IDROPPHOTO

Fresno-Art Hop

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:22:02 +0000

This was the first ever time when we had a privilege to display our work at the local show called Art Hop. It was totally last minute thing. We were contacted by “The Loft Gallery” on Monday, and by Thursday we already had all our prints mounted and ready to be displayed. Btw, if you any photographers are looking for a great and awesome photo lab, we would definitely suggest White House Custom Colour (WHCC). They are really quick and have an amazing customer service – we were impressed.

We’ve never done anything like that before, so we didn’t really know how many people were going to show up, what they are going to say, and what we should talk about. But it turned out to be fantastic. We were so impressed with the amount of people that came to visit us there and all the great feedback we’ve received on our work. Of course, chocolate chip cookies, appetizers and wine added more comfort to the settings and let us enjoy great experience of showcasing our work.

So, we wanted to thank Luke Moritz for having us at his place and helping us display our prints. We really appreciate it and are looking forward to do things like that more often.

here is what was going on that evening…

Morro Bay Engagement: Jonathan & Stacey

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:24:43 +0000

Today I was feeling a little homesick. After all, I haven’t visited Russia since I came here and once in a while you get a strong urge to go back to the place where you grew up. Just to entertain you a bit, here is a few interesting differences between Russia and US, according to my past :

1st: you can go to college in Russia after completing 9th grade. However, if you finish 11yrs in school, then you will only need 2 yrs in college to get your BA.

2nd: some students in schools are very creative in ways to cheat in classrooms, I would even consider it to be art

3rd: typical speeding ticket was nearly 90 rubles, which is 3 dollars

And these photos are from a very scenic engagement photo-shoot of Jonathan and Stacey. This place is somewhere near Morro Bay, Ca – and of course we had to drive a bit to get there, but it was totally worth it. In fact this was the very place where this couple got engaged – so, this session must have been very special to them. And to be honest with you, being there and seeing all the beauty around it, I wanted to propose to my wife again – it “sorta” moves you

Fresno Engagment Session – Shannon & Chris: Engaged

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:14:19 +0000

Earlier this year, I have blogged about one of the hobbies of my past – I used to be into collecting coins. If you missed it and interested to read it, you can try to find it on our blog here under “my coins” tag. Well, this time I wanted to tell you about another of the hobbies of my past, which was poetry. I pretty much was in love with (and still am, maybe not as much though) good quality, Russian poetry. To me, a good poem consists of a great idea, rhythm, and rhyme. Its kind of frustrating to me to look at modern poetry and see great topic/theme and rhythm and no rhyme. Most people won’t agree with me on that. And I think it comes from me being used to Russian language. Its a very rich language with nouns that can have seven different endings depending on the sentence structure. That makes it much easier to rhyme, and in fact poems that don’t rhyme are called “white”.

I guess, all of that wouldn’t matter much and most people wouldn’t care, if that wasn’t a big part of our love story. When I proposed to my wife, I wrote a two page poem with a proposal line being the very last one – which of course had the shock effect. Yana was speechless and I had to wait a little while for an answer ) It was “yes” )

And these images are from a beautiful engagement session here, in Fresno, CA. Chris and Shannon have an amazing love story and are both very romantic and loving. We’re honored to be witnesses of their wedding day as their photographer…

feel free to leave your feedback…

Portland/Seattle trip

admin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:47:50 +0000

And these are from our recent trip to OR/WA. We really enjoyed a break from scorching heat of Fresno and dry, yellow look of central California. Its beautiful up there – so green and refreshing! Check these out:

Igor & Tanya

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:01:21 +0000

Recently, Yana and I took a trip up North to visit Portland, Vancouver, and Seattle. It was a great opportunity for us to take a break from everything (even from our kids:) and enjoy the time together, the freedom of doing whatever you want! Many times in the past we would take I5 all the way up to Seattle and back, never stopping by anywhere else. And this time we had a great chance to check out the great city of Portland. We really enjoyed it. We left it being amazed and with a lot of sweet memories to draw us back there again – we were simply stunned and impressed! Of course, without great guides (adorable couple that we met in Vancouver – Igor and Tanya), we probably would never see the places we enjoyed so much, so thanks to them.

And second best part of our trip was meeting this fantastic couple – Igor and Tanya! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such authenticity in a relationship as the one they have. They’re not afraid to express their feelings and its beautiful to watch. It was our great pleasure to work with them – everything they did was so effortless and felt so natural, as if love belonged to them…

Amy & Inessa,BFF’S

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:10:44 +0000

I think I have mentioned before a book by Don Miller “Blue like Jazz”. Absolutely fantastic read! If you’re like me, reading one book per decade, – this one is totally for you. Its really easy to read, it talks about very interesting subjects, and there is plenty of sharp humor included with all that. So, “Blue like Jazz” talks about spiritual growth and formation from completely different perspective. It doesn’t just give you a recipe on how to live out your faith, but walks you through the problems that every person faces. In other words, Donald Miller, on the example of his own life, explains how he was able to understand God better, and brake some bad, and sinful patterns in his life. Pretty fascinating stuff. One of the things that I remembered the most from it was his story about a confession booth they’ve set up at Reed University in Portland. If you haven’t read the book, you probably are thinking – what??? a confession booth at a UNIVERSITY??? yes. But they did it differently.Donald and his friends realized that there are a lot of people who’ve been hurt by religious people. So what they did was, instead of having people confess to them their sins, they confessed the sins of the Christian church to those who came in the booth. They were sorry for not loving them as Christ did, not caring enough, for crusades, hatred, selfishness etc. I thought it was so true. Often times we become so religious about our faith, creating a whole bunch of rules and customs that eventually leaves no place for Christ in the church – it becomes a religion. And following Christ was never meant to be religious – its poisonous, and contagious… That’s why we love The Well – a crowd of honest sinners who follow Christ with all their heart (with minimal judging).

And these girls, best friends, just finished college not long ago and are ready to face the realities of finding a job in this economy! Well, good luck Amy and Innesa – we wish you to stay good friends for years to come!

Album!!!

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:24:42 +0000

Its finally here! Well we’ve been wanting to share this beauty for a while, Let us introduce to you our studio sample wedding album. It is a 11×14 flush mount, custom designed and printed album by Renaissance. This thing is a pure joy! And with lifetime warranty guarantees a fantastic product for the rest of your life! Of course, to really appreciate it, you need to hold it in your hands…

Justin turned 1!

admin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:23:26 +0000

Today is August 1st – Justin’s Birthday. It is amazing how quick time flies. So many things happen in such a quick period of time, that it makes you wonder if days became shorter since you were a child. I remember it was an excruciating pain for me, as a kid, to wait till school is over and we could enjoy summer break – days went so slow. It seemed, back in childhood, time passed by so slow, that you will never become a teenager. It is all upside-down now. With every year flying by, it reminds us that we’re getting older and it looks like the 30s are not too far away now.

Of course its a happy day for us! Justin is now 1 year old. We’re very blessed to have such beautiful kids and are extremely excited for the challenges ahead of us, to raise them to become good people. So, if any of you, readers, waned to wish Justin happy birthday – you’re welcome to leave a comment…

And here is a couple of snaps from yesterday’s party:

Baby: Brielle

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:42:32 +0000

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…

Dima

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:52:45 +0000

This past Saturday felt great! Lately, I’ve been listening to Mark Driscoll’s series on Ecclesiastes. The whole book talks about life and all that you do being totally meaningless, and all you can do during this short period of time on earth is to take time and enjoy your meals, your wife and your friends. So, I tried it out on Saturday – and guess what? It totally works!!! There isn’t anything better than to cancel all the plans, work and take a day off. With absolutely no rush I could enjoy a slow morning eating breakfast with my sweet wife and adorable kids. Evening was just as relaxing – enjoying good red wine while watching a movie… priceless!!!!

Below are photos of Dima. Very cool and calm guy – single We had a blast taking photos in downtown right up to the point when we realized that it was an event night, and parking space is not free till 10pm. Yes, we did get a ticket – screwed up the whole thing, how sad!!!