lights and curves

Experience with a real (I mean now hired and paid) model. Blonde one was from Russia, being in US for about three weeks, barely speaking English, so with my poor level of broken Russian I was able to navigate her. And for those who will immediately ask - no, my significant one wasn't with me and yes, she knew what I'm going to shoot! I was actually with a bunch of other photographers, including women too! ;)

Cool experience with lights, flashes, pocket wizards, remotes etc...!

cycas plant in focus!

Still in a macro mood over the weekend: we were also shooting this lovely Cycas plant, we have on our patio (it is actually an abandoned Cycas, which my significant one decided we adopt ;) New, beautifully curly leaves appeared so we set up quickly our small studio, grabbed the macro lens and a water sprayer and ... voila!

And just to make sure, I cannot take all credit for those below, we share them equally with Monika.

100 decibels neighbors (aka invasion of cicadas)

Well, they are everywhere. At the beginning we only noticed empty ugly shells at the trees. Then first ugly bugs. Then disturbing noise, lately changing to unbearable noise! There are thousands of them only in our garden. Millions in our area. Cicadas  As we googled out on wikipedia, they are digging out from the ground every 13th years (!), they are more or less harmless, and they'll live only a few weeks. In the middle of the July they should be gone. OK, but they are still extremely ugly and when one of them will sit on your shoulder.... ghrrrrrr!
But we have to give them a bit of the credit. They are beautifully colorful and kinda photogenic. Especially under a macro lens. PS: Now we know where Aliens and Sigourney Weaver got inspiration for their mutual friend! ;)
PS: updated with a "behind the scenes" picture.

kingdom house makeover

Nestle Purina Petcare Pride day dedicated to St. Louis Kingdom House makeover. Unbelievable what a few hands can do within a few hours . Lucky me, I could be the part of it and my role was to capture it all.
And on the top of it, I've got a fantastic opportunity again to take a pictures in the unusual and so photogenic place. So apart the photo reporting I've taken a few just for myself. Full gallery is available here.

water sculpturing

We've got about an year ago a cool photo tip for a very bright sunny day. And this weekend was the right time and conditions to try it out. So we set up an outdoor studio and started to craft our sculptures. A little bit of playing (OK, a lot of selection and then a little bit of playing) in the PS in the evening - and here it comes - our BATTLE OF THE TITANS! ;)

photo trip to st. louis downtown

It's not a secret that St. Louis downtown is not the most inspiring place on the earth. But it can be a pretty wildy colorful and photogenic. Especially if you are looking for the wild angles and dark arches (not the Arch ;), right below the bridges and next to graffiti wall... Just a 5 minutes wallking from my office - and hour and half with my fellow photo club colleagues on a pretty clouded Thursday afternoon. Full album can be found here.

Well, this is also part of the st. louis downtown. apx. half a mile from famous the Arch.

printed big!

Voila! Today, I've found out, that one of my picture from the last year company event "Petcare pride day" has been printed pretty big and is now at the show next to our company store... 

Next to the store. Don't blame the blackberry quality! :)

korea

Second trip to Korea. Now with a weekend spent there - so the opportunity to explore a bit more then just a surrounding of the hotel. A bit of shooting on Saturday and on Sunday I couldn't miss opportunity to go and see North Korea. Well, all what I've seen from North Korea was a flag. I was in DMZ (demilitarized zone). Pretty weird place. More pictures will be coming soon.

peace in the DMZ

exhibition for a good cause

Together with other folks from our photoclub we are donating about 30 our pictures to a silent auction and all our colleagues can bid on them. All raised amount will go towards several charity organizations. Coolest part of this event is, that all our pictures (10 mine and monika's) are professionally displayed in the lobby for the next three weeks. Serious exhibition... :)  Update: Auction finished and our club raised $1683, out of which my and monika's pictures contributed by $823...

death and alive (aka death valley, california)

What a place! I think I can say I've traveled a lot, but what I have seen in Death Valley - that was breath-taking. Within a few square kilometers you can find mountains, sand dunes, deepest place on the north hemisphere, moving rocks... There is no mobile phone signal and GPS will usually gets you lost ;) And on the top of that - sleeping deprivation! Waking up at 4am to pick up my beloved camera left in the desert for star-trail shots and still shooting at 1.30am in the night (21 hours later) in the Ghost Town, in the middle of nowhere. After a while of processing, the best of Death Valley full gallery is here.
Fun, fun, fun! Thanks Scotty and Jenny for support...