn't have to be me running around the location (like in the Elements shoot) for 2 hours and then taking 15 great shots and calling it a day. An idea can develop while I am sleeping, watching a movie or skating )), and then emerge, sometimes completely unwanted, but pushing itself onto me to the point where I just have to go with it because nothing else works this day. Please note that this is only applicable to my very personal work, the examples of which are above.

I realized recently that I am also very fond of surrealist art and that had also had its huge influence on the way i photograph and process my pictures. I have always liked processing my shots in a way where it is not very clear just how much photoshop there is involved... Sometimes I will be working for 4 hours on a single shot, changing it so much that the RAW image will have nothing to do with the finished work (that is very rare recently, but it does solely depend on the way I have my ideas figures out)

for example there no photoshop in the sunny black and white shot. except that little swish - i liked the effect. The rest - just straight out of the cam. A Nikon d300 with a 30 year old lens (I am using tons of cameras now since I have pals letting me use some older gear)

so... what else... enjoy (or don't) the shots and please post your questions of you have any.

mm


Recently I have been fascinated with some fine art masters like Caravaggio. Tthis guy is on my top list... So the little house shot is my little attempt to start exploring that area. I am currently babying a concept involving lots more of similar styles. The problem is that it is really tough to put people together... oh, well, I'll talk about it some other time.

Witchcraft

Some modeling tests - the photographer that was supposed to shoot tests for this model got sick and left the model hanging. Thankfully he has us (me and 2 other photogs) as pals and we took one for the team and did some simple test shots for this aspiring model.
I got to test my new goodies (Maxi Spot (amazing) and barn doors with a nice set of color gels by Elinchrom. Great stuff and I think these things will help me to create some interesting photos. I rarely see gels on location so it's about to change :)

anyway - i shot 10 frames with a Nikon D700 (my friends cam( and an Nikkor 85 1.4 and with some minimal PP i got this photo. I messed up the color modes and it looks less saturated and contrasty than in the psd file. I am a little confused my this, but I was told that this is because of the Nikon sRGB color modes... I have no clue.
D700 and Nikkor 85 1.4 are amazing tools, made WAYYY better than Canon 5d Mark II. I just wish Nikon had more Megapixels. I would have jumped to Nikon in a heartbeat just because of the build quality and auto focus... We shall see... muhaha )))