We have decided to run our own hosting, and move our blog under company's website.
Please update your bookmarks to http://www.akelstudio.com/blog/

My name is Alex Koloskov, I am a photographer and an owner of AKELstudio, Inc., Atlanta - based photography studio. Our studio specializes in photography of products, food, liquids as well as architectural photography.

I am hoping to meet fellow designers who might be interested in cooperation with us, as we are constantly looking for creative ideas in photography. I am a detail oriented photographer, who enjoys taking technically challenging images.

If you are a photographer, or just interested in “How it was made” I will be glad to answer your questions about lighting, setup, post-production etc.

We have created new company web site  AKELstudio.com. Now it much more business oriented, we'll thinking to have some free stuff there: wallpapers, photos, even a free Photo CD for a designers.
To have an access to it, you'll need to register, its free as well.  Enjoy!

We'll be upgrading our server's Linux to a newer version, reprovisioning it. Portfolio along with stock web site (koloskov.com and akelphoto.com) will be down 8/12/2009 from 9:30PM till 8/13/2009 11 AM.
Please email me at contact@akelstudio.com if you'll need access to your client's page.

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As some have noticed, I've got a new profile image. We had a self-portrait photo session (my less favorite type:-), so its one of the photos. We tried to stay away from a usual "me and the camera" portrait, but... Were not successful finding something else to describe the nature of photographer. The good thing, I've add some emotion into this.

Soon I'll post the best of me form this photo session for you judgement. Stay tuned!

We had our very good friends visiting us for a 1.5 weeks. That was a fun! Have not seen them for about 10 years. They are still very nice and creative guys, we had a few (unfortunately) photo sessions done. The rest of the time was spent together in St.Pete, FL with vine, ocean and sun:-)





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A cake from a Whole Foods Grocery, same technique as we have used HERE, except white background. White because it was for a microstock, as they like products on a white. Start feeling that we'll need to shoot more like this, as these images age quite popular on iStock and Shutterstock.






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We are continue to shoot water.. when we got time for this.
Below are some of the results:







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Same setup, just trying to be more creative.

Also, I've got a nice HD sony camcorder (HDR-SR-11), which has one interesting feature: hi-speed shooting mode. It can record a clip for a 3 second with 120 frames per second, making it 4 times slower when playing (12 sec).

Will post videos soon!

Have decided to try micro-stock agencies, like Shutterstock.com and iStock.com. Loaded several photos, mostly water splashes I did a while ago. So far Shutterstock.com isthe best, it start producing a revenue from the fist day. Not much, but considering that I have just a few photos there, it looks promising.

So, it appeared that I need to have more water waves, splashes, etc in my portfoilo. I do not have hi-speed flashes like broncolor pilse (yet:-) , so I found a very simple but still very good solution: 3 canon dedicated flash units with remote trigger:
It was a really messy setup. 


We have shoot hundreds of the photos, hopefully there will be at least 10-15 good ones:-)
However, the result was quite acceptable:

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Today we have received new head for a Manfrotto tripod: Manfrotto 405 GEARED HEAD


Image from www.manfrotto.com



Very nice head, I love it from a first minute I've opened the box.

Eventually we have updated our web site:
http://www.koloskov.com
The biggest advantage is a re-sizable content.
Also we have decided not to do any people/portraits anymore. Feels like need to narrow down my specialty.
However, I'll miss our models:-)

Today will be shooting simple but little bit challenging medical stuff: white bottles and filters on a completely white background. 
 

BTW, soon I'll be launcing a new web site! Better look of all my photos, and more!

Recently we have upgraded our cell phones.. Why not to shoot them for a portfolio? So, 2 hours in a studio, two more in photo shop, and here is the result:








Was easy setup, 3 light sources: one from above, two from sides just a little behind. Only cleaning and fake reflection on a screen were done in photoshop.