Alex Photo Studio Blog

New weddings web site - theoleksandr.com

2007-02-20T10:13:00.000-08:00

I am happy to annonce that I have launched my new wedding photography web site: theoleksandr.com and corresponding blog. Check it out! My main focus in photography right now is going to be weddings, engagements and life style photography.

Marina and Oleksiy Wedding

2006-09-05T01:29:00.000-07:00

On September 2 I shot a wedding for my friends Marina and Oleksiy. While was preparing a slideshow for them while they are on a honeymoon, I ended up with so many great images from that day that I had to exclude a few because slideshow was getting too long.
Check it out and
don't miss a SLIDESHOW.
Beautiful bride:

Handsome groom:

Great location:

2006-08-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

I am going to a wedding to our friend's son Oleksi who is going to be married this Saturday. It is going to a big one since most of our common friends are invited. Here is a few shots of their invitaions.

First Picture from Pavlo

2006-08-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

This is the first picture Pavlo did tofay that you can recognize the subjects. He was drawing a baby, a house and bowl with cereal. I am very proud of him.

LightboxEx - Slideshow JavaScript

2006-08-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Finally, after spending a few weeks of developing which was done mostly at nights I am ready to release my modification to Lightbox script by Lokesh Dhakar. Now it can play music slideshows with nice transitions between images. You can find more details and installation instruction here.

Download

Little Chef

2006-07-31T16:12:00.000-07:00

Pavlo always wanted to have a kitchen set. I don't know what attracts him about playing with kitchen stuff, but he likes it. We were looking to buy a used kitchen set for a while and finally we have got one from one lady we have found through the Craig's List. We have got a kitchen stand with microwave, sink and oven, plus a box of plastic food and kitchenware and a shopping cart. He couldn't go to bed that day - he wanted to play with it right away. Next day he was gone... He's probably spent almost an entire day palying with his new toy, cooking some stuff and treating his guests - parents. Happy child - happy parents! What can be better? Check out this SLIDESHOW.

105 Fahrenheit

2006-07-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

It has been very hot last weekend, very hot. The temperature was reaching 105F. You can't do anything outside, you can't go anywhere, because it is too hot. Pavlo, had a chance to spend a few minutes at the pool. Even there he couldn't be for a long, because he was overheating and was looking as red as cooked shrimp. Looks like he has a blast at his little pool, sliding down and splashing water all around. Check out more in SLIDESHOW.

I want to ride my bike...

2006-07-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

You know that song, right? From Queen... The Bicycle Race. Anyway, Pavlo got a new real bike as his birthday present from our friends Vasyl and Inna. It is nothing like he had before, you know - plastic tricycle for babies. We are big boy now! We need real things! I have to say, he likes it a lot! Check out some images and a SLIDESHOW.

Oh, that look. He is definitely up to something!

B-Day Party

2006-07-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a few images I took before the Pavlo's birthday party started:

Pavlo is very happy with his baloons, which we went to blow up that morning with him:

Hey!

Here comes the cake:

More pictures of that day in slideshow.

Birthday Cake

2006-07-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

This is Pavlo's birthday cake in a fridge, I mean, garage. My wife did it for him. Amazing, she even did windshield wipes! The lisence plate says 'Pavlo'. Stay tuned for pictures from birthday party which is going to be tomorrow.

Playing with new toys

2006-07-08T03:08:00.000-07:00

Getting excited about a new toy:

Is it too high?

Yes! We got it!

Happy birthday son!

2006-07-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Today is his 3rd birthday. When I am writing this, he is still sleeping upstairs and doesn't know what surprise is waiting for him in the living room. I would love to see his eyes when he gets down and sees this. Hope he will get up before I leave to work.
Happy birthday son!!!

Blue light

2006-07-07T00:50:00.000-07:00

I took this image on my last trip to Children's Museum. Originaly those lamps were on the wall. I have rotated the image for better effect.

Trip to Children's Museum

2006-07-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

On 4th of July we went to Portland's Children's Museum. It is a place where little kids can play, craft and explore the world. Pavlo spend most of the time playing in Kid City Market section buying plastic grosseries and paying with paper credit card.

Check out this slideshow.

Alternative post processing slideshow

Strawberries picking

2006-07-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we went to local farmers to pick some strawberries. I have to say that we have a lot of farms here around Battle Ground and Vancouver which grown a lot of produce. They are close by and produce quality is very good. We went to Joe's Farm right here in Vancouver. They have a store with fruits and vegies they grow and also they sell a lot of products made of the stuff they grow. We picked some teriaky souse for my stir fry and some hot pepper jelly.
It was end of the season for strawberies. The berries were small but very tasty and sweet. Pavlo liked picking berries a lot. He was eating them right on the field, turning away from his mom, so she couldn't see him. Otherwise, she wouldn't let him eat anything whithout tripple wash :-).

San Diego Vacation

2006-06-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to San Diego for our summer vacation. What an amazing place to go! We definitely had a great time there. Legoland, Sea World, Bulboa Park, La Jolla... Food... Food is just great! San Diego has a lot of Mexican influence everywhere - in architecture, food, language...
I took a LOT of pictures during our short stay and right now I am doing through them sorting them out and postprocessing. I will post more of my favorite a few days latter.
Here is a few pictures starting from Sea World Shamu show. Shamu is a big killer whale. We enjoyed the show very much. It was hard to shoot since they jump out of the water unexpectedly.
Click on the images to see it larger.

Hi Shamu!

Bulboa Park in San Diego is just amazing! Great place to have your wedding pictures taken.

Palm trees where just beautiful in back sun light:

This is most popular flower in San Diego. You can see it everywhere:

2006-06-17T23:37:00.000-07:00

A new image for today:

Shooting bread

2006-06-17T00:03:00.000-07:00

Sometime I fill like I need some challenge. Today I was shooting bread. Just for fun...
I like the final result. It shows the texture of the bread very well.
The lighting was very simple: onboard flash bounced from card board on the right.
EF 24-70mm 2.8L @ 70mm, Manual, 1/100, f4.0, ISO 400, FEC +1 1/3.

Sea Shells

2006-06-15T23:39:00.000-07:00

The picture of today is a bowl of sea shells. I look at this bowl of shells in my bathroom every day. Today, I looked closer thinking about how can I photograph them in order to show the texture of the sea shells. When I saw a little red star fish between a few shell on the top, I knew what my subject is going to be. I reached for my camera and here it is. Some technical info: EF 24-70 f/2.8L at 70mm, 1/160, f2.8, EC +2/3, ISO 640, natural light. Click the image to see larger size.

Arthem's Birthday

2006-06-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to Arthem's Birthday Party at Chucke Cheese's. Arthem is a son of our friends Vasyl ans Inna. That was his 10th birthday. I couldn't resist do not taking any pictures that day. Everybody had fun. Pavlo was running around trying different game machines and looking for tickets after each game. He won a lot of tickets and at the end he was able to get a small car for them. I had fun with a wide angle lens capturing kids playing. That was a great day!

Pavlo brought a big Lego Bike as a present:

Pavlo is having fun riding snow mobile:

Even a bus was fun for him:

They both were getting very exciting riding against each other:

Another fun game to play:

Pavlo is picking up his present:

After spending all tokens we went to Arthem's house to have some cake:

Arthem is ready to blow the candles:

Here he goes:

Employee Appreciation Day

2006-06-12T06:53:00.000-07:00

On Friday my company organized employee appreciation day. They selected a Hawaiian theme for decorations and everybody had to wear something Hawaiian. We had outside meeting with food, followed by different contents, karaoke, etc. The day wasn't quite Hawaiian - it was a little chilly outside. A good thing was - it wasn't raining.

A few pictures from that day:
Our team all together:

Some people had a lot of fun with karaoke machine:

Fun with a wide angle lens

2006-06-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

I was trying some wide angle shots this weekend. Here's a few shots I did using Canon EF 24-70 2.8 at 24:

Pavlo is playing with his cars:

And my favorite food - pirogies:

Memorial Day weekend photos

2006-05-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

That was a Memorial Day weekend. I had a chance to take a few shots of my son which came out quite well, I think.

This one I X-processed.

On Sunday we went to playground. My son liked this swing and I wanted to capture the motion of how he swings. I had to set the camera to long exposure to get things blurred. After a few shots I got this one with the clear face and everything else blurred in motion.

After getting tired of swinging he was resting on a bench:

Ruslana's photo session

2006-05-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend (May 21, 2006) we went to my friend's house for some BBQ. He has a daughter Ruslana, who is very pretty and likes to be photographed a lot. I won't be surprised if you see her posing on some magazine cover one day.
They have back yard facing a green belt, nice woods-like spot, what a nice place to have some pictures taken. The wather was very promising but not for long - afternoon rain almost spoiled our party and I almost lost my hope for photography that day. After the rain was over we decided to do it anyway. The entire session took me about 30 min and I ended up with about 200 shots to take home. I have used EF 70-200 2.8L IS Canon lens for this. It worked out very good, giving me the results I like. The shallow depth of field was creating really good 3D images. It was getting a bit dark, so I was bumping my ISO up to 1250 and ended up shooting wide open. Image Stabilization was helping a lot in this case.
Here is a few of my favorite.

We found this big tree and I have decide to shoot her in front of it. I like the contrast between the tree and the girl on this picture.