Lessons from Rozov: When it’s warm and poor, let’s go get them

I have an opinion. It’s in the air and seems like a mathematical axiom to many people – quite a self-evident truth. There’s nothing to shoot at home, in New York or any other city in our country. What could be more beautiful or interesting?? Here, as some of our professional reporters like to say, “people don’t live on the streets. Here’s where they live in India. They don’t live here!

Photo 1. The dialectics of .

Olympus OM-D E-M5

M Lens. ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 60mm 1:2.8 MACRO

Sensitivity 200 ISO

Shutter speed 1/25 sec

Aperture f/5.9

Exposure compensation -0.3 EV

120 mm focal length in film.

That’s why for masterpieces we advise to go there, where it’s warm and there are a lot of poor people in picturesque rags and ancient ruins with textured walls. Or up into the mountains, to the shining peaks. Or “to Paris, urgently.”. All you have to do is lift the camera up and press the shutter – success is guaranteed.

Probably that is why the expensive cameras spend all winter long resting and gaining strength to work off the money spent on them in two weeks of vacation: to provide the owner with “likes” on social networks for many months ahead.

I have to confess that long time ago I too had the impression that one had to walk and trample through several pairs of boots to find beauty before it could reveal its beautiful face. But over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that beauty like money lies beneath my feet. You just have to learn to see and not be too lazy to pick up.

Studios use this type of lighting for glamorous portraits. Two drawing sources behind on the right and on the left.

But here the right rear is aimed directly at the handle. That’s why his reflex looks completely white and very bright. The left light source is the sun’s rays reflected from the leaves of the birch tree. This light is no longer white, but slightly yellow-green, and it’s not as bright as the right one. That’s why the left-handed reflex looks extinguished.

The fill source is the light reflected from the walls and ceiling of the room. It slightly illuminates the shaded parts of the frame that would otherwise remain completely black. This preserved detail in the shadows, reducing the contrast of the subject. For this shot it was very important, in my opinion, to preserve the colored strips of space next to the frames themselves. Without such a “detail” the picture would have been torn out of its vital context and would have lost any sign of documentality.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not a photographer, but he blew my mind with this wisdom, which applies to us directly: without exercise, the organs die out! Of course, he had other organs in mind. But I propose to evaluate the validity of this maxim, applying it to the entire range of skills of a photographer.

If you shoot two weeks out of the year, you’ll never know how to tell a contrast from a soft light, or how to feel the beauty of the combination of the two in a shot. It’s hard to choose, at the level of almost full automatism, the focal length of the optics needed in one or another case. It’s hard to feel the moment when it’s best to press the shutter button to stop that crucial moment they say it’s beautiful..

In short, you have to keep shooting if you’re serious about taking photographs and hoping to realize your creative potential.

I know how difficult it is to accomplish anything that requires systematic repetition. It’s kind of like morning calisthenics. Everyone knows that it should be done, that apart from the benefits there is no harm, but only kicks of fate make us do what is good for us. And I also know that other people’s experience does not help much, but still I will tell you where I find beautiful pictures without leaving my sleeping area, in fact, without even leaving my apartment. It’s a simple, mundane process, but a lot of fun. It’s like putting your head down and finding a hundred Dollars.

This process is often connected with the process of discovering something new. New process, new lighting scheme, new equipment. The camera is changing rapidly and is morally obsolete before it has had time to use even a third of its original capacity. So, when I’m going to buy or have already bought something new, no matter what: a camera, lens, filter, hood or radio trigger, I must first try and get acquainted with it.

To the right of the desk is the window. Not just a window, but a life-saving tool. It’s enough to turn one’s head to see plastic handles worthy of admiration. Not because they’re so adorable on their own. The light made them magically animated. They spoke in the language of visual symbols.

I saw optimism and pessimism, plus and minus, difference of potentials, radiance and gray, youth and old age, unity and struggle of opposites, and many other meanings in this ready-made still life. And I just wanted to try out a macro lens for my Olympus. It remained not to miss the moment. The sun could hide behind a cloud, and the reflection pattern of the patches of light evaporated, like morning fog. Expect then such a coincidence photo 1 .

Photo 2. Shade.

This is the shadow of the grid on the curtain of the same window, near my desk. One of the first test shots taken with the new camera. This image is bleached because the curtain was monochrome.

Sony DSC RX1

The lens is a built-in 35/2.0

Sensitivity 125 ISO

Shutter speed 1/200 sec

Aperture f/5.6

Exposure correction +0.67 EV

Photo 3. The robot.

The robot came within 200 meters of the house. He climbed the concrete steps. Chopped up into cubes, the shape of a human figure reminds one of a cubist painting. I had to stand for a while near the stairs to wait for a character of a suitable stature. I had to convert the picture to black and white for the sake of enhancing graphics: the blue shadows on the gray concrete distracted from the shape of the shadows themselves.

Sony DSC RX1

The lens is a built-in 35/2.0

Sensitivity 200 ISO

Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

Aperture f/5.6

Photo 4. Lilacs.

The morning sun gave me a shadow in the room next door. Special thanks to my beloved wife and an unknown fabric designer, whose pattern was an integral part of the story. The color of the glass vase was important. It’s red, and any red spot is almost automatically the center of attraction for the viewer.

Olympus OM-D E-M5

M lens. ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8

Sensitivity 200 ISO

Shutter speed 1/25 s

Aperture f/5.9

EV correction -0.3

120mm focal length on film.

I got the Sony RX1 by chance: the company let me test it. I had the camera with me around the clock for two months. Small, lightweight and very easy to handle. No need to say anything about its image quality: you can’t ask too much about it. The very presence of such a toy in my pocket kept me from passing by the shadows that grabbed my eye photos 2, 3 and 4 .

Anyway, I like to take pictures not just of the window itself, but of what I can see out of it. On the whole, there’s nothing special that I want to stop and conserve. But life and nature are always changing things. There’s even a song about it: “It’s raining and snowing outside and it’s time to go to sleep…”

Yes, it’s good to shoot the pouring rain from the window, without risking to flood the lens at all. And the pictures are beautiful, and it’s dry. It is good to take pictures out of the window in blizzards too: the camera does not freeze, the battery does not run down, the optics does not sweat and the picture of purple twilight pleases the eye photos 5, 6 and 7 .

Photo 5. A downpour from the “Bedroom District” series .

I really liked the haze caused by the rain: it glowed, illuminated by the counter light of the morning sun. So there was no direct light, but the sun was shining through the clouds. The almost glossy sheen of the greenery on the lawns. The sidewalk looks matte, because the bubbles in the puddles hide the reflections that usually occur on wet asphalt. Of course, I wouldn’t show you this picture if I couldn’t take a picture of the girls running out of the rain. They really brought the photo to life. More accurately, they are what made it.

Olympus OM-D E-M5

M Lens. ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12mm 1:2.0

Sensitivity 640 ISO

Shutter speed 1/40 sec

Aperture f/4

Photo 6. Zazimok.

After the first snowfall, which fell on the green, not yet rotted leaves of the birches, there was a light drizzle with fog. I peeked through the kitchen window. The contrast of the cheerful greenery shining in the lantern light and the twilight blue seemed to me surprisingly beautiful. The camera is always around. October. Time in New York 18:09.

Nikon D800

AF-S Nikkor 70-200/2.8 G ED IF VR

Sensitivity 1000 ISO

Shutter speed 1/30 sec

Aperture of f/2.8

Exposure compensation is 0.67 EV

Focal length 70mm

Photo 7. Blizzard.

Through the same kitchen window, but in early March, at almost the same time, under the same streetlight, I made another evening picture. You have to agree, it’s a different mood! By the way, you wouldn’t want to shoot outdoors in this weather. Optics gets wet instantly. It’s a guaranteed marriage.

Nikon D4 camera

AF-S Nikkor 16-35/4 ED lens

Sensitivity 2500 ISO

Shutter speed 1/60 sec

Aperture f/5.6

Exposure compensation -1.33 EV

Focal length 16mm

Don’t think that all I do is sit by the window and make an incident diary for the local Commissar Mégret. Sometimes I even go out for a walk. The camera, of course, is always with me. Even when they wash the car at the local service, I find marvelous subjects to photograph. Not to mention the cats, the dogs, the kids in the moon park, the drunks, the old men, the vendors..

If I have my camera, I don’t go home without a good picture. And when the day of the long-awaited trip “to Paris, urgently” arrives, I am trained and ready for any surprises photos 8, 9 and 10 .

Photo 8. Autumn in the Bedroom District from the “Bedroom District” series .

Nikon D4 camera

AF-S Nikkor 16-35/4 ED lens

2,500 ISO

Shutter speed 1/60 sec

Aperture f/5.6

Exposure compensation -1.33 EV

Focal length 16mm

Photo 9. Chef in yellow tones from the “Bedroom District” series .

Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera

M lens. ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm 1:4/6.7-8

Sensitivity 1000 ISO

Shutter speed 1/250 sec

Aperture f/5.8

Exposure compensation +0.3 EV

Focal length 328mm on film.

Photo 10. Once again about love.

Very challenging subjects – funny little dogs. They’re as fidgety and restless as babies when they first get to their feet, but they’re also shy and aggressive. But they are good for practicing reaction speed and photography skills.

The Olympus OM-D E-M5

M Lens. ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm 1:4/6.7-8

Sensitivity 1600 ISO

Shutter speed 1/250 s

Aperture f/5.8

Exposure correction +0.3 EV

Focal length: 468 mm of film standard.