Travel Photo Blog | ZooMMER

Gusta

2012-03-15T00:16:00.001-07:00

Last year I licensed my Geneva cafe photo to an Ausrtalian start-up. Finaly their website is finished featuring my photo on the frontpage and other pages too. Gusta is a project for collective savings in restaurants and cafes, but it's not selling coupons as many others, they are given for your shares. If you live in Sydney, enjoy it — Gusta.com.au

Key West Photos

2012-03-03T01:04:00.000-08:00

For some reason I didn't mention about my Florida Travel Photos gallery, which is now available on my portfolio website. This gallery is the last one from the United States. It includes photos made in Miami and Key West mainly. If you're looking for rights-manages travel photos of Key West and Miami Beach, welcome to my website. An here're some of the best travel photos from Florida.

Inspiration pic #2

2012-02-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

I think all anyone really needs is a good adventure.

CameraSim Toy

2012-01-31T08:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, here's a great toy for all photographers. Especially for beginners, who try to work through all the settings of their DSLR. In the past you had to make 500+ shots figuring out how everything influences the final result. Now you don't need to kill you shutter, jus use this:

Inspiration pic #1

2012-01-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

Recently I found tonns of great pictures with inspirational captions, that I love. Here's the first one.

New York City Photos

2011-11-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Oh Mama Mia! My New York travel photos are here at last. They're all made in April and despite the nasty cold weather and moody clouds I have some nice pictures of the incredible New York City.
Most of them are Manhattan photos, including Times Square, Central park, Broadway, Madison Square park, Union Square park, Top Of The Rock observation deck, Washington Square park, Grand Central terminal, New York Public Library, Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Mamma Mia sign (billboard) on Times Square in New York City, USA

Yellow NYC taxis and traffic on Times Square in New York City, USA

Dark rainy clouds over Washington Sqaure Arch, Manhattan, New York

Yellow taxi passing by Madison Square, Broadway and Flatiron building in the evening

New Crete Travel Photos

2011-10-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

After I got my new Mac computer with great Mac monitor, I reviewed some of my images critically and now re-retouched them. This really slowed me down and my new images don't appear.
But now I got a much better result with nice vibrant colors and better dark colors. I recently upgraded my Crete travel photos gallery with a dozen of images and want to share some of the new photos of Crete:

The cosy quay of lake Voulismeni with little restaurants and bright boats.

The photo of Agios Nikolaos lake Voulismeni and it's colorful little boats on the Greek island of Crete.

The photo of tourists near the ruins of King Minos's Knossos palace in Crete, Greece.

New York City Panoramas

2011-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of NYC panoramas before I start showing my all USA travel photos.
The first one is lower Manhattan panorama with Empire State Building. The photo is made from the Top Of The Rock observation deck in harsh midday light.

This photo is a panoramic night view of Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge with nice light trails left by the traffic.

More travel photos of New York^ Washington D.C., Miami, Key West, Boston and Cape Cod are coming soon! Stay tuned.

Brooklyn bridge prints

2011-07-12T03:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being quiet so long. I'm almost done with my USA travel photos. When it's all ready, I'll post a link here.

As for for now, you can already order prints and posters with my NYC photos on FineArtAmerica.com:
brooklyn bridge photos

Travel Photos: USA

2011-05-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

Couple of weeks ago I came back home from a long photo travel through the USA. I've traveled a long way on the east coast from Boston to the island of Key West in Florida. I had a great time traveling, seeing beautiful places and meeting nice people, who often spent all their time with me. Now I'm editing my travel photos of Boston, Cape Cod, New York City, Washington DC, Savannah, Miami and Key West. As ssoon I'm done with it all the photos will be published on my website Travel Stock Photos

Only One Got Paid For Photo

2011-03-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Only one of photographers got paid for his picture. His is not on this photo.
I love reading about selling your photos online. Sometimes reading about selling pictures is more interesting than selling pictures. But at the bottomline it's all about how good you photos are and how long you're working in this sphere as a pro. Nothing can help sell a bad picture. Photoshelter blog has many interesting posts on how to sell photos.

New Trip: Eastern USA

2011-03-05T01:36:00.000-08:00

This year I'm going totravel a lot in the United States. My 1-year visa is approved, flight is booked, insurance is payed. On the 4th of April I'm coming to NYC to start a first short road trip to the south of Florida.

The itinerary goes through Philadelphia, Washington, Norfolk, Myrtle Beach, Savannah, Cape Canaveral and Miami. I'd love to meet anyone living in these areas to walk through the towns or just sit and talk with a cup of coffee. So if you're living somewhere near, pleaase contact me. One of the important things for me in this trip is to meet interesting people and learn there stories, to learn how people live.

My next trip might be much longer (up to 2 months) and I plan it to the Cape Cod, Boston and surroundings.

Discovering Russia: Orenburg

2011-01-26T09:14:00.000-08:00

Such a big fun to see your small provincial hometown with the eyes of a foreigner. And twice more fun if he's a British journalist from Russia Today channel.
Here's a pretty long report about Orenburg, Russian region on the borderline with Kazakhstan. James Brown covered all the sights and attractions of the place I live in.

"The city is famous by shawls made from goat hair and by its big salt deposits. The Soliletsk’s salt lakes could compete with the Dead Sea", says the promo text.

NatGeo Traveler

2011-01-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

We often become self-critical when we don't stand up to scrutiny, because everyone wants to be perfect. Especially in career and at work. I really become self-deprecating sometimes. But when I see something like the last issue of NatGeo Traveler, I feel relief.

Even the world leading publishers are humans like all of us and despite all their professionalism they sometimes make blatant mistakes right on the cover. The magazine with circulation over 700.000 just forgot its logo on the front cover.

I wonder how much it cost to make 700.000 stickers and stick them to 700.000 magazines. Also what did they do to the man who was responsible for this flub? Hope this man is allright — I'm really thankful to him for this lesson.

VIV publication

2010-12-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Today I'd like to share the tearsheets from Viv magazine. Th November/December 2010 issue features 2 of my photos.

The article on page 48 tells about best spots for New Year's celebrations. In the Prague section on page 50 you can see 2 pictures
The first is the busy square between Prague's major malls "Kotva" and "Palladium".

The second photo is the Nostalgic Tram #91, a historic tram that runs on weekends and holidays from April through mid-November. It offers vintage tram cars dating from 1908 to 1924, which trundle along a special route, starting at the Public Transport Museum and going via stops at all major tourists’ attractions.

I'd like to say thanks to the guys from VIV magazine. They were my first publishers from the USA and it was great to work with them.

Hamburg Miniature World

2010-11-22T12:55:00.000-08:00

Last year on my visit to Hamburg I visited an amazing museum, the most unusual museum I've ever seen. MINIATUR WUNDERLAND HAMBURG is the largest model railway in the world with 20 km of railtracks, 1300 trains and 500.000 lights.

If you ever come to Northern Germany, you don't want to skip this place. But if you come it may take all your time, because you would not want to leave. Here's an amazing promo video of the museum and my travel photos from Hamburg.

Visa Issues

2010-11-09T12:56:00.000-08:00

Travelling is great, fun and really pleasing for anybody. Even for travel photographers, who see it more like a job. But preparing for a travel could be a very time and money consuming process, especially if you travel abroad. Here in Russia there're two things I hate most of all about travel planning: expensive flights and visas.

While more and more carriers are appearing in Russia, making international flights affordable for the most people, the visa issue remains a pressing problem. It's not only about ambassy's beaurocracy, but also about accessibility. No problem to get visa in Moscow, but if you live 2000 miles away from the capital, will you travel there and back just to get a shengen visa sticker or will you prefer to travel to a non-visa country?

In the last 3 years many (~30) countries abolished visas for Russian tourists, including Israel, South Korea, all South-American countries, countries of South-Eastern Asia and some European countries (Croatia, Montenegro).

The latest news was that EU abolished visas for Albania and Bosnia. But shengen visa is still required for the citizens of Russia. I hope shengen will be abolished for us too, as this is one of the most crazy and problematic visas, which are given mostly for short terms and for single entry. Even American visas are multiple and up to 2 years term.

Santorini panoramas

2010-10-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

I have a sort of obsession with panoramas in the last several months. I don't really know why, but now I try to make as many panoramic photos as possible. The first symptoms of the obsession showed on my last trip to Russian National Park "Samara Luka".
In August I made a really nice and productive trip to the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini, which resulted in dozens of beatiful iconic views of these foremost tourists attractions and 8 nice panoramas.

Here's the two first panoramas of Fira and Oia, Santorini's most amazing towns with thousands of people flocking to to see the sunset.

Platforms for photographers

2010-10-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

When I decided I needed a professional looking photosite with my pictures, there was only one way to go. This was PhotoShelter of course. I mean I looked through dozens of other offers, as I always do before investing my money, but all of them had some major drawbacks — SmugMug, Zenfolio, Foliolink, LicenseStream — none of them was perfect. I mean PhotoShelter was not perfect either, but I made it my choice despite the highest price among all that I've just mentioned. I can't say I've been long with them, but my choice prooved to be right many times.

And the main reason why PhotoShelter is the best is pretty weird: it's functional and fast and easy-to-use and all that stuff, but most important, that it has a good reputation among professional photo editors, buyers and others. When they come to your site, yhey see it's PhotoShelter and they think "Hm, this guy is not just showing snapshots to his friends, he must be a serious guy". So the site shares it's reputaion with you, which is good for photographers. Though, the process is reciprocal, I mean photographers of PhotoShelter make a reputation to the whole site. And in fact common photographers use it because this is the platform used by world famous photographers like Chase Jarvis and Ami Vitale. I guess PhotoShelter should pay such photographers to use their platform as this is the best promo for the site and major advantage over other platforms.

If you want to see what is PhotoShelter and want to try it for free, use this link.

Samara Luka, Russia

2010-09-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Samara Luka is one of Russia's most beautiful and accessible national parks. It lies on a picturesque place, where the Volga river makes a U-shape bend around Zhiguli mountains. It's only 50 miles away from Samara, one the major cities in European Russia. On both north and south Samara Luka adjoins the Volga river, which has been thankfully and blandly called Mother from ancient times. This quaint place saw numerous historical events and personalities of the USSR, Russian Empire and Ancient Russia.

Well there's a lot I can speak about this place: it has a weird reputation among ufologists and magnetism reserchers, archaeologists find objects as old as 250 mln years. But today this is a place of beautiful unspoiled nature first of all. A place where you can enoy "real Russia" whith its wild forests, spot wild animals in natural life, climb the highest peak of Zhiguli mountains and enjoy amazing sunset over Volga river.

Ellen Boughn's Book

2010-09-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

Ellen Boughn, who recently was so kind to give me a free mini-consultation, published her book "Microstock money shots". And even though I set my mind against microstocks, I'm waiting forward to read this book as soon as e-book version appears. Ellen is a great professional with over 30 years experience in stock photography. Who else can better know this buisiness! Ellen offers expert advice to help those already using microstock to gain an edge, as well as introduce the millions of Flickr users to the added bonus of dollars per download.
The Ellen Boughn's book is available on Amazon.

One Day on Earth

2010-07-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

This is a promo trailer of One Day On Earth, an amazing project I'm going to join. People will record the human experience over a 24-hour period to contribute to the documentary about the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occurs in one 24-hour period on Earth.

New trip planned

2010-06-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we are going to expedition to Russian National Park "Samara Luka", a gorgeous island in Volga river, a historic place with mountains over 100 mln. years near Samara. This is really the most scenic place in the area and also one of the most arduous, there are no common roads, just some tracks and dirt roads for 4x4.

Will take your suggestions, questions and requests for travel photos. Also considering assignments in this area.

Follow me to read my trip story and see photos when I come back.

How Design Is Made

2010-05-28T00:43:00.000-07:00

For a pretty long time I've been working as a broadcast designer and made tonns of TV commercials. Actually I still go on doing that, but less and less, trying to shift to travel photography. So this YouTube video is just about how 99% of all work is done in this sphere.

Fantastic Firework Show

2010-05-11T01:38:00.000-07:00

We had this year a very cool Victory Day celebrations in Russia - parade with Russian, Polish, French, American, British and CIS armies, 30 leaders of coalition countries and a wonderful firework show at night.

The firework was accompanied by music of the most famous Russian composers and was shot from 44 cameras, some of them were on Kremlin walls and huge cranes. So the picture had great pans and fly-throughs.