Experience with a real (I mean now hired and paid) model. Blonde one was from Russia, being in US for about three weeks, barely speaking English, so with my poor level of broken Russian I was able to navigate her. And for those who will immediately ask – no, my significant one wasn’t with me and yes, she knew what I’m going to shoot! I was actually with a bunch of other photographers, including women too! 😉 Cool experience with lights, flashes, pocket wizards, remotes etc…! And believe or not, this one is 14 years old! She was with her mum, being her guardian, agent and supporter whole the time. Same Russian girl as the one above, now with her face too…

Well, they are everywhere. At the beginning we only noticed empty ugly shells at the trees. Then first ugly bugs. Then disturbing noise, lately changing to unbearable noise! There are thousands of them only in our garden. Millions in our area. Cicadas  As we googled out on wikipedia, they are digging out from the ground every 13th years (!), they are more or less harmless, and they’ll live only a few weeks. In the middle of the July they should be gone. OK, but they are still extremely ugly and when one of them will sit on your shoulder…. ghrrrrrr!But we have to give them a bit of the credit. They are beautifully colorful and kinda photogenic. Especially under a macro lens. PS: Now we know where Aliens and Sigourney Weaver got inspiration for their mutual friend! 😉PS: updated with a “behind the scenes” picture. And this is a behind the scenes shot. “Studio” has been built inside, as even a slight wind made cicada very blurry. To our surprise, one of the two model was so shocked, that hold still for almost a 10 minutes!

Nestle Purina Petcare Pride day dedicated to St. Louis Kingdom House makeover. Unbelievable what a few hands can do within a few hours . Lucky me, I could be the part of it and my role was to capture it all.And on the top of it, I’ve got a fantastic opportunity again to take a pictures in the unusual and so photogenic place. So apart the photo reporting I’ve taken a few just for myself. Full gallery is available here. That was already my second chance to cover Pride day through my lenses and being able get to places, where I wouldn’t probable get a chance visit – see my previous blog.

We’ve got about an year ago a cool photo tip for a very bright sunny day. And this weekend was the right time and conditions to try it out. So we set up an outdoor studio and started to craft our sculptures. A little bit of playing (OK, a lot of selection and then a little bit of playing) in the PS in the evening – and here it comes – our BATTLE OF THE TITANS! 😉 Set up was actually pretty easy. White background, black surroundings (to get that nice black edges) – as you can see at the photos below. What you cannot see (as I’ve already packed it) was the camera on the tripod. Camera setup at f11, shutter speed 1/4000 (very bright day, I told you! :), ISO 200 (as low as possible). Monika was splashing and “moving” water (directly from the hose or throwing water around from the bowl, creative opportunities are endless) and I was shooting in continuous mode…  Battle of the titans is then composite of three different splashes.  Credit and thanks for inspiration to photojojo.

Voila! Today, I’ve found out, that one of my picture from the last year company event “Petcare pride day” has been printed pretty big and is now at the show next to our company store…  Next to the store. Don’t blame the blackberry quality! 🙂 Petcare pride day is a cool event, when we all dedicate one full working day for a work to community. last year we did makeover of few areas of the elementary school, located near our offices. What a pleasure to dedicated myself as a photographer and avoid hard working! 😉 Full photo album with “before and after” pictures can be found here. I have to say, thanks to my photo hobby I’m able to get to the places I wouldn’t probably get a chance to visit.(Elementary school downtown in St. Louis during a school day? Thrift store in the under privileged community center?) This week it’s actually next year event – on Tuesday I’ll be photo reporting in the local Community Center called Kingdom house, which is supporting St. Louis downtown people in needs for the over 100 years. More pictures to come.PS: And a little update – Kingdom House pictures are already here. Follow this link. … and here’s the original shot.