So, we wanted to introduce to you not a very typical photo shoot style. Based on journalistic concepts, “life style” photography is mainly photographer’s attempt to show and accentuate the natural expressions that happen in everyday of a family, couple or an individual. Its kind of a new thing for us and we were pretty happy to have an opportunity to do this. And its becoming more and more popular all across the photographers’ world.

Tyanikov family is definitely one of a kind. We were thrilled to be able to work with them, to show off their uniqueness, and self expression. Hopefully, by looking through these images you will be able to sense how this wonderful family lives in a peaceful harmony, and how warm and loving their relationships are.

Btw,  Olya runs a super cute blog! check it out

Happy summer everyone! We hope all of you will enjoy long, sunny days and hopefully some vacation time.

Below are the photos from Sarah and Kimon’s wedding. It took place here in Fresno, at the Grand 1401. A wonderful celebration of love was very well complemented by  the venue, great people and a happy, sunny day. Take a look:

A beautiful couple , a wonderful wedding! It was fantastic. The whole feel of it: so earthy. The wedding day of Jeremy and Lindsey took place at Shaver Lake, CA. The style they chose was very well complemented by the scenery and surroundings of Shaver Lake area. And we absolutely loved the romance and love that filled the day around them. It was truly a beautiful day. I must mention, it wasn’t typical to have freezing temperatures in the end of May, here in California. Yet, it felt like it only got the day going, and, with all the blankets, fire and great movement on the dace floor, it only made it great. So, cheers to Jeremy and Lindsey. Take a look at these:

So, in the series of personal posts, as I promised before, I’ll try to look back at our journey in photography and talk about some of the major things that influenced us as artists and/or as a business. I’m not quite sure in what format to do it yet. It probably would be more interesting for you and simpler for me, to do it in a chronological story-telling format – we’ll see how it goes.

To be honest with you, its kind of hard to decide on where to begin from. On one hand, we haven’t had any serious exposure to photography at any other points in our lives other than, when Yana got her first DSLR. But on the other hand, it feels to me like every bit of experiences in our lives forms who we become, and influences our lives for years to come. So, having that in mind, I’ll rewind the tape a few years back and will begin our story with a quick description of how we got to the point of facing photography as a possibility as a career.

I know it won’t be the first time I will mention this, but I must thank God for blessing me so much and my wife for being so ambitious. If not her challenging my standards and worldviews, I don’t think we would be where we’re at now. She was the one who thought me how to dream and ask questions like “why not?” or “why can’t we do it?” So, on my side of the story it was pretty simple: I was a skeptical, hard working dude, who lived the life according to the “standard”. I don’t even know how to put it in words, but for some reason any job or a career that required creativity, or self expression, seemed to me as unreal – impossible to do for “normal dudes” – only for specially gifted – super talented – with a lot of connections – rich parents’ kids – type of careers. And when Yana for the first time popped the question of becoming a photographer, I sarcastically laughed and said something like: “well, real photographers can create art with any camera. So I would suggest to practice on the disposables”. That was me back then.

Now, Yana’s side of the story was quite different. Finding a job as a school photographer triggered her interest in photography. And that’s when she found NYIP(New York Institute of Photography). It was more of a “very well detailed manual instruction on how to take great photos”, rather than a “photography as an art” type of school. But it did it for us. That’s when we learned how the “mechanics” of photography work, and then moved on with developing our vision on our own.

So, many beginning photographers, like us back in the days, would ask a question then: “Should we, or should we not get formal education in photography?” I’m not sure about a degree (sometimes I feel like its a waste of time), but in my opinion, if you don’t have anyone you know, or any of your relatives, who know what to do with a professional camera, you should consider taking at least a couple of classes, just to understand the basics of how the camera works and how to read the light. It is true, we didn’t get nearly as much info from NYIP as we learned on our own along the way, yet those lessons were the foundational base of knowledge for us to push off of. Unfortunately, when we were entering the industry, a few photographers we knew weren’t too friendly and no one would care enough to help us out, so for us this worked well and after all, we’re happy we did it.

And so that this post would not be completely boring, here is a few recent photos from behind the scenes. Check it out:

These two are truly in love! It was quite a pleasure for us to photograph their wedding. The bottom point is love and relationships inspire us, and that’s what this wedding was about. The whole thing was full of wonderful, kind and honest people, celebrating the beauty and the purity of love. Below are just a few from our favorites. Take a look:

I love the idea of having 2 dresses on your wedding day! so here is dress number 2 :)