1. Introduce yourself.
When I dare to call myself an artist, it always starts with a lower-case letter 😉
In general, I’m Photoshop expert and retoucher, and also studio photographer. These are my main occupations. But my soul leans to art, and I manage to create it time to time.
My site actually shows the best what is my work about.
2. Can you tell us something about your art. How it all started?
I have always been a perfectionist and liked photo-realistic imaging. So naturally I started to do some photography. Later, as I found out about Photoshop, I realized that this was a perfect tool for me. It was back in the beginning of 2000’s. For the next several years my examples-to-follow had been hi-end advertising works from creative retouchers all over the world. With time, I have learned to do such photo-manipulations myself.
I also learned from artists – studied composition, work with color, watched as many paintings as I could to inspect how all those methods are used by artists. I believe you cannot be a good creative retoucher or photographer without studying classical art, as strong composition and work with colors is the key to good imaging.
3. What software do you use for your projects?
I use Photoshop, of course, as my main workplace. But I can’t get by without digital photography as it is a source of materials I use. And my faithful Wacom tablet, of course, as a medium of precise work in Photoshop.
4. Wow I see that you are a food photographer too? The photography is just amazing! Can you tell us more about your food photography?
Food photography is relatively new of my interests. I’d even say it’s more a food-styling, as I like creating compositions of food, flora and beautiful tableware. I have a collection of hand-made ceramics and retro kitchenware at home. So once I have decided I want to make beautiful pictures with it. I also got inspired by some rural style food photography. That’s how it all started.
I already had a chance to illustrate a book with my photographs. It’s called “Latte artist” by Oleksandr Benitskyi, 3-times latte art champion in Ukraine. And I hope it’s not the last book. I also want to publish my own book of food photography.
5. What equipment do you use for your photography?
So far it’s been Canon 5D Mk II. And most importantly, I use good lenses, L-series, cause I create high-resolution imagery, where detail quality is really important. I most often use Canon EF 70-200 / f.4, and sometimes add Canon EF 17-40 / f.4.
6. Your water based photo manipulation is fantastic! Can you share your favorite water based manipulation? Tell us something about it.
Thank you 😉 I guess my favorite is yet to come, cause I plan to create artwork with water figures. For now my favorite is probably Absolut vodka manipulation. The idea came to my mind accidentally, and it didn’t take long before I started this creative project. It wasn’t easy first of all because I needed photos of water splashes. We had to spend several hours in studio creating and shooting various splashes. After that there was a long work of cutting out each splash, before I actually could start working on the very image.
I have assembled video of creation process, you can watch it here
7. Can you share your favorite art from your portfolio. Why are they special for you?
All the artworks on my portfolio are many years old, cause there’s been a long period after that when I didn’t create anything (you can call it a crisis). Now, finally many new artworks are in progress, and will be out this year hopefully. I already see that my favorite work (or even works) will be among them, but I obviously can’t show it to you right now 😉
As to old artworks, even though there were some successful (Catalogs of best works in international contest, one has even got a gold medal, and couple are accepted into museum collection), my favorite is “Fishes can fly”. It’s one of my first, it’s weak in composition, it wasn’t even sent to public. But that was a time of dreaming, flight of imagination, and I enjoyed every bit of creating it! Still have warm memories about that time.
8. Please share a quick tutorial of any artwork of yours.
The quick tutorial is there’s no quick tutorials for professional work 😉 It took years of learning and practice, and it takes time and trial to do each work now. It is still a challenge every time I create something. You put lots of thought into it, you try various ways, and you do lots of routine work with hands, that no plugins can substitute.
I plan to creative unique Photoshop course that’s suitable for both beginners and knowledgeable users, and the tutorials I’ll be sharing will illustrate the best how much work is really needed 😉 The course will be on YouTube and maybe at Coursera.org. Anyone will be able to find my materials and works using hashtag “polozovarts”.
9. From how long have you been working in this food photography and digital arts? Are you a self taught artist or did you do some course from a university?
I have been working as creative retoucher since 2008, and as studio photographer probably since 2010. My Photoshop studies started in 2001, and I’m a self-taught designer. That time good study materials didn’t even exist, as Photoshop was in the early stage of its development (the first version of Photoshop I used was Photoshop 6.5, if anyone remembers that marking). There were some simple lessons on creating various text or visual effects (not video, just some text with screenshots). That’s the way we were learning Photoshop back then 😉
10. Anything else you want to share. Feel free to share here.
My closest dream is to do some food photography projects for European restaurants. I’m really interested in cooperating with professional chefs. This might also take my food photography to another level.
