A few days ago I accidentally found out that in November 2018 I won in the photo contest “How beautiful is this World – show!” by TV and Radio Company “MIR” (means “World” in Russian). Totally, there were announced six winners: three by the opinion of jury and three according to the votes of the Company’s web site visitors. I risk to seem immodest and vain, but to my mind, jury opinion in the contests is much more valued than votes of visitors. My experience of participation in lots of very different photo contests (Russian ones and other World’s as well) during more than 10 years tells exactly about it: in the overwhelming majority of cases, the winners by the opinion of site visitors do not reach by the level of their works even for fifty runners-up. Opposite, jury decision is almost always gives the win to really good works. So, my photo called “The Head of the Dragon” which I took in Crimea in Fall 2017 (it has already appeared here in my blog) won the 1st place by the jury opinion! I won’t hide that I’m very happy with this fact! Even though the organizers didn’t emphasis the difference between places. I guess you got a question: why I knew it accidentally? The point is that the results were published on the “MIR” Company’s web site and their group in Russian social media “Odnoklassniki” (means “classmates” in Russian). Both of these sites are not the places I visit often. To put it mildly. 🙂 Simply, about 10 days ago I suddenly logged in to my account in “Odnoklassniki” and found there a whole bunch of messages from the mentioned group’s admin. He congratulated me with this win and asked for my postal address to send the prize. To my joy, although I replied too late according to the contest’s rules, organizers still decided to send me the prize and I’m very grateful for that. So, I’m waiting. 🙂 The moral of this fable: never give up! Right at that moment when you finally drown in despondency and stop any struggle – right at that moment you need to show a little more patience and endurance, and a holiday will come to your street!...
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That’s what one of my regular customers told me about my work a couple of days ago. Only without interrogative and exclamatory intonations. Just affirmative. From surprise, I was just taken aback. Because I used to think that there’s always someone better than you in any activity. But here it is… The point is that this client have launched the new web site of his company. My photos of company’s products he collected and scrupulously selected during all our cooperation, and that’s more than half a year already. His web designer selected from the gotten bunch of images the most appropriate ones for site design (because, the photo can be even ideal at all, but inappropriate for the specific site). And he did it no less thoroughly. The same was about my photos which must present to the visitor samples of the company’s products. And suddenly, like snow on the head, the responses of the first two customers who entered to the site and then phoned and asked where they can see the photos of finished products! One of them, a professional interior designer (as she introduced herself) to their reply “You can see the photos on our web site”, she just refused to believe saying: “I know perfectly well what photographs look like, do not fool me! I make 3D-visualizations by myself and I do can distinguish them from photos!” As the saying goes: Curtain! Just don’t misunderstand me. I do not cherish the illusions about my level as a photographer. This level is quite high but I’m still very far from the leading masters. I know it because I study on their videos and courses. Furthermore, I follow the current trends and know the standards of the industry. Accordingly, an obvious explanation is that by 2018, in my country, the interior photography customers in general still have no idea about which photo is good and how much it should cost. And that’s sad. Therefore, I hope you, the visitors of my site, do not belong to the above. And if you’ve never asked before which interior photography truly good, you can read my articles about it here: “A few words about interior photography” and “Another few words about interior...
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After I finished the previous article (“A few words about interior photography“) and during my work with another order, I had a few more thoughts. Besides, I got the feedback on previous article. As a result, I decided to write some sort of addition with more detailed explanations and examples of good and bad interior photographs (according to readers wishes). First of all, I have to say that interior photography isn’t such an easy thing as many people think, including some professionals in other photography spheres (wedding pro, for instance). I do not mean that wedding photography is easier than interior one. Furthermore, I think that any activity performed at a high professional level is complicated itself and demands not only rich experience and different (often very expensive) tools, but also high working capacity, dedication and even intelligence. I just want to say that each field of applied photography has its own peculiarities and subtleties. And if you don’t know them, you won’t get the good result. For example, the wedding photographer automatically takes his flash when he comes into a room. But that’s good only for wedding shots. For interior photography, it’s a real evil and unprofessionalism (clarification: I mean the on-camera flashes, not the impulse light sources with diffusers and other caps). Why I think this way? Because in wedding photography, the people, and their relationships, and emotions are the objects. We can see them during just a moment. After a second, anything changes and we cannot restore the lost moment. And interiors, even the most beautiful ones, are just a background. So, we have to use a flash. In interior photography, on-camera flash is contraindicated, because firstly, it damages the light pattern and balance which were conceived by a designer to emphasize some room’s advantages and interior details. Second, flash will never give the equal amount of light for the all room: objects in front will be overexposed and, in distance, opposite – underexposed. Third, the flash always gives sharp, almost black shadows. Fourth, it makes too bright glares on glass and polished surfaces that are disadvantages too. Finally, fifth, the flash often spoils the colors of close objects and even, if the object is curtain, for instance, shines it through destroying the tissue density on the photo. Thus, there’s the opposite approach in the interior photography: even in the dark room, they don’t use a flash, and do use the long shutter speed (sometimes, more than 20 seconds) and it demands the tripod. I told enough about falling verticals in previous article. The only thing I can add is that the wedding photographer may not...
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