The end of a year, traditionally is the time, when we can slow down and, finally, look back and realize what really happened within the past 12 months. Often times we assume that with more and more knowledge, advanced technology, and so called “time-saving” devices we can become more efficient with what we do, can accomplish more, and thus make more money to buy more of the “time-saving” devices (aka: iphones, ipads, computers etc) The result of this all is a chronic shortage of time and an extremely high pace of life. Having all this in mind, I caught ourselves having a tendency to live life thinking about tomorrow, rather than taking time and enjoying what we have today. Now, as I have more time to think about it, I find it priceless to wake up in the morning and enjoy every bits of what’s around us. In a blink of an eye, kids whining becomes cute, every little step of making espresso is especially enjoyable, freezing air becomes crispy fresh, and we can stop being so serious and maybe look at ourselves in a mirror and have a good laugh… For me, life started to make much more sense this way. And as I realize what we already have and what we’ve experienced this year – joy, happiness, and thankfulness are the three words that come to mind.

With this last post of the year we wanted all of you to get a glimpse of who we are and what we look like. We are Emik and Yana – proud parents of Nathan(the older one) and Justin, – most precious little people in our lives.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Thank you all for being supportive and so awesome!

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:

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, particularly about the years we’ve lived together with Yana. I couldn’t help but joyfully smile each time I would realize how amazingly blessed we are to do what we adore and love in life. Of course, it is wonderful to own a business, build your own schedule, be your own boss kind of things. And sure, those are nice byproducts of owning a business, but not even near its the focus of it. Yet, one of the biggest blessings in life  is to know how you’re wired and to be able to apply it in your life. And that of itself makes me feel happy.

To be honest with you, its not really that we knew photography would be our calling. We sort of stumbled on it as life did its unpredictable turns with us. And at first it was unbelievable and scary to invest into something that you aren’t sure of at all. In fact, when we first picked up a DSLR in our hands, we knew absolutely zero about anything in regards to photography as an art, or the equipment. I remember picking up a lens not even knowing how to read all that its written on it. It was really hard getting into photography. Besides constantly having a million of new questions about every single thing, we didn’t have absolutely anybody who would be nice and kind enough to share some of that information with us. So little by little, every bit of a thing we now do, we had to learn it on our own. Try things out, see what works and what doesn’t and simply rely on God and each other for support and strength to go on.

So, looking back at our journey and counting our blessings, we wanted to give back and share some of the valuable information, starting from the first days we owned a DSLR up until today. Surely, some of you are in the same boat as we were back in the days and through a series of many personal posts, we’ll be sharing bits and pieces of most important steps we’ve taken along the way.

Annnddd…. recently we took some time off and took a trip to Santa Barbara…here is just a few out of gazillion photos we took!

Hey there! This is our first personal post of the year! It was last week when we finally took our kiddos out to the snow. It was a very gloomy day in town and we didn’t know what to expect. But when we got to Shaver Lake, it was actually very nice: sunny and warm. Snow is fun, period! I guess there is something about water, even in the frozen condition, that brings fun for kids every time they get in touch with it. Take a look at these photos, and expect a New Year wedding post soon!

Its been some time since our last post. I’m sure all of you are busy getting last things done before Christmas. Its that time of the year and most people love it! We had quite a year so far with many posts written and thousands of photos taken. Its great to be able to look at the final product and enjoy it. But, if you’re curious (like us:) and like to see what we do  and how we shoot, we’ve created this post especially for you. Here is our little collection of random, behind the scenes photos – us in action :)

Tyler and Daley’s engagement session

Rob and Steph’s engagement session

Aaron and Brianna’s wedding

Nico and Alina’s wedding day

Igor and Tanya’s shoot from Portland, OR

Our recent engagement shoot: Chris and Katy

Nick and Theresa’s engagement shoot

Chris and Shannon engaged

Paul and Nata Married