Baby: Brielle
We haven’t had baby sessions in a while. But for the past couple of weeks we managed to have two! Well, this is Brielle. She is an absolute model – she really did pose for us and was very calm during the whole photoshoot. It was a great pleasure meeting her parents, Joy and Joey ( Jo-Jo:), as well. Cute family and a super adorable baby. Check out their photos:
Brielle is so cute, of course everyone wanted to take pictures with her…
Tsytsyn Family
Yesterday, late evening, as we were driving back from Pismo Beach, I stumbled upon a thought that made me think about it up until now. I love driving with my family at night – its the time of peace and quiet. The kids are usually at sleep and Yana and I enjoy 2-3 hour conversations. Well, this time Yana had, from what I could tell, a terrible migraine, and talking was making her feel worse, so I was left alone with my head full of thoughts. I don’t know how its got there, but little by little I started thinking about the past, trying to compare how we are and how we were. And again, this whole thing made me realize how lucky of a man I am to be married to Yana. The thing is that by nature I’m a dreamer, but was raised in a very pragmatic family. Things that were beyond realistic for a given moment, often times weren’t considered at all – which isn’t necessarily bad for certain things. Unfortunately, pragmatism and art cannot exist together. Back in the days, I was astonished by the ability of my wife to have big dreams. I loved photography and respected photographers very much, but could never even think I could become one. So, I cannot thank Yana enough by questioning my standards and pushing me to start dreaming again. Dreams and hope kind of go together, don’t you think? If you don’t dream big, you have less hope – that’s how it works for us…
And below is a beautiful family of Denis and Nadya Tsytsyn. We had a privilege to photograph their maternity session. So now, meet little Mandea. They are a truly gorgeous family and it was a lot of fun taking their pictures.
Dimitrashchuk Family
This time we wanted to get you a little info on how we process our images. We get that question often, and wanted to explain how we do it and what we use to achieve final result. To process our images we use photoshop actions called Totally Rad Actions. We truly love them and believe that they underline our work greatly and are a great part of the look. Typically, we first upload images into the computer, pick the best ones, transfer the files from camera raw to TIFF format, and then begin the process of editing images. Maybe sometime later we will show you before and after samples, but for now look through the set of family images from Misha and Larisa’s photoshoot – great, and very kind people, and an awesome family, we cant wait until we hang out again guys!
Korchevoy Family
June for us is the beginning of a great, but very busy season in the year. Many things are coming up, deadlines and expectations that have to be met and we hope for a whole lot of fun in the process! So, having that in mind we needed some time off. About a week ago, we were able to visit our friends and relatives up in Sacramento. There were times in the past when we would come there as often as two or three times a month. And lately, with a tough schedule that we’ve got, its been very challenging to plan family trips. So it was great to visit Roman and Inna and our adorable nephews: Joseph and David. There is nothing more refreshing and fun that a couple of great evenings at Korchevoy’s dinner table – tons of laughter and great conversations.
After all, we were able to go out and snap a few shots here and there, which, by the way, wasn’t very easy with four little kids on us constantly requiring attention.
So, here are some of them:
Tofan Family
Hello everyone. I’ve got another one of those, great evenings in peace and quiet: kids are at sleep, work is done, no worries…. It feels so good when you meet all deadlines and nothing huge is planned ahead for a few of next days. So here I am writing another post… This time we wanted to encourage you, our faithful followers, to keep in touch with our blog. We would want you to do that for a couple of reasons. One of them, is that, for sure, there is a LOT of changes coming up in our business and we want your feedback. We can’t tell you yet what that is, but its gonna be awesome! And another reason would be a brand new contest that we’re planning to launch sometime soon!!! That’s right! Its just we felt that lately we’ve been getting a lot of referrals and great feedback from our clients and wanted to give back by launching a contest… So keep in touch with us to find out when, where and how…
And this is Tofan family. They’re great people, and their kids are almost exactly same age with ours. It was fun to interact with both of the kids, especially listening to all the cute sounds of excitement produced by the baby – David. Take a look at a few shots:
The Sever Girls
I’m taking a brake from my study to write a blog post. I’m part of the bible study class at our church called Residency Program. In a few words its a school year study program that was designed to grow leaders at our church. It is a very intense (from 6am to 7am from tue to fri) class through which we’ve covered a large part of old testament and a couple of books in the new testament. And just a moment ago i was studying for the test that is coming up in two weeks. As you can see, running photography biz is the way i choose to relax and take a brake:)
As you’ve probably guessed already, we love when our clients care about their photo shoots. It is cool to show up at the location knowing that all the outfits, styles and colors were carefully picked to create certain mood. We think its awesome and encourage everyone to be creative in that area. And that’s why we had a good feeling about this session. From the past two experiences with Severe family we could expect nothing less than awesome stuff! The whole idea was to have a fun and bright spring photo session with the girls, and as you see their cute little dresses totally underlined all of that. So take a look at some shots from the day….
Matt & Julie-Anne: Maternity
Today is March 24 – Nathan’s 4th B-day. The time flies unbelievably fast. I cannot believe that in a year or two our little Nathan will have to go to school. When I thought about it, I caught myself thinking about my first grade experience. I was extremely shy.(I was so shy, i couldn’t even ask to go to the bathroom 
It was back in 1991 (if i remember correctly) when we moved to Moscow from Ukraine. As I walked in my new class room for the first time every kid around me was saying something about the ball pens. Later I realized that the whole school system switched from ink pens to ball pens, and the kids were simply letting me know of that. So, as I was thinking about that time, I realized that it was probably the time when my dad was around my age 26-28. And i thought: “that is crazy! Nathan, right now, is probably looking at me in the same way as i looked, and adored my dad” Am I getting old, or something???
Anyways, lately we’ve had a lot of work piled up to process. So it took some time for us to finally get to post one of the latest shoots. I had a great pleasure meeting the Woods family. They were very kind and nice, and really fun to talk to. A couple of the images from this post were taking by Jane, who was kind enough to come out the last minute and assist me with the whole thing. Thank you very much Jane – she’s awesome guys!
So here you go , take a look:
Our getaway
Couple of weeks ago Emik and I took a trip to Monterrey with our 2 little munchkins. Oh, how we looooved that place!!! One day surely wasn’t enough to browse around the town, especially with 2 kids. So, we decided that we MUST take another trip, but this time WITH OUT our boys. Also, another great motivation to visit Monterrey and Carmel-by-the-Sea was to go crazy and take A LOT of photos. And that’s what we did. We met up with some friends to do a photo shoot, which will be in our next post…
One of the reasons why I absolutely love taking long trips is because I get to spend many hours driving with my husband, and talking alot about random things, such as why is there always so much trash around the carseats in our car, or how to improve our bussines,( wich I think is the subject we talk most about). For those who dont know Emik, he is a very smart guy, and I am a lucky girl to be married to him.
So, while we were driving, listening to iPod and talking, we got really inspired by listening to a podcast by pro photo show on the ideas of how to market your bussiness. It was very refreshing, convincing, and convicting. We understood a few key concepts and realized that there is many things that we still have to learn and that we need to change a few things in order to succeed… we will be working on that
but for now here is some photos from that day
this is Emik showing off in my sunglasses
Favorites of 2009
Today, after all the excitement and mess with the Holidays had passed, when all of that is way back in the rear view miror, we wanted to take some time and look back at the year of 2009. It is true that after some point in people’s lives, the years stop being so long. At some moment of our lives we stop telling everyone that you’re “fifteen-and-a-half” and with so little patience trying to look older, act older, and do what older people do. Rather, we wish that the time would stop flying by so quickly, hoping it would stop for a year or two, just to enjoy all the blessings that we have at the moment.
The year of 2009 was very different from the rest. If I would think of one word to describe it, that would be “GROWTH”. We grew in many ways. The most important, of course was the birth of our second son Justin. Our family is not small anymore. We could notice totally different dynamics in our relationships, which are both new and exciting.
Through this year, our trust in God’s provision elevated on completely different level. Of course it was painful. But it feels so good when you are totally sure that God will provide for you not matter what – not because you think so, but rather because you’ve experienced it many times, and further worry would only look foolish…
We also grew in our photography. It was a challenging year for us. We really tasted what it is to try running a business with having two little kids constantly wanting all of your attention. We got to admit that as photographers, we feel very vulnerable about our work. A lot of times we need an objective and honest opinion in certain things. And we were very glad to have friends like Vitaliy and Candace Prokopets, who, in times when we struggled, were very honest and supported us with their opinions and advice.
Besides that, we wanted to thank everyone who, in anyway, expressed any support or sympathy towards what we do – we really appreciate it. Thank you!!!
So, below are some of our favorite shots from 2009 that never made to the blog Enjoy:
The Swaim family
It is a second week of the New Year already. Many of you are still keeping your New Year resolutions, many of you don’t have one just cause you’re perfect and have nothing to change , and some of you, just like myself, have slipped only once, …….. Great, now you know that I’m not perfect:)
Well, in this New Year we are full of expectations and ambitions. We hope that many things will fall in their place and we’ll be able to do things differently with a whole new perspective. Probably the first step towards our goal is WPPI convention. We’ve already lost all hopes in going there this year and were pretty bummed about it. But just recently, God had provided me with the opportunity so great, that makes me go crazy every time I think about it. So, for now it looks like in March, I’ll be able to go – and that is totally cool!
Now, below is the Swaim family – our Autumn Pumpkin contest winners! enjoy…
Shultz Family
Here is the Shultz Family 4 months later, we met them last summer through the Wilkins Family , the photo shoot took place at an old warehouse in downtown Fresno, as we were challenged to try something different with the limited light, (we are not big fans of using flashes) and after all i think it turned out pretty cool …. aaannndd here is our favorites from the shoot!!
The Wilkins family
Here are our dear friends – the Wilkins family. Not too long ago they had their second girl Emery. She is totally a cutie-pie - we are going to try to betroth her with Justin
Erickson Family
There is an interesting perspective out there on how to value other people. It’s not necessarily a new concept, yet, in our self-centered, achievement based society, it has been very well ignored. It takes love and humility to look at a person as if he/she is a person – not someone whom we can use, abuse or compete against. When there is only grace, love and humility at how you approach people, you stop looking for faults, but instead, humbly realize that it is absolutely beautiful to be so different. In fact, it would be a great discipline if we all could look at other people and try to learn a great quality or two that they posses!
Now, turning our attention to the photographs, I must say that looking at and interacting with the Erickson family you could not miss and not enjoy their energetic and fun personalities. Loving life and having fun in the process was the one thing that we all could learn from them. It was as if we were recording their daily lives. The boys, as always, were acting silly, the kids were running away from their parents, and it seemed that the grand parents were enjoying it all!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Schott Family
We really enjoyed meeting Marshal, Laura and Hazel Schott. They are really cool and easy going people. It was one of those sessions when we could actually relax and do the compositions that we like. Here are our favorites from that day!
Sever Family
It is very exciting for us to finally have our new blog running. It still needs some work, yet its at a condition where we can start posting new photographs. We wanted to thank V. (Vitaliy Prokopets) for putting in some of his time to get us started on it. Because of a delay with it, we had a whole bunch of posts coming up. For now enjoy two of them and expect many more to come.
This is a Sever family. We already had a fun session with them before, and now they are back for some more… Thank you guys.
