Somebody suggested to put more pictures online

I've been told that I need to have much more work displayed on my website...

I kind of agree, but here's another point: after I take all these fun pictures that I do for work - 99% of them become ordinary to me. The only magic that's left is in that 1% and that 1% is kind of hard to categorize. It can be anything - from a flower to a complex setup or composition.

And so it becomes hard to judge which ones should I keep online. Uncategorized picks are not for portfolio, they are just my own personal collection of photos that I love - more suitable for Flickr or contests...
And the rest becomes a question of a simple technicality... this was done, this was how it was done, and this was who it was done for. *Yawn*. Boring a bit...

Dilemma. :)

The case with this young lady is different. I am fascinated with dance - movement and shapes capture all my attention and turn me into a lab retriever who's so excited that even his tail starts a life of it's own. I squeal and jump, fall on my knees and get on top of the chair, the camera grows on me... and I stop only when a physical sensation of body being tired from tension tells me to.

This is probably why I enjoy the pictures I took for her so very much... they are all emotional to me.

More can be seen on my Flickr page.

Rooftop access!

Norah Jones gently humming from my speakers, freshly brewed coffee on the table, and one-on-one time with photoshop make any rainy morning perfect for me. Especially after such a perfect weekend when I had no work done - absolutely.
Rain blew my shoot in Manhattan on Sunday and I happily stayed home, did book report with our son, went to WholeFoods (always a happy thing), Home Depot (got some stuff to finish up the studio - cheers to that, huh...) and a bunch of other things that can never wait.

Now that those things are done, I can dedicate myself to reality of working towards having everything "Established" on the photography side. Still a lot of things to do, and even though I'm much closer to the desired state of mind than I was a year ago - in the past few months nothing has changed much, except that I got much much busier, and there was no time to actually finish the studio and hold an open house (studio-warming) party :).

But that's coming up soon! Stay tuned and if you'd like to be on the list - join my network on Facebook and/or LinkedIn.

And this is what I wanted to show you, aside from a very talented model - Boris - who I had enormous pleasure to work with... you can check out what we see from the roof of the Neumann Leathers building.

Have a fantastic day :)
Wherever you are.

IFFPC networking and conference...

I certainly hope that some of the fellow filmmakers are reading this blog (especially the guys I met this past weekend - HI THERE!!!) - because I'm on a ride home from one of the most amazing film networking events I've ever been to. Not that I've seen too many, but I certainly have attended quite a few.

Because it certainly has been the most productive experience yet. AND because I learned a ton about budgeting, planning, funding& financing, taxes, legal pitfalls and other cool things. Business things. Things you don't learn simply dreaming. Things that were taught by very experienced practitioners in film industry.

Being interested in film production as their stills photographer is one thing, but at this point I'm involved in a very exciting project as a (wow!) a real filmmaker! I'm thinking about budgets, locations, production, crew, cast, investors, distribution and the whole thing. The details are to be revealed a bit later *wink*, as this post is not about that..

What I want to say is that it seems almost worthless to me now to go out to a networking "party" or similar type of networking scene. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but it has just been so much more productive in terms of networking. At the "party" there is always more people than I can REALLY remember in such short period of time; I almost never know who exaxtly I'm approaching - actor? Producer? Investor? Or may be it's a completely unrelated contact who decided to crash the event and will add to the spam in my email folder?

At the conference scene you sit in the same classroom, share same questions and at the end of the day have a strong feeling about who you need to talk to, and it is possible to even set up a breakfast meeting the next day, because you both are energized by new information, and can't wait to share what you learned with others.
Whether it is section 181 or tax refunds, international co-producers or film packaging, festivals or distributors...

Information you learn makes you so much more valuable to your network, and chances are - you might be able to do someone a pretty big favor by sharing pieces of it here and there.

That said, here is this conference's website. Brian Coposky is the ONLY organizer of this past one - he's done the seemingly impossible - all by himself! I hope next time he'll have a team to help. Hear Brian? Ask me when you need help next time as well - I'm in, my friend. I'm always in to help with a "win-win".

They had it in New York this time, biggest chunks of it were absolutely FREE, I'm sure that won't repeat again, as the costs need to be covered in order to maintain the event on a semi-annual basis. The next one will be in September in LA, and hopefully they will do it in New York again next year.

Tips that I picked up even in simple corridor conversations are invaluable - you won't find that stuff anywhere.

This is why I want to go back to a real school - real lectures, real people, relationships, conversations and mutual interests - yeah! Co-creation. Last time I took a virtual course was exactly what it was - THE LAST time I did that :).

I hope this will inspire you to get out there and meet all these exciting people - I thing you can't find anything more valuable and interesting in life anyway

Have a fanta-graphic (fanta-graphistic?) day!~
Irina

PS: look out for the pictures from the conference

My son's pictures

Being a true photographer's son he took hundreds of pictures :). I took it upon myself and selected 27 out of them, including a few of me (finally! My look is documented in history)

These are a few of them:

And a full selection is viewable on my flickr stream.

Learning from my 6 year old...

I was in town today for an assignment and had my son with me. To keep him entertained I told him he can be a photographer too and have fun. Gave him my small (but pretty good) point and shoot, showed how to use it, shortened the straps a little and off he went.

I did my shots, he did his, we went to eat and on a ride home he showed me his photos.... I was floored with what I saw.

You be the judge, I will post his images shortly - these are just some of my snaps from our walk, but being inspired by "The Sandpit" (c) Sam O'Hare, I couldn't help :)

What keeps amazing me is that in 6 years of living here near the city, most of the stuff I discovered was in just one last year - check out this building!

Have a fantographic day and see you again soon! :)