This post is the most overdue ever! Back in the fall of 2010 I visited Cancun to teach photography workshops and enjoy a little warmth. Although I took a bunch of pictures, I could never get to the editing…until now. Big thanks to everyone who attended, especially Victor, William, Dorota and Pamela. Enjoy 
Exactly 5 years ago, on January 28th 2006, I photographed my very first wedding. So I decided to give you a “brief” history of my short career: how I started, what I’ve learned, and the future outlook. By making this post I feel almost guilty, because I feel like a narcissist, making it all about me, talking about myself, and expecting people to pay attention. Well, I know that in reality I may not be that important, but some would be interested in reading how I became a photographer I am now, and this post might be useful to those who are either already “becoming” a photographer, or thinking of doing that in the future.
Well I’ll start my story in the years zero, before I was a “professional” photographer.
Well it all kind of started in 2002, which is nearly 10 years ago. Feels like only yesterday (as it always does). My uncle was a wedding videographer, and I was really intrigued by all of the editing and special effects programs. So I got an idea of making some clips for church. Eventually bought a professional video camera on my parents’ credit card and ended up filming most church youth events and editing some funny video clips. And, as it always happens, somebody had to ask me to videotape their wedding, since I had the “pro” camera and I could edit on “pro” programs. So I think I told them it would cost $200, and that’s how it all started. I made some business cards, put an ad in the local Russian paper, and was officially a “wedding videographer”. For the next 3 or 4 years I would try my very best to make the best videos possible; eventually opening a video company with my cousin, calling it “Grace Video Productions”. We did really good work actually; I wouldn’t be bragging if I said we were some of the best in the country at what we did at that moment in time. But unfortunately, even though we were pretty good artists, we were awful businessmen and didn’t know how to run a business, and how to not procrastinate. At the end of 2005 our company fell apart and we parted ways. Even though that wasn’t a very happy ending, I did learn a ton from those times which helps me even now, so I don’t regret going through that process. Even though there is only one paragraph about this part of my ‘career’, there were several really important years invested here. Countless hours filming and editing. In my mind, video has taken 50% of my picture taking life. I would love to show some of the videos we made, but most of them are put away somewhere far, and none are online. I did manage to find a couple though, although they are not wedding videos. Here’s something we made for church in 2004 (or 5), and here’s behind the scenes. (And here’s a picture of me at a church camp doing some video:)
While doing the video thing, I bought a Nikon film camera and played around with it a lot. It wasn’t like I had this natural ability to take amazing pictures; my first photos were as bad as anyone else’s. Of course I also thought that since I am using a “professional” camera, the pictures are automatically going to look great, but of course that wasn’t the case. I learned everything on my own (except for the one high school class I had); tried to figure out what is it exactly that makes a picture look “professional”. I remember going into a camera store once and asking them about what makes a picture “sharp”; they couldn’t really answer my question & I was still searching for that “secret”. I was clueless to what exactly matters in a photograph, and actually thought that the iso400 film you buy at Walgreen’s was the way to go. Once though, I was at a pro photo shop, and wanted to try something new and bought the iso100 Fuji Reala, which ended up being my biggest breakthrough. I finally realized that in the photography world, the slower (smaller number) the film, the better the quality. I still, to this day, absolutely LOVE Reala; the colors and the skintones of this film are just amazing. It’s really hard to take a bad picture with that film. Since then, I only bought Reala and never went back to the less expensive films. To be honest, I think my 2010-11 editing style is a product of shooting with that film, since my pictures tend to be colorful, contrasty, and sharp – exactly the look I got with Reala. I guess it would make sense to completely switch to film instead of trying to edit to the film look, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for me. Shooting up to 5000 pictures a wedding, I’ll go broke shooting on film
Here are some of my film shots. They are scanned very poorly, so don’t judge the quality too much, but trust me – in print they look better than 95% of the digital camera’s images.
And yes, that’s actually me in the white (picture above). Yes we are cool. Haha. Not really. But look at those skintones! The guy on the left is a friend of mine Alex who is also a photographer, actually. We kind of started this whole photography thing together. First, both shooting on film, and later when he bought a digital camera, we both started playing around with Photoshop and all that fun stuff. I think once you just discover the tools of Photoshop, you end up making the most ridiculous edits that you think are ‘cool’, but are actually nothing short of a disaster. The funny thing is that I remember how proud I was of my ‘retouching skills’ back then. If you ever think you’re not a good photographer and you feel bad about yourself, I encourage you to come to this post and look at how I used to edit. It should give hope to anyone out there. So here they are, my first Photoshop edits (some of the edits were done by Alex. We both sucked back then):
Well that was bad. It’s obvious that we had to improve. So we did. But it wasn’t an overnight kind of deal. Imagine this – we look at our work and see that it’s nothing like what the cool ‘professionals’ are doing, and the worst thing about it is that we have no idea what we are doing wrong. How do I make my pictures better? Do I need a new camera? Is it that our pictures suck because our cameras don’t have enough megapixels? Is there some Photoshop effect that makes pictures look real nice? Is there a special lens that I don’t know about? Is it something about the lighting? Or maybe there’s just some ‘photo secret’ that would instantly fix all my problems? I think most photographers go through this phase of not knowing, which is the worst phase of all. Thankfully, through countless hours learning from youtube videos, articles, forums, other photographers, tutorials, and most importantly – trial and error, I was able to figure out what exactly it is that makes a picture ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly’.
One of the things we did, the way we learned, was to have these weekly competitions, where we would submit a picture to photo.net and see how high we got them rated. Ratings were like points; we would add them up at the end of the year and then see who won. To be honest, I could never win; I don’t know why. Always lost. It was a really great learning experience though. I really encourage anyone who is getting into photography to do something like this with their peers. It will force you to be creative and push yourself to the limits. But anyways, here are some of the few shots from those competitions. Shot on a digital camera this time:
Early in those years I received a great amount of help from a good friend Vitaly Druchinin, who was the only legitimate Russian photographer I knew. He rarely photographs anymore, but is now busy with Life Pixel, Photoshop DVDs, and his family. He is probably the biggest influence in my skin retouching, providing me with free lessons; he’s really top notch at this, since he often retouches close-ups for high end fashion. Really a genius and an amazing person.
Another photographer that has had a great influence in the early years is Joey L, who is very famous now. Many of the photoshop things I learned were from his Photoshop tutorials.
Well it was the end of 2005. Our wedding videography company has dissolved, and I found myself without a job. So I put the two together (1) I know weddings & (2) I know photography = I should try wedding photography. So on January 26th 2006, exactly 5 years ago I flew out to Fresno for my very first photography wedding shoot. I rented two 5D’s, a bunch of lenses, and…..did a pretty good job actually, which is still very surprising. Here are some of the shots of that wedding (these are album spreads actually):
Well I haven’t shot that many wedding that year; you know, it was my first year. And I was still just starting out college, and things like that. It wasn’t really time for “full time” work. But it was something; a start. Because you got to start somewhere. Here are some more from the same year:
To be honest this is the least memorable year. I think I photographed something like 5 weddings, I was still full time in college, and in general this wasn’t really a big year for me photography wise. I guess I was just still experimenting and learning. As you’ll see in the following pictures, the style was a bit dark…a big contrast from today’s style. You kind of have to see Joey L‘s influence here.
2008 was sorta of the “breakthrough” year for me. I launched my website finally, that looked like this:
As you can see the website and the branding was quite dark. It did it’s job though, and got replaced only in Spring 2010, which to be honest feels like forever now.
In 2008 I think I photographed something like 12 weddings, which was a lot for me, considering the fact that I was still in school full time. The two things that played a huge role that year were (1) prime lenses and (2) editing with textures. I don’t think I’ve edited many pictures without textures that year. It was just texture heavy (thanks to the famous Jesh de Rox, who influenced the whole world with his editing style). I’m not so sure there’s so much to say about this year, but there’s is quite a bit to show. So here it is:
2009 was just a busy year. First, I finished school. I got a degree in Mathematics & Philosophy. Yep. They have nothing to do with ‘art’ and ‘photography’. I think this should be another point of encouragement for any photographer. I don’t believe I am ‘naturally’ gifted as an artist. My natural inclination is logic, not wishy-washy art, and feelings, and all that. I have never sang, drawn, or played any instrument in my life. I’ve always been masculine and into sports. And here I am, taking pictures of pretty girls, flowers, and dresses; and people say I do a good job. Well, the point is – I don’t have what people call “talent”, I don’t think. The way I learned to take good photographs was through lots of practice and just a love for a beautiful image. When you care enough about pictures, you will stay up all night trying to figure out how a certain editing style is done, or which lens is best for portraits, or anything else like that. You don’t have to be a feminine, gentle little boy to take sweet & pretty images. You can stay yourself. In fact (this might be shocking to most of the readers), many of my favorite shoots were edited to some really rough music. For example the pretty Miss CA shoot was all edited to Rammstein’s “Ich Will” playing really loud. (Before you think I’m a freak, I also want to say that I love, and often play, songs like Kate Nash’s ‘Nicest Thing’, Phoenix’s ‘Consolation Prizes’, and Peter Broderick’s ‘Below It’). Anyways, back to the point – be yourself. Don’t think you have to fit a stereotype of a herbal tea drinking photographer that grew up in a family of painters. I didn’t.
Since I finished school, I guess this was the official “full time” year for me and I shot quite a bit of weddings – over 20. I had some amazing weddings that year, whose images are still in my portfolio. One of the things I remember in this year very clearly, is working on my Pentium 4 computer, which I built in 2001. It was REALLY slow. I don’t know how I managed, but I edited all those weddings on a computer that is 20 times (literally) slower than what I use now, with a tiny screen, and just in general an extremely slow thing. If anything, that year really taught me patience.
Probably the biggest influence this year was Kevin Swan, who helped me understand that what matters in a business is a ‘brand’, not how good or bad of a photographer you are. This was big because like every artist, I always put emphasis on making the best pictures, thinking that it’ll also help me grow my business. But the truth is that although being a great photographer is something one should strive for, it won’t help your business unless your brand is also strong. In short, I learned this sad truth: “People hire you not because of how good you are, but because of how good they think you are”. This is when I got in touch with Lara Casey, who transformed my brand and site in 2010. More about that later in the post.
Gabe McClintock was also a big influence this year. I consider him one of the best in the world. His eye is like no other; he sees things others don’t. He really has an amazing, unique style that is almost impossible to copy. Always makes you think deep about all the photos he takes. I’m grateful to have been able to meet him at the end of 2009 and have a drink with him.
Here are some of the favorites from 2009 (by the way the first image of the flower girl is basically my favorite of all time. Although it is simple, I love it more than any other I took):
Well 2010 was a BIG year in so many ways. First, I rebranded of course. Instead of the dark and gloomy site, I got the 2010 ready white and gray, happy and friendly. Big, big thanks to Lara Casey and Flosites for making it happen. I love the brand, website, and blog still as much as when I just launched them.
It was also a big year for my work. I finally settled on one style of photography and editing, instead of being all over the place all the time (biggest influence here would be Jose Villa). The editing is now consistent: colorful, soft, smooth – similar to the way Fuji Reala Film looks – what I started shooting with years before. The more I photograph and edit this way, the more I like it actually. I’m still not ‘bored’ with this style, and I don’t think I’m going to get bored any time soon.
I am very grateful to have been published on such blogs as Style Me Pretty, Southern Weddings, June Bug Weddings, The Loveliest Day, Every Last Detail, and Flosites.com. And also, to have my first ever “print” feature in Southern Weddings Magazine. My image is the one on the right side; the large picture of the bride looking down.
Tilt-shift lenses were a bit of a hit this year too for me (thanks to the aaaaamazing Sean Flanigan and the already mentioned Gabe McClintock).
Traveling and teaching is also what I did quite a bit this year. I haven’t been out of the country for 14 years, and all of the sudden I got to visit Mexico and Brazil, which were amazing experiences. Teaching is really one of my passions, and I’m grateful to be doing that more this year. Mexico City is the next workshop (in June 2011), to be announced soon.
And finally, there are all the people that I met and became my “photo” friends this year, and have influenced me so much. In no particular order: Ross Tanner, Sasha Leahovcenco, Alex & Diana Shik, Max Lopatin, Yana Krikov, Eleanor Petry, Anastasia Marie, Kae Z, Andrey P, Mikhail Glabets, Yuriy & Julia Manchik, Lucas Mobley, Lara Casey, and many others that I don’t have time to mention.
I shouldn’t post too many images from 2010, since I already made this post earlier, but I’ll post just a couple:
I’m not sure how long I will last as a photographer. I can’t just “settle in” and shoot weddings half bored. I always need to strive for something new, to be the best, to try the hardest. And doing that (trying your best) takes sooooo much energy. I don’t know how much more energy I will have. Hopefully it’ll last a while. Maybe not. We’ll see. It’s been a good ride so far, and I’m super thankful for what I have…..what I have been given. I’m really thankful to all the followers, all the ‘fans’ for the support. It’s really hard to sit in front of a screen for hours upon hours if nobody ever cares for your efforts; and thankfully I have received so much great feedback over the years, and it’s really one of the things that helps me to go on. To finish off, here are some of the life and photo lessons that I’ve learned over these years:
(1) It doesn’t matter how popular or “cool” you think you are – you are still a human being like everyone else. Don’t let your pride cloud the view of reality – we are all on the same level. The kid that is hungry tonight is not less worthy than you; same goes for the 55 year old that works 9-5 at a construction job to feed his family. Whatever good you have in life, don’t make the mistake of crediting it to yourself and your efforts.
(2) Your photography is largely a product of the things you see. So look at and look up to the best in the world; set your standards high. If you only look at your peers all the time, you’ll think that you are doing a pretty good job and you’ll feel good about yourself, but you’ll never grow. If you look at photographers like Sean Flanigan, The Image is Found, Perspective Eye, Ben Chrisman, and Jose Villa, then you’ll see where you need to grow. The downside, however, is that you’ll often be depressed. You’ll never be happy with your work, and often you’ll want to quit…..because looking at such amazing photographers and comparing them with yourself, you’ll see that you…just…suck. But that’s alright. You’ll grow. So look to the best. Learn from them.
(3) Be patient and invest in the future. Think ‘long term’, not ‘short term’. Don’t buy that lens; invest in a brand (To pay for my website, I sold two of my lenses). Don’t buy a fancy phone (I have a $20 phone, actually) if you know you need to take a photography workshop or buy a dvd to learn some business skills. Buying lenses is not “an investment”, even though I hear it said all the time. Don’t fool yourself; buying equipment is never “an investment”. An investment is only that which makes your business grow. You will not have more clients because you bought a 50mm 1.2 instead of the 1.4. Whenever anyone writes or calls me and says “I want to become a photographer, what kind of camera should I buy?”, my answer is always – “the cheapest you can find”.
(4) Be grateful for what you have and don’t play a victim. You live in the best country in the world. No matter where you’re at, be grateful.
