Great vacation and awesome pictures.

We are back from our small vacation. There was fabulous 3 days of relax in Georgia mountains. We lived in a beautiful house in Hiawassee, Lake Chatuge, Northeast Mountains, Georgia, USA (100 Miles North of Atlanta, GA). Thank you, Doug and Beckie :-) I don’t remember when I had a such relaxed rest last time:-)

Alex made some pictures of us and “Eye Candy” breathtaking mountain and lake views from the deck. All technical details you can read on Alex’s blog.

Enjoy the photos:

Continue reading Great vacation and awesome pictures.

Plans, updates and artificial ice.

BUSY, BUSY BUSY time!

Lots of work, plans, ideas and holidays:-) Just finished couple very interesting exclusive projects but unfortunately we can’t  release it now because of disclose agreement.

Also we are preparing  new lessons and master classes. We have bought some new props for it:-) I think you know that many photographers use artificial food, drinks, ice, snow for the hi-end food and product photography, but there not so many places where you can find it. One of the most professional props, I think, sells by Trengove Studios in New York.  Be ready to pay $40 for one ice cube :-)

In addition we are planing to show more  how we do a post production and retouching on our video tutorials, in addition to behind the shoot videos.  Stay tuned!

And in the end here are couple family photos from this Halloween, we had a party with our friends in our studio:-)

Continue reading Plans, updates and artificial ice.

How to shoot watches like a pro: new AKELstudio LIVE Masterclass announced!

This is the announcement of our next LIVE Masterclass. More details please find at Alex Koloskov’s blog.

LIVE Masterclass will be completely free, but recorded video will cost $49. Video will include bonus; a retouching  for the watch.

Below is the image before and after post-production. Similar photo we will do on our Masterclass.

Join us  Sunday 24 of October 2010, 4PM Eastern time. The link to LIVE broadcast is on AKELstudio main page, top menu: AKELstudio LIVE! You have to have an account to get there, member login is on top of the page.

Mouse Over to see Before and After

AKELstudio product photography, watch lesson masterclass

AKELstudio product photography, watch lesson masterclass

The Sole Seduction Networking Event! I won the $250.00 Gift Basket from The Avenue.

Thank you, Maryan (Dash Photography) and Melissa (Mellabelle Designs) for inviting me to a great Sole Seduction Fashionista Networking Event, it was really glorious.

And a big surprise! I won the $250.00 Gift Basket from The Avenue Forsyth!

This a nice blur effect is not Photoshop or any other editing software: direct from a camera RAW,  no filters attached :-) Any ideas how we made it?

Continue reading The Sole Seduction Networking Event! I won the $250.00 Gift Basket from The Avenue.

Our twins go to school, so I am back to blogging:-)

We had a very busy month: a lot of assignment work, LIVE masterclass and preparation for our girls first school, Montessori. Eventually we got everyone ready, washed and potty-trained, and Monday was a first day of school for our girls and some sort of beginning of a new life for us:-)

Now I will have more time to describe  photo-sessions we do and (my favorite:-) to upload more photos including “before and after” on this blog.

Here, at AKELstudio we have so many plans and ideas:
We are going to change our stock web site www.akelphoto.com to specializing only in water stock photography. We want to re-design our Portfolio and run our LIVE  masterclasses to a regular basis.

Also I will fill up my inspirational and motivational collection (www.kapreez.com) with best photographers, designers, retouchers and readings.

Now photos of our first school day:

Editorial photography. Alex Koloskov

Editorial photography. Alex Koloskov

Continue reading Our twins go to school, so I am back to blogging:-)

Water photography webinar-masterclass (LIVE!) is scheduled for Saturday, 7th August at 5PM Eastern time.

AKELstudio glad to announce a date for our first LIVE webinar-masterclass: Saturday, 7th August at 5PM Eastern time.

We’ll be doing our water photography third tutorial, creating photos similar you see below. The lesson will take about an hour, plus some additional time when I can answer your questions.

Water photography master class

Water photography master class

The registration is completely free and one click simple, HERE.  After registration, click on ‘AKELstudio LIVE’ link on top right menu, you’ll see the video preview; check how it works on your browser if you do not want any surprises when we’ll be LIVE.

For all who registered I’ll send a notification with the next photoshoot date/time.

Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to run it most efficient way: we all open for new ideas.

~Alex Koloskov

RetouchPRO LIVE webinar with Steve Koshlap

Yesterday I attended RetouchPRO LIVE webinar with Steve Koshlap. Steve is a professional jewelry and beauty retoucher. He demonstrated the diamond and jewelry retouch from start to finish using Photoshop. The information was really useful. Looking forward to see his other webinars.

Exactly in this time Alex was shooting a jewelry:-) And now I can use my new knowledge for this retouching. I’ll show you the result in couple months because now it is a confidential information.

Stay in touch!

Water in still life, product and advertisement photography: Episode two (announcement)

AKELstudio is glad to announce a new upcoming tutorial, we are working on it right now. This is a second episode from our  “using water in product photography” series (the first one is here).

This time we used a carbonated water, pepper, colored lights and other ingredients:-). Enjoy a little preview, the first image form the photoset:

water-photography-tutorial

Water photography tutorial announcement

The tutorial with the lighting setup and a video will be released beginning next week.

Also, one more exciting news for our readers: The next photoshoot of the “water” series we’ll be broadcasting live form our studio!

The live stream will be available on Hi-def format (720p), accessible from any browser and even from smartphones: we’ll be using USTREAM service for the broadcast, there is a viewer available for both iPhone and Droid market.
Chat will be opened for all registered users: our photographer Alex Koloskov will be glad to answer all your questions real time.

Details will be available later, stay tuned!

International Color Awards. We got a nomination again!

Our 3 photos are nominees in Food Nominee Professional Category again. Hope one day we will have Photographer of the Year award!

The Photography Master Cup is a global online awards show recognizing excellence in color photography. This celebrated event shines a spotlight on the finest professional and non-professional photographers and is presented by International Color Awards.

International color awards. Apple.

International color awards. Apple.

Continue reading International Color Awards. We got a nomination again!

Photography tutorial announcement: Splashing water advertisement photoshoot in development

Glad to announce that we eventually got time to work on the tutorial/master class of underwater splash product photography shoot. We’ll be doing behind the scene video and a blog post, with all setup explained, including every little tips and tricks we used to get job done.

Here is an example of the images we did yesterday during the initial setup:

Under water splash studio photography tutorial

Under water splash studio photography tutorial