Photo Main
Galleries:
People
Nature
Action
Misc.
Photography
I started taking photographs (as almost a full time hobby) somewhere in 2000, at the age of 24.
Although I always appreciated photography, I already lived in a time when the size and convenience of
point-and-shoot cameras where hard to resist. It was only at late nineties after trips to Brussels and
to the Mount Athos in Greece that I finally get pissed with
ability of these cameras and quality of their photographs. Then I started using an old camera
made by Praktika -
an excellent manufacturer from East Germany that just disappeared together with Berlin wall;
I would really like to know what happened to them. Initially, I used the camera with a 50 mm lens,
and at the time I was perfectly happy with it. Later, I switched to Nikon and I got more equipment.
Since it is expensive hobby, my movement to US had a very positive impact on my photography.
Nowadays I am more concentrated on what I want to do, not that much on what I can afford to.
Everything I have learned about photography, I did it
pretty much through a trial-and-error system without any
formal coursework. It would probably be better if had some, but now I'm a bit too old for that...
Nevertheless, I find it very helpful just to browse photo books with works of master class artists; one
can learn really much just by looking on how do they frame, set and emphasize important things.
The same is true for works of famous painters - since they start with white canvas, and they are
completely in control of all the things, they always have perfect composition, subject-background
harmony, and not a single unnecessary or disturbing object. While in photography you almost never have
such a control (sometimes you just cannot omit the stupid pole with wires), it's good to
know how something should look like in the ideal case.
At some point I was also subscribed to a few photography magazines, but I didn't find them very useful,
just annoyingly overloaded with ads.
While I like photography in general, I found myself taking more and more photos of the people.
I do like to go outside and visit new and interesting places, and do nature photography, but I
never get excited with it as much as with photographing people. I guess the reason is that, to
some extent, I feel the nature is more persistent, and if you miss a great sunset on some mountain -
well the sun will be setting there for next few billion years, so you can have your chance again.
People, on the other hand, have events that often don't repeat themselves and show emotions
that can change instantly, thus you have to be able to capture the right thing in a split second.
Plus people tend to grow older.
Last three years I have been spending summers in Los Alamos - a small town in American Southwest.
The town itself is as boring as it can get, and the quality of social life is similar to the
one in a nuclear submarine (while submerged), but it's located in the northern part of New
Mexico, a region full of contrasts. I find New Mexico to be the most photogenic place I've ever been;
the country itself has a long history and tradition, with diverse people and cultures, dynamical
geography and skies that are almost always full of contrasts. Here one can find around 500
Indian tribes which still keep their traditions and live together with Hispanics and white people.
Or mountains with great ski centers and hostile deserts within 100 miles from each other.
Around one half of all photographs on this web site are taken in New Mexico.
Equipment
Right now I have a film camera Nikon N80, and a digital one - Nikon D70. Both have essentially
the same characteristics, the main difference being in the medium of course. Both I find very
user friendly, powerful, and reliable. Neither of them is cheap, yet still they give even more
than what you expect from a camera in their price range. My outfit consists of two Sigma
lenses, a 28-80 and a 70-300 (on 35mm), SB-600 flash and a polarizing filter. The polarizer is
a great thing, but might be tricky;
for example, most of my photos in the last few years are from New Mexico and the
sky there has already such a strong contrast that adding polarizer is a certain way to overexpose clouds
(or underexpose everything else), at least on digital cameras that usually have
dynamical range of around 8 stops. I might be wrong, but I think the only two filters one
should use with a digital camera are polarizer and neutral density filter.
Effects of all others seems to be easy to achieve in postproccessing using
Photoshop.
As far as the battle film vs. digital goes, my rational opinion is that two mediums are just
different, in the same way water colors are different than oil colors.
There are situations where one has clear advantage over the other, thus one should use both.
However, in reality, I have not used film after I bought my D70.
 |
 |