When I was about to set off for Moscow, I only knew that I am going to shoot one russian well-known band and attend couple of other musical events: acoustics of "Orgia Pravednikov" (Orgy of the Righteous), an art-rock band led by an exceptional poet and guitarist Sergei Kalugin (youtube: [link]), and small acoustic concert by Anna Pingina, who got a beautiful, deep voice and sings very melodic songs (and also were performing as Fleur-de-Lys in the russian version of Notre Dame De Paris). Check out her performance: [link]

What happens next, I checked what's else is going on... and I ended up with full table of rock and metal bands that suddenly came to Moscow at exactly the same time. Dark Tranquillity, Motorhead, Sebastian Bach and Tarja Turunen. All confirmed. And I promised that I do every concert within a week.

add to the list a conference, the Christmas and my PhD defense. And couple of studio shots.

Somebody on Heavens loves me. Now I know, more than I deserve. But overall, no displeasing stuff this time, at the very least.

Suggestions welcome how I really could process all that.

Some of my best shots

I am pleased to see Simone Simmons shot to be awarded as the 4th DD of mine!



This picture was done in 2008 at pre-Tuska concert in Helsinki. The image was underexposed so I discovered it just when I started playing around with Photoshop, with no certain idea that this picture will become one of most popular entries of my gallery. The picture deserves some quality improvement, which I'll try to do tonight (if only I have my D700 one year before!!).

Gothic Lolita Shoot
~A-Little-White-Lie is a great Gothic Lolita and model, and her shoot is one of the most successfull I had so far; to begin with, it's been a pleasure to meet you and stroll down the Gamla Stan, taking all these pretty images.



and for BIGGER (25 images) set you can check out my blog: [link]

Some of my best shots

in real things of photography. That's how I feel. Whatever I am doing now is just experimenting, and the results are rarely satisfying for myself. I want more. More extreme shots from concerts that look unusual and advanced. I thought earlier that here I must post all the famous names in order to promote myself on DA, but in fact what is important is the image itself. If I compare a gallery with many mediocre, one-glance shots or with few excellent ones, I feel that the second one would have more impact. So far I have to keep many shots that I would rather exchanged for something better, but I yet have to obtain these better shots, while showcase at DA is necessary to show off my current work to necessary people.

I constantly feel an overload of what I want to learn more and shoot more interesting subjects. On-location artificial light. Excellent photoshop skills. Great cosplayers from Russia and not only. More concert photography of course. Also, I want to straighten my development in the photography, become less random and more focused. I want to shoot a promo or two. I want to find some great background locations in Moscow, St.-Petersburg, Istanbul and Kazan in order to have my shoots in good places. I want to hang out with some great photographers I know and learn many things that I am eager to learn. (I wish I would be so desperate in my daily research!). That's a whole life ahead, and honeslty I feel like I know much less that I need.

Fiture website
I want to build a website with pics and I need a name for it. I came up with an idea, that name of the portfolio should be quite an opposite to what one sees there (normally, screaming sweaty artists of Finnish nationality) — such as, eternal-silence, forever-still or something. I welcome suggestions and recommendations. Name should sound dark, be not pathetic, have a good rythm and be short enough and easy to remember.


Feature
I would like to feature an interesting Turkish photographer *TemplaSimpina, Berk Duygun. His works are mostly in some avant-garde fashion shoots, he shoot middle-format film and he got interesting models. It is rare to find a gothic lolita in Istanbul, but he managed.



My pic on a poster
AlisA is a very famous rock band from Russia.


Some of my best shots

Finally, I found some time to do a mass cleaning of the account. I want the main gallery to contain only the most descent shots. So I created a sort of "old stuff" gallery, where I keep all pica that got many favs but do not satisfy me anymore (subject to further cleanup). About 100 pics I just removed. I have my main gallery [link] where all the stuff remains available. With new camera and some more effort in postprocessing, I like new stuff much more. Ball-Jointed Dolls galleries and Cosplay section are not loaded much as of yet, but both will be updated soon. I shot several pretty cool cosplays during past couple of weeks in Russia.

One or two. That's the number of pictures per gig working well for DA. N I wish I load DA with more descent pics but that's not so fast thing to do. Though, summer is not over.

Future gigs
Unirock - 17-19.07 (confirmed)
Rock-n-Coke - 18-19.07 (awaiting confirmation)
Testament - 29.07 (underway)


Feature
A best-known Russian cosplay band represented by ~KoujiAlone:




Some of my best pictures:

Unirock, Istanbul (17-19.07, Arch Enemy, Paradise Lost, Kreator) - almost confirmed
Rock n Coke (18-19.07, NIN, Prodigy and Linkin Park, same dates as Unirock - what should I do???) - awaiting decision
Deep Purple 20.07 - do not know anything at all yet
Let's open air, Istanbul (7-9.08, Moonsorrow, Norther, Sodom, Ensiferum, Catamenia, Destruction, Primordial) - almost confirmed
Jalometalli Festival, Oulu (14-15.08) - if I have time I'll get there

I am very happy that the summer is here and it'll be very rocking one. University in Istanbul is displeasing, people are full of themselves and there are no friends yet, but I will avoid the rest of the annoying persons and just do my work. Since I already work with people who are more advanced that the local crew.

Sauna pictures will be processed soon, so I hope to boost up this gallery a little with a first open air I shot with my current setup, that is, D700 + 24-70/2.8 in addition to 80-200/2.8.

I also have a greatest time ever shooting cosplayers in Kazan! We have several really, really good ones. I guess I post some here too.

And... my obsession, pageviews. Well, now I guess I do not care. There are pics that I like, I know that these are good. So I will be following only my own taste and I do not really care if picture got not many views. Totally do not know how to be popular

Some features
I love anime, I love furries, I love good, exceptional drawing and I also very pleased to see many young talents here on DA, where people do not have any obstacle to have thousands of appreciators immediately. Sometimes I envious of them. But I'm here to learn, so in the end I do not envy but I support them and try to learn how to develop myself further.

~marina-look
Excellent photographer from Ekaterinburg. Guess what? About 30-40 views of some of these pic!




*Kanza
You draw magnicifent, elaborated and enlighted sci-fi yet you dewvatched and featured poor me who shoot all these dirty heavymetal guys. I am returning the favour.



My dear friend ~Orphen-Sirius - amazing furry artist




and several selected favourites



Some of my best pictures: