Life Through the Lens

Snowing today in NYC

2011-01-07T23:23:00.000-05:00

Unbelievable snowy fairytale happened today in NYC. Adults like with kids trying to catch snowflakes with their tongues :) Dogs in colorful coats wandering through snowfall and warm white silence of Central Park.
I love such weather even if my feet are wet. It reminds me of childhood. I'm happy again.

Runners with dogs in Central Park, Upper East Side

Walking dogs on UES, Manhattan, New York

Yellow city

2010-12-14T00:25:00.000-05:00

It was just a catching glimpse of NYC life stream. Chelsea in the morning.

NYC taxis around Chelsea neighborhood. High Line City Park.

I was waiting for my clients to start a portrait photo session when this picture just caught my attention. Sooo much yellow :)

Urban view

2010-12-12T14:56:00.001-05:00

It's one of the best spots to look at shiny NYC's skyline - across the river from Manhattan you got to Brooklyn. There is a beautiful pier with water taxis and infamous Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. And there is that view :).

Halloween Party at Scheimpflüg Digital

2010-11-15T21:45:00.001-05:00

It was coolest Halloween Party, crazy crowd, ocean of beer and loud music :)
You may judge it yourself. And oh yeaahh there was a POLE ;) Absolutely unlimited and unstoppable fun!

Photograph of reaaaly scary characters

One of the photo stations / booths

The party was on Oct 30th at great space run by Scheimpflug

Portrait of the biggest Halloween rabbit there

Fugitives from state jail?

Bright sample of what was going there even before additional beer was brought in by 2 supermarkets' carts

Waiting in line for burgers and other food all kids were just photographing around

And here it was - so-called photobooth with a pole :)

All types of creativity you may say :)

The city moments

2010-10-24T11:34:00.009-04:00

I was shooting another family portrait photography session in Central Park yesterday and just stuck there afterwards for a while. Crowds were enjoying nice weather and it was that amazing feeling of NYC's craziness at the same time, which I love :)

Most colorful person in the city

I see this guy in every NYC's parade. You name it - he is there. First time I met him at Easter parade in our very first year here, in New York City. Then Saint Patrick, Halloween, Mermaid - he is always around or in the parade :)

He was circling with those jars on the top of his head for a while

At first there was a bunch of guys dancing together, circling around and doing crazy stuff on their roller-blades. But every year their number were growing and suddenly a couple of years ago I saw a poster read that they are now an association. And they were fenced :) It didn't change the thing though. They are still great at having fun.

Public art installation on the streets of New York City

Walking to the subway by w46th St I stumbled upon these art installation. Quite catching and I haven't seen it before. Just took a few snapshots as memorabilia.

Taschen New York: Portrait of a City Exhibition

2010-10-15T19:07:00.002-04:00

Great book! Just great book! Must have book :)
Great party! You shouldn't have missed it :)
See how much fun was it:

There were plenty of books to look through, great folks to mingle with, open bar, and nice prints on the walls.

Now this is my brand new t-shirt I designed :) after 3rd drink!
Just kidding :)
Photo made by amazing guys working at Levi's workshop.

Everyone was doing their way around NYC's skyline to get it printed on a t-shirt later.

Jumping or kissing? I may say only that at the end of the night I found a t-shirt with these kissing guys lying on my photo-bag! Have no idea! Honestly!

They got their own t-shirts I believe. Besides the fun they had.

He just stepped out of the picture I think. Didn't see how he walked in the workshop anyway.

This moment just caught my eye by the movements happening in all 3 plans.

Am I handsome! Yeaaaah :)

Central Park ZOO ???

2010-10-10T23:13:00.005-04:00

The best thing about New York City is it's people for sure. You might meet something absolutely unexpected and crazy in the middle of the day just walking any place of the city.
For example these guys were walking among huge crowd of strollers, joggers, bikers, natives and tourists.

Nice weather, crowd of New Yorkers and tourists enjoying the nice autumn weather in New York

And this creative couple we had met actually 5 min before.

Shooting movie on the run at Central Park

Orange city mood

2010-09-26T23:32:00.001-04:00

Just a couple of glimpses :) while walking in Lower Manhattan on a lovely Sun morning.

Double-decker for Mersedeses at 3rd World Trade Center building.

Luxury Mersedes passengers cars as passengers on double-decker

Did she realize this match of colors? I guess not :)

I think she had very bright mood

Tornado aftermath

2010-09-16T23:39:00.027-04:00

Tornado hit Queens borough of New York City on 9/16 around 6pm.
At first I thought it was nothing severe because everything we saw out of our windows was quite strong wind causing waves of water in the air, blackened skies and it lasted just for about 5 min. Gone. Nothing. But almost immediately started sirens of emergency vehicles. From all directions. Again could be just regular storm, we have had a couple of it this year. But, after 30 min sirens still coming I started to worry about my car parked on the street :) I guess not only me.
Still didn't want to go outside. After a helicopter with a projector had hung over our building for 10 min it got to me that it's quite serious somewhere close to us. I checked traffic in goggle.maps and got a shock - no one time saw I all local streets black. Something was happening out there for sure. And we went to see it ourselves as many of you did.
That was something extraordinary by any measure! Many people will remember those 5 min of nature's anger for long time: smashed cars, destroyed trees, damaged houses etc.
And below you'll find photographs witnessing human weakness before nature's power.

Firefighters working on cleaning Woodheaven Blvd in Queens, New York City

Firefighters working on cleaning Woodheaven Blvd, preparing safe corridor for traffic, Queens, New York City

Traffic allowed through safe corridor, Queens, New York City

Cars smashed by fallen trees, Queens, New York City

Tornado hit the streets of Queens

Traffic allowed through safety corridor, Queens, New York City

One of many cars totalled by fallen trees, Queens, New York City

Morning update: more pictures witnessing devastation:

Street blocked by fallen trees, Queens, New York City

Street destroyed by fallen trees, Queens, New York City

Do not park at bus stop?

Power lines are down by fallen trees, Queens, New York City

Fallen trees are all over the Juniper Valley Park, Queens, New York City

This tree fell down in the morning at Juniper Valley Park, blocking almost the whole road

Trees are down all over the neighborhood, damaging cars and houses

Trees are down all over the neighborhood, damaging cars and houses

You may cross the street now!

Family photo session in Central Park

2010-09-15T22:33:00.001-04:00

Another family photography session in Central Park on lovely summer day with a beautiful princess Aidan and her parents Melissa and Rob.

Portrait of a little girl sitting on rocks in Central Park

Portrait image of a redhead girl looking at her mother, hugging and smiling.

Redhead girl in white princess dress running on a meadow by the woods in Central Park NYC

5-minute headshot

2010-09-14T20:51:00.015-04:00

At the end of another very long day I still had some juice and lights set ready :) And there were a couple of cool guys helping us with running the photoshoot whom I wanted to photograph. Luckily for me they were interested.

So I just used one rather big softbox for a swift 3-minutes sessions for both Anvil and Carl. I kinda like the result ;)

Fashion lookbook - great team of professionals

2010-09-13T21:05:00.012-04:00

It was a very long and fast-moving fashion lookbook photoshoot. The team was working together for the first time and I hope we will have a chance to work again, I like the result very much!

Thanks to all:

Make-up and Hair - Wenya Chang - amazing work, all images you'll see here are NOT touched for any skin or hair issues (and mostly straight out of the camera, just basic level/contrast/sharpening adjustments). During the whole shoot Wenya was all the time doing the right stuff in the right moment. No need to ask her - she fixes a problem before you see it.

Model - Micaela Piccolo - extremely professional and hard-working, I admire her because she almost couldn't stand at the end of the very hard day but was able to smile! And what a smile she has!!! :)

And to me she has that look of Monica Bellucci - check the pictures below for yourself ;)

Relay for life

2010-06-28T23:52:00.000-04:00

My son spent almost a whole day on a field in Juniper Valley Park where Relay For Life 2010 was held.
You must probably see the scale of it to realize how huge is the problem - cancer could strike just virtually anyone. There is no guarantee against it. There is no 100% cure. There is no vaccine.
You may just hope and fight.
And you may help others to fight!

I couldn't count how many candles were there? Thousands?

Kids were helping around there.

And they had some fun for sure.

Do you have two minutes?

2010-06-23T15:17:00.000-04:00

Did you know that City Hall is proposing a 42% budget cut over last year's budget to the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium, as well as other cultural institutions in the City? 42%! These are institutions that offer New York City residents of all ages an experience that cannot be valued with a price tag.

These institutions are far more than just tourist attractions -- they are valuable community organizations where families and students learn about some of the world's greatest species. These experiences are priceless. Especially in these tough economic times, we cannot afford to let these programs and services suffer at the hands of our lawmakers.

The Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium create jobs and support businesses in our communities.

I just signed a petition to City Hall telling them to restore the proposed funding cuts. Will you take two minutes to do the same?

http://e.wcs.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=203

Thanks!

Photoshop CS5 for a photographer - will it help or kill ?

2010-04-13T18:18:00.003-04:00

You should see it yourself to get thrilled with the possibilities opened to you through the features of new Adobe Creative Suite 5 .
All those nights spent doing routine cleaning, hair removing and background separating you may now devote to your family instead. Because CS5 will do it for you in just a few seconds. Really. And even much-much more.
That Context Aware Fill is just fantastic I wouldn't believe if I didn't see how it works.
Automatic lens correction will save architectural and interior design photographers as well as product photographers from huge pain.
Selections tools look so smart and precise and fast that I just want to have it immediately :)
Isn't it all great?
Something scared me here though - with all these perfect tools there is a way of pushing photography business even deeper in that hole... you know... Because soon everyone will know that it cost almost nothing to change background, perspective, facial expression and even pose of a person in a portrait (did you see their new 'puppet warp' tool?) for whatever you need in just seconds - you don't need to actually PHOTOGRAPH the PERFECT scene. It's happening now already but with CS5 it'll be more common - that's what I'm afraid of. Clients will go even cheaper on photographers, relying on post-production more than ever.
I'll pray that I'm wrong :)

Family photography - Breakfast in dunes

2010-04-11T23:12:00.002-04:00

The forecast for today was very promising and we decided to go to our favorite beach on Fire Island for a breakfast instead of having lazy Sun morning at home.

It's being our most visited place since we got into the country. It's still half way open due to non-season and reconstruction of the beach. But that's what we like at this time of year - no people :)
We definitely had a great time, relaxing on the beach and walking walkways through dunes at Robert Moses State Park.

Besides here I can give a tip for those who often goes to NY state parks - they have an Empire Passport which runs at $65 for a whole year. So it's really worth it if you do more than 8 visits a year. We are buying it each year.
And we love Fire Island lighthouse very much - it's just great. So much history is behind it and lovely people work there. You must see it yourself. Also they finished tower's renovation and it's fully open for visits now.

One more point - due to my current health conditions I couldn't carry my regular camera equipment with me so all these pictures were shot using my son's point-and-shoot - Canon PowerShot SX120. I'd say it works great for family album ;)

Photo books in easy way

2010-04-11T21:52:00.001-04:00

Great news to all photographers and other creative folks - now we have another way to showcase our photo books made via Blurb.com on-line - they just came up with a new fine widget.
It's easy to integrate it into your photography web-site, photo blog etc. You may post it to your Facebook account in just one click.
Below you may see how it works - there is my fine art / documentary book about Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in NYC.

Boo To You! by Alex Kotlik | BOOK INFO

Dark hour with bright attitude

2010-03-24T14:10:00.005-04:00

So it will happen again - another Earth Hour scheduled for 8.30pm local time on Sat March 27th. An event led by World Wildlife Fund in which millions of people around the world will unite by turning out their lights for one hour to make a bold statement of concern about our planet and climate change.
Our 11-year-old son Mikhail is very future-of-the-planet-conscious (as we try to teach him to be of course) and you may read about this climate-change-oriented event on his P.S/I.S 49 school's newspaper also (where he leads as an editor and administrator). Last year he was among first kids in the school who was pushing everyone and everybody to take part and turn off all lights. He also put notes on the walls at our building to aware people and invite them to join the action. Surprisingly he got warm responses on those notes.
As you may notice we are very proud of him :) We turned all lights and appliances off and played some games while we walked to park to watch Manhattan skyline dimmed during last year Earth Hour. We believe it is very useful for family relationships to turn off TVs, computers, radios etc and simply talk or play together at least from time to time ;)
This year things are a little bit different though - we'd like to do it the same way but actually we will be driving the whole day this Sat to Myrtle Beach, SC for spring break vacation. We will shut down everything at home of course, so at some point we will extend our Earth Hour to Earth Day.
I think we will see interesting and impressive moments while we will drive along towns and cities shutting down their lights. Hopefully I'll get some meaningful photographs and will post them to my documentary and travel photography web-site.

Bryant Park Holiday cards with my photograph of 2 chairs in the park

2009-12-02T20:22:00.000-05:00

I love Bryant Park in every season. I love it most in spring when daffodils blooming and everything around smells new life.
But I like it in the winter not less. It's just different. You could feel more attached to the place when less people around you. For me it's more calm, lonely there in the winter.

And I am a little bit proud that I was able to capture that feeling and the beauty of the park in a photograph which were chosen by Bryant Park Corporation for their annual Holiday Cards.
I believe it's quite compelling example of street-life photography. A silent dialog of 2 chairs that left behind... Ghosts of people passed by some time ago... They are together and they are alone, conscious and abandoned...

You may see more of my street-life photography of New York on my web-site and there are some documentary photography, photo stories and series as well.

Portrait photography of the actor Eric Jaeger

2009-11-29T22:19:00.000-05:00

"Eric Jaeger is a recent transplant to NYC from Akron, OH via Pittsburgh.

Favorite credits include Contact, Romeo y Julieta, Michael Rupert's Streets of America and the film In Northwood. Most recently, Eric was seen in Dixon Place/The Living Theater's Salome! A Veiled Threat, puppeteering the infamous Muffy the Talking Vagina."

Headshots with actor Joe Beuerlein

2009-11-18T17:25:00.020-05:00

What can be better than to meet lovely autumn morning in Central Park? We started a headshot/portrait session at 7.30am with the actor Joseph Beuerlein when the sun was still behind skyscrapers. And we were watching as it goes upper and coloring the trees and waking up the park.

East side family photography session

2009-11-10T14:01:00.017-05:00

This time we started the session with 4-month Roby at home and then walked toward great morning in the Central Park. Foliage and great warm and sunny morning added to the mood of portraits.

Singing Italian - Headshot photography session

2009-11-09T16:48:00.009-05:00

It was just wonderful weather on Nov 9th and I had a great on-location outdoor photo session with gorgeous Maristella. She is a singer and song-writer, I found her voice charming - you may check it on her web-site.

We worked on her promotional photographs during the session and regular headshots as well. Easy job considering that fact that she was posing for the portraits so professionally as if she spent whole life in front of photo camera :)

Family photography session in Central Park

2009-11-05T12:08:00.039-05:00

Another lovely autumn day in Central Park during photography portrait session with a great family visiting New York City from California.

Portrait photography of Alex The Great and his lovely family

2009-10-12T15:49:00.037-04:00

I love to photograph this family - they all are so great that it's not a job but just my pleasure to work with them every time. I wish I did this photo session good enough that they'll be back to me next year again :)
You may see more of their family portraits on my web-site as well.

Birthday event photography at Queens Farm Museum

2009-09-28T15:34:00.034-04:00

I got quite unusual venue for birthday event photography assignment recently - Queens Farm Museum. And it was great! Both kids and their parents had a lot of fun and it was relaxing. Our main hero - Andrew, was totally into chickens :) You may see it in photographs.
And animal feeding and hayride were long-awaited by all kids.

Jump up high - Model portfolio photography session

2009-09-23T17:08:00.021-04:00

Here is another photo session for a model photography portfolio. I was mostly about to get some portrait with fashion-style lighting though :)
Besides Anthony was just great - I can recommend him as a model absolutely. He is ready to work, very professional and knows what to do...

Strobist info:
done with just 2 bare Speedlites 580EX. Back light and spot light with homemade barns sometime.

TED CORBITT 24 HOUR RUN

2008-10-05T23:46:00.002-04:00

Today exactly at 10am finished Ted Corbitt 24-hour Race. It is hard to describe in words the spirit of that kind of run. 66 runners from around the country (and even from Canada). All ages up to 72!
Here is an announcment of the race. And an interview with Ted.
The run took place in my neighbourhood's park - Juniper Valley Park. And those guys demonstrated unbelievable will-power and were running through night and rain.
I hardly can imagine that I could walk 24 hours without having a decent rest, not to say to run non-stop. But they did it. Best results are about 124 miles during a day and night run! That was a honoured win!

And here is the winner :)

Diesel for Kids - Grand Opening Party (New York) - 04 Oct 2008

2008-10-05T23:06:00.000-04:00

Truly I can not decide for myself how to treat those parents who spend hundrends on their few months old babies' fashion attires. You? Do those babies care about their D&G sandals or Diesel jackets? Or maybe parents believe that they will get recognition from the offspring for this?
I saw at this party how one mom asked her 7-month son if he likes a shoe from Burberry... He even doesn't speak yet...
Should I consider this as an obsession?

Cayuga Lake Wine Trail

2008-10-04T00:57:00.001-04:00

Ok, here is a beginning :)

We just got back from a long weekend (or a short vacation maybe?) on Finger Lakes. Four nights spent in a cabin, surrounded by trees on a lake’s shore; sounds of forest and freshness of air. What can I say – Wine Trail is an awesome way to spend few days! Even if weather is not perfect at all it becomes sunny after a first wine tasting ;) And it is getting just better and better with each next winery visited…

Those were the good days in any sense: family time, close to nature, out from politics and economic crisis (we just forgot about it). And we fell in love with Ithaca. Cozy town; nice people, well educated, energetic and diverse; atmosphere of fun. Great waterfalls again :) And our 9-years old son just got crazy about Cornell realizing that a whole town could be devoted to students – unbelievable :)

WOW! I didn't even know that this thing could exist - highway with seasonal limited use :)