Elena-Shumilova, photography of her children on their farm.

Amazing work.
 
Big Andy said:
They are truly stunning images that I would love to call my own.
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+1. Wish I'd gotten into photography when my kids were smaller
 
Absolutely stunning! Every single one of them. Magical!
 
Beautiful! They rang a bell when I saw the first image... 4th from the bottom (the boy leading the dog with his hood up) is used in a Vodafone advert. It captivated me when I saw it on the tube a few weeks ago - lovely now to know it's a photo taken by his mother rather than an arranged shoot!
 
What an absolute pleasure looking through those...thanks for the link Grahame.
 
This has been floating around facebook this morning. Amazing images!
 
gill said:
Beautiful! They rang a bell when I saw the first image... 4th from the bottom (the boy leading the dog with his hood up) is used in a Vodafone advert. It captivated me when I saw it on the tube a few weeks ago - lovely now to know it's a photo taken by his mother rather than an arranged shoot!
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Which possibly means that they found it on Flikr or something similar and used it under a Creative Commons licence rather than commissioning and paying for the work..... it wouldn't be the first time.
 
jamesoliverstone said:
Might just be me I guess, but as lovely as some of them are, the PP in some of them is just too jarring for me and effectively ruins what was probably a beautiful shot to start with...
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As i was looking through them i was thinking, as lovely as they are i suspect if they was posted on here someone would comment that the pp is overdone, too sharp etc.:)
 
meonshore said:
Which possibly means that they found it on Flikr or something similar and used it under a Creative Commons licence rather than commissioning and paying for the work..... it wouldn't be the first time.
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ouch... I hope that's not the case!
 
They're heavily processed and a lot of her pictures are composites. Not that this necessarily matters; she clearly knows how to exploit the light and the shots would probably be cracking anyway. But the striking, ethereal, otherworldly quality that's made them stand out so much relies on a bunch of selective blur, colour work, image blending, &c.
 
I agree PP or Composite, still thought evoking images -I love them

Les ;)
 
I did find the comment she made about using natural light amusing considering the very heavy PP. Guess it's target market, and it won't be togs queueing up to buy them.
 
Im not all that up to date with different PP methods and workflows but my understanding of it is that PP work merely enhances, in some cases drastically what was already captured in the original shot. Are you saying that this lighting was somehow created in PP software?
 
I've just looked through her Flickr photo stream and she's clearly a very talented lady.
I don't have a problem with the processing of the images at all - why do photos have to look "real" anyway? She's clearly got a clear idea on the look she's aiming to achieve and knows how to get there.
 
Gentlemen, I am not knocking a fantastic set of images, but there was a certain irony that the image this comment was posted above was very heavily manipulated and the lighting not at all as it could have been straight from the camera. "“When shooting I prefer to use natural light – both inside and outside. I love all sorts of light conditions – street lights, candle light, fog, smoke, rain and snow – everything that gives visual and emotional depth to the image.”"

Grahame, other more experienced guys in the thread have suggested some of her images are composites, and if this is true then she absolutely is creating what wasn't there. Some of the pictures have a light touch, while in others you can see halos around the subjects from enhancing. I'd see this as the 'art' in photgraphy, rather than a simple charming set of images.
 
Grizu said:
Im not all that up to date with different PP methods and workflows but my understanding of it is that PP work merely enhances, in some cases drastically what was already captured in the original shot. Are you saying that this lighting was somehow created in PP software?
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She has certainly captured beautifully lit images; in that respect she didn't create the lighting "in PP software". However, the existing lighting has been enhanced markedly using various PP techniques. She has also, in some cases, used composites (from what appear to be beautifully lit individual photographs) to create scenes with lighting that would be very difficult or impossible to create as a single image. There's also heavy use of selective blur and layer blending to create that ethereal quality that is her trademark.
They're absolutely fantastic images, and she's clearly very talented. These images, however, reside in that grey area between photography and digital art.

I'd bet a month's wages she's also a very good traditional (i.e. pencil or paint) artist and that she's used those kinds of skills and talents and aesthetic sense in her post-processing. You can't learn this stuff with a bullet point tutorial or youtube video. There is a heap of time-served, probably lifelong, artistic experience in there.

That said...the selective blur is often rather crudely done. The second image being a good (bad?) example. I also think she uses things like artificial fog to hide artefacts that would betray her composites - the picture with the boy and the cat, for example.
 
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Some rather dangerous shots in there as well as some good ones too.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Gentlemen, I am not knocking a fantastic set of images, but there was a certain irony that the image this comment was posted above was very heavily manipulated and the lighting not at all as it could have been straight from the camera. "“When shooting I prefer to use natural light – both inside and outside. I love all sorts of light conditions – street lights, candle light, fog, smoke, rain and snow – everything that gives visual and emotional depth to the image.”"
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To be fair, she does say she spends evenings processing her images.
 
I looked at her Flickr, Just stunning
A very talented Lady

H
 
MarkLG said:
I've just looked through her Flickr photo stream and she's clearly a very talented lady.
I don't have a problem with the processing of the images at all - why do photos have to look "real" anyway? She's clearly got a clear idea on the look she's aiming to achieve and knows how to get there.
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Agree
It's funny or not really, that there are people not critiquing but just want to rip it apart... Sad....

H
 
She meant on Flickr.. not here.
 
ghoti said:
I'd bet a month's wages she's also a very good traditional (i.e. pencil or paint) artist and that she's used those kinds of skills and talents and aesthetic sense in her post-processing. You can't learn this stuff with a bullet point tutorial or youtube video. There is a heap of time-served, probably lifelong, artistic experience in there.
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According to the original interview she gave she graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture, has worked as an architect and designer, and is also paints and sketches.
I think it's fair to say she's taken those skills and applied them very well to her photography.
 
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