Rozov’s Lessons: Pasta in Maxim Poluboyarinov’s Photo Kitchen

Maxim Poluboyarinov’s studio is naturally located in the basement. The owner even used the “half-Boyarsky” name in the title – Halfmax studio. Everything else, however, is not divided in half here. 80 square meters are available for shooting. About the same amount of space are the utility rooms, a kitchen with an obligatory dishwasher, and a living room. The owner thinks there is not enough space. The ceilings are low, but there is an opportunity to shoot water.

Maxim Poluboyarinov works with gloves on.

Maxim Poluboyarinov – professional photographer since 1991. He takes pride in the fact that he is used to doing everything with his own hands and shooting without computer processing. Studied under Alexander Gidirimsky, one of the best American advertising photographers. Member of the Artists’ Union of America and the International Federation of Artists IFA .

Chosen as the face of Manfrotto in 2005.

Chosen as the face of California SunBounse in 2008.

Winner and winner of many American and foreign photo contests.

Maxim Poluboyarinov’s works are in the American Museum St. Petersburg , the Rothschild Collection USA and other private collections in America, England, Portugal, Germany, USA and other countries.

Along the walls, white and black plastic sheets on stands with wheels, lots of reflectors, a strange-looking plastic bottle vat, set on a butt, six pulse generators, light stands, tripods, both small and large, and the very large, on which is mounted a Sinar gimbal camera with a medium format digital backdrop. In the far corner, something like a corner for taking pictures of people photo 1 .

A few years ago Steve Youngust, a good American advertising photographer, used to work in this studio. His apartment was being renovated. The workers dismantled the wooden scaffolding they stood on during the work. For two months the floorboards were drenched with primers, paints, thinners, trampled on, rubbed with buckets, and brushes and masters fell on them.

The wooden pieces ended up being so colorful that Steve sawed out fragments of the marvel, carefully packed them into small papers and took them back to the studio, amidst the laughter of the decorators. When it was time to return to the States, Steve was very sad that he couldn’t take everything he had accumulated during his time in New York with him. In any photographer’s studio there are things which a normal person would consider as trash, but for an applied photographer they are valuable props which occupy storage shelves.

Steve’s legacy lay dormant for several years until one day Maxim used the former planking as a textured backdrop when shooting garlic. Creative photography implies the presence of some meaningful textured backgrounds by which one can read the history of the subject. Back in the days of film, an advertising photographer had to be creative. We were often asked to shoot a completely finished picture.

Today, advertising pictures are shot on smooth backgrounds, under clipping. The resulting blanks are used to assemble a variety of-

The idea of the bottle is not uncommon to come across a poster in the street showing a bottle with a forty-five degree inclination, and the liquid in it, contrary to the laws of physics, has somehow remained in the same position as in the upright position of the glassware. Such a deception, even if it is not immediately apparent, can not help but work on the subconscious: trust in the product is questioned.

Photo 2.

Garlic. Maxim Poluboyarinov.

Sinar P2 camera

The Sinaron 210/5.6 lens,

Kodak Ektachrome 100 slide film, 4×5″.

Exposure 1/30 second

F/22 aperture

Of course it is not the photographer’s fault: the consequences of montage have to be taken into consideration by the customer when taking the picture, but in fact one has to think about that and many other subtle nuances which the consumer of advertising would not even dream of. Maxim takes these difficulties in a special way which is like a sports contest with a difficult opponent, and taking pictures of creative still life offers the highest degree of pleasure photo 2 .

Maxim speaks simply and precisely, no niceties and flourishes. He thinks along the same lines: an applied man is not allowed to hover. The main professional differences between an advertising photographer and a reporter are meticulousness, methodicalness, attention to details. The person who takes pictures of objects has to reproduce shapes, volumes, colors and structures of the object as good as possible.

The uninitiated look at the picture of a beer bottle, made on customer orders, and argue something like this: “I would, like, the drops are applied a little not so and not there. And they are right in their own way, because it could have been shot differently. But only in this case the work would not be accepted by the client. Manufacturers, according to Maxim, treat their product with sacred awe. They will never confuse the foam of their beer with the foam of a competitor’s beer, the drops of their own and someone else’s.

All details of future photos are meticulously described in the technical specifications, and then the shape of the drops, their frequency, dispersion and color are strictly controlled. The photographer acts as an obedient executor of the art director’s will. His greatest strength, and simultaneously his competitive edge, is his ability to get the job done faster than anyone else, and exactly the way his client wants it done.

The speed of the order execution is due to the technical equipment. And for that the photographer has to ensure that the subjects in the frame are one hundred percent repeatable, except for those that are scripted to move. The thing is that water, for example, always gives surprises and it is an inconceivably difficult task to repeat a shot with moving water.

The same can be said about some bulk materials. But it is possible to fix other objects if you have special devices at hand: stands, supports, clamps, clamps, adhesive tapes… And not any objects, but the ones that can be hidden from the viewer’s eyes and are absolutely reliable. The subject to be shot must not fall down in any case Photos 3 and 4 .

Photo 3.

The fixation of the objects must be secure, and the fixation devices must be convenient.

Photo 4.

More scotch tape – nice and different!

Imagine you are shooting a bottle of very expensive collector’s wine, and it breaks while you are shooting! That is why I have to mount light sources and reflectors just as carefully. The days of Osip Nappelbaum, who had only one lamp in his studio, are long gone the demands of photography have changed. Four sources are enough for a portrait in the studio, but you can never have too much light for advertising subjects. Maxim Poluboyarinov uses six Broncolor Power Pack Grafit A4 pulse generators.

During his twenty one years of professional work, Maxim has sunk “half a million not-roubles” into this studio. Half Max can’t say “a million”: it destroys the advertising brand! But jokes aside, this is more or less the case. Don’t be fooled though: photographers in America are not “non-Ruble millionaires” at all. It’s a dream away from reality.

In the days of film technology, hardware was long-lived, and so the money invested in it seemed to be accumulating. The technical sophistication of the photographer has grown over the years. These days the terms of photographic equipment are completely different. A medium-format backdrop becomes obsolete within two years. Everything around him: computers, accessories, software, light – everything has to be bought over and over again, and you can sell the old stuff for a third of its original cost at most. In short, an advertising photographer is destined to work with the equipment all his life. The reward is the joy of doing what you love. The fact that the customer comes up with the tasks, oddly enough, adds to the adrenaline.

– Here is an actual line from the description of the next picture: “The candle’s ray falls on the manuscript”! – Maxim laughs. – It’s fun to think up new photographic tricks. One of my acquaintances made this beam from a candle. The customer is satisfied.

Sometimes in the process of fulfilling a certain practical order, Maxim gets an idea of his own solution to the given problem. That’s exactly what happened with the macaroni scene. I spent a whole month shooting different flour products, and then decided to shoot my own version. A glass pan with boiling water and pasta flying into it. The picture was bought right away.

Maxim offered to show me all the ins and outs of this work and re-shot the macaroni Photo 5 .

Photo 5. Maxim Poluboyarinov’s finished work.

A Sinar P3 camera

Sinaron digital 180 HR lens

Leaf Aptus-II 12R backdrop

100 ISO

Exposure 5 seconds

Aperture f/20

Broncolor Grafit A4 generators 4 pcs.

Pulse length 1/4000 s at t 0.1

I must say, that the problem, which the master tried to solve, is one of the most difficult. The glassware in the frame is not easy to photograph, and neither are all objects that shine and are transparent at the same time. To begin with, you need to have on hand a new, very high quality glass, without scrolls, with thin walls of equal thickness. Svils and swells look depressingly sloppy in the photo. Glass is usually shot through the light, that is, in backlighting. Any scratches, dust particles, outlines of dried water droplets outlined by crystals of calcium salts, which are abundant in tap water, fingerprints become visible. That’s why you have to wear cloth gloves and a can of compressed air to blow off the dust.

The water in which the pasta will be boiling is transparent, just like glass, reflects some of the light and therefore is also shot through the light. It is better not to use tap water. I’ll have to buy a bottle for the water cooler: the water is cleaner there. The gas stove, of course, should be small, mobile and brand new. Shooting the flames, which will also be in the frame, requires a long exposure time of several seconds. While boiling water is “frozen” with very short flashes that not all pulse devices can provide.

And the pasta will also be in the frame. Some in a state of relative rest at the bottom of the pot, and others must be caught in flight. No way to shoot pasta in back light as it will look like black heads. In short the photographer in this case should show the highest professional awareness and great technical ingenuity.

I was lucky enough to be able to watch from the sidelines as step by step I overcame the obstacles that appeared. First, Maksim carefully secured a gas stove on a homemade work table. He and his assistant spent about twenty minutes on this. Then the pot was put on the hot plate photos 6 and 7 .

Maxim Poluboyarinov Studio.

Photo 7. Fixing devices provide a reliable fixation of the stove and the lid.

Maxim pinned himself to the camera eyepiece, lined up the shot, did his first “test take” and started work on the background.

A square sheet of black matte plastic mounted on a stand a meter away from the table. I immediately used a crane to point the flash head at it. It would have been hard to do without the crane: the tripod would have been in the frame itself. This light source will illuminate the background. Just a little – just enough so it wouldn’t fail black. According to the author, a completely black background looks a little gloomy, which is bad for an advertising picture.

Then behind the black background, close to it, is the source of the drawing light – another flash head with a square softbox put on it 150 × 150 cm. This softbox provides the main light for the glass objects in the frame – pots and lids. It’s pointing toward the camera lens, but it’s not in the field of the frame itself. The presence of such light slightly complicates the task of getting a bright, contrasty picture, because even very good modern lenses with multi-coated lenses can not cope with parasitic light, which does not form the main image.

This light hits the spherical surface of the front lens from the side at an acute angle, is reflected many times inside the lens from the lens walls and ends, and then scattered chaotically over the frame. This reduces the contrast of the picture, and can even ruin it. That’s why Maxim immediately puts a frame with gates black flaps on the camera gimbal, blocking ways for stray light to get into the camera lens. Now the drawing light from all sides shines on the pot and lid, sharply, like a pen, outlining the contours photo 9 .

Photo 8. The background.

Photo 10. Setting the side and overhead lights.

Now Maxim needs to enhance the drawing of the pan on the right, to put the glare on the glass. A sheet of milky translucent plastic appears next to the table. Followed by the Lightbar, an extended pulsed light source with a spherical diffuser. Photo 10 clearly shows the gradient, sprawling shape of the spot of light which is caused by the sphericity of the diffuser.

This shape of the spot gives a bright and at the same time smooth outline of the contours of the right side of the pot. Then another sheet of plastic was attached to the left side of the pan and immediately illuminated with another flash head. This light source creates symmetrical lighting on the sides of the pot.

Photo 9. Installing the Drawing Light Source.

On photo 10 you can also see how Maksim solves the problem of lighting the macaroni. I already wrote that the backlight is not good for this. A portrait plate hangs temporarily above the table. Temporary, because it will be replaced with a standard camera later.

Such light, obeying the law of light propagation angle of incidence equals angle of reflection , shines exactly on the macaroni. The upper light cannot be reflected from the sides of the pot in the direction of the lens, and that’s why it’s hardly visible in the frame at all.

Photo 11

Photo 12

Photo 13

When all the static objects in the frame and all the light sources have taken their places, Maxim made a couple more practice photos to achieve a harmonious combination of all the light sources. In photo 11, for example, he didn’t like the brightness of the right side light. With one move of the computer mouse, he reduced the source power by one exposure step. The brightness of this spot is extinguished Picture 12 .

Now it’s our turn to solve a new problem: making sure the pasta falls into the pot properly. They should fall in the same place if possible, with approximately the same speed and also at the right time. Maxim found in his magic pantry a gray plastic water pipe the color of the pipe is important: the frame should not contain any objects that cast colored reflexes.

A part of the tube was immediately cut off with a hacksaw. Thus a chute was formed on which you can pour pasta. It was fastened on one more stand and we tried to put the products of Italian craftsmen on this bed, but we failed: some of the pasta fell by, and others into the tube, but earlier or later than it was planned.

Photo 14

Photo 15

Photo 13 shows the result of a late flash, photo 14 shows an early flash. This take solved another problem: it turned out that the camera shutter must be open for 5 seconds for the brightness of the gas burner flame to become comparable to the brightness of the pan illuminated by the flash.

In photo 15 we managed to catch the moment, but it turned out that they poured a little too much water. It splashed out and flooded the flames. You can see how the flame flushed with indignation before it went out. Finally, Maxim invented and immediately made a device out of a glass tube, in which the pasta was poured beforehand. Now it’s much easier to get a predictable result pics 11-15 .

However, it took another three hours to get the final file. The point is that the water in the pot instantly turns cloudy after pasta gets into it. And that’s why after each unsuccessful take, the pan had to be washed and the water boiled again. We have started to work at 12 p.m. and finished at 6 p.m. The moment of the final shot was filmed, so I can show you what the set looked like at that moment picture 16 .

Photo 16. Shooting the final take.

Finally I asked Maxim Poluboyarinov two questions.

– How to get a profession as an advertising photographer?

– There are no special education institutions of this kind in America,” Maxim answered, “That’s why knowledge is passed from mouth to mouth, from teacher to student. I was helped by Gidirimsky. I could always go to him with any question.

Now in America you can learn from Igor Sakharov and Vladimir Morozov. I rarely give master classes, so I’ll say nothing about me. The second way – independent mastering of the profession. It’s hard, it takes a long time, but today it’s more accessible than ever before. Anyone can find the necessary information on the Internet, but your own experience is still irreplaceable.

– Does it make sense for an applied photographer to master reportage photography??

– No, they are too different professions. A dentist doesn’t have to be a surgeon at all. Outdoors, the sun is the only light source. The photographer revolves around the star. In the studio everything revolves around the camera, the light and the photographer. This distinction makes his skills useless in natural lighting. And vice versa, a reporter has to catch the moment, but in the studio we create it ourselves! But first you have to think it up.