Alternative Take On Sushi

If one day you get really hungry at work and there's still a few hours left till lunch break there's a great alternative to chewing on your pen or eating paper. Play around with whatever is on your desk and let your subconscious mind fuel your creativity. Not only will time fly by pretty fast but you also might found out what to order for lunch. In my case it was salmon sushi :)

One of my main goals was to put together the whole image in camera and use Photoshop primarily for brightness/contrast adjustments and slight color tweaking. The most challenging were push-pins which I had to glue together in order to create a rice layer for my sushi. I thought orangey - pink eraser and silver pen/pencil would be ideal for salmon and chopsticks. I cut out the flowers in the background from paper and folded them in a cherry blossoms shape. And not to keep you in suspense, the Japanese signs on the sushi plate translate as "creativity".

Happily Ever After

A few weeks ago, when I was participating in the Art & Wine Walk art show at Stirling Club, I was approached by club's special events director Sharon, who asked me if I'd be interested in photographing her stepson Corey's wedding. Although I don't really photograph weddings on a constant basis I couldn't miss the opportunity to document the excitement and happiness of such an important day.

The wedding took place at St. Joseph Husband of Mary Church located close to the Strip and next to the prestigious residential neighborhoods Canyon Gate Ranch and The Lakes. I checked out the church day before the big event to get a sense of place and see what the lighting might be and was really taken away by a subtle beauty and peacefulness of its inner courtyard architecture which seemed to be influenced by Spanish motifs. Inside the church was defined by prominent stained glass windows beautifully scattering the rays of light across the abstract shaped interior.

While for the beautiful bride Jaime the wedding day started with a trip to Cristophe Salon at MGM, my work day began when she and her friend Andrea were back at their Palms Place suite. There I took a few portraits of Jaime as well as some images of her stunning Vera Wang dress, exquisite Manolo Blahnik shoes and of course bride and groom's gorgeous wedding bands.

Corey and Jaime decided to have their formal pictures taken before the ceremony so I had a little less than an hour to take all kinds of photographs of the happy couple by themselves and with their relatives as well as some candid images of the guests.

Being originally from Orthodox Russia, I've never seen the traditional Roman Catholic wedding ceremony before so it was definitely a wonderful experience to witness all the stages of the Mass which was very spiritual and full of beauty.

Reception took place in the North Lounge of the Stirling Club and was full of laughs, joy and happiness. Although I was just a professional photographer at Corey and Jamie's wedding I had so much fun photographing them that it didn't feel like a job at all. I guess that's what matters most at the end of the day...

Stirling Club | Cigar Bar & Lounge

Not so long ago my husband Ken and I were hired to create a few interior images of the Stirling Club's Cigar Bar & Lounge located at magnificent Turnberry Place.

Stirling Club describes Cigar Bar as a place where "members may enjoy a grand selection of cigars and a variety of pipe tobaccos as well as playing billiards". They also boast the world's finest wines and spirits and offer club's members an option of storing their cigars in the exclusive humidors if they so desire.

Ken and I were very excited about this photographic opportunity and did our best to capture the unique essence and atmosphere of this exquisite after hour gathering spot. We are very happy with the final result and truly believe that our photographs ended up looking as inviting and elegant as Cigar Bar in real life.

Russians in America

A funny thing happened to me one day. I was looking for a model in Vegas and posted an ad on craigslist with my website info. Within a day I got a call from a girl who viewed my online portfolio and was impressed with my work so much that she couldn't help contacting me. To my surprise she was also originally from Russia and have been living in Vegas for the past few years. Her name was Masha and she came to USA in 1995 after she won a greencard in the annual lottery hold by US government!

Masha stopped by at my studio last week with her boyfriend Goga to get some professional headshots done. I had a total blast photographing them and of course got to speak in Russian. Hopefully, my photographs will help Masha to make the first steps towards her dream career as a convention model and a movie extra.

We just couldn't choose between these two images! =)

Wall Street Journal

Having been a financial roller coaster for the past few years, Las Vegas has become one of the major objects of interest for the Wall Street Journal. It's unfortunate that Sin City keeps sinking deeper in economic turmoil, but fortunate for me because I get to provide the visual interpretation for the Wall Street Journal's articles.

Yesterday I was taking photographs of the property on the Strip where Harley Davidson Cafe, Hawaiian Market Place and Travelodge are located. One of my images appeared in today's issue of the Wall Street Journal under the "Heartbreak Hotel: Vegas Dream Crashes" story.

I never know the context of the article except a few facts and names of the people/places I need to photograph so it's always interesting to see which of my images gets to be the one. For this particular story, I don't think there could have been a better match between the verbal and visual part.

Click on the image below to see the large version of the tear sheet.

Desert Thunderstorm

I've been mesmerized by thunderstorms since I was a kid. I just absolutely love when the sky suddenly gets dark, air becomes stuffy, random drops of rain fall on the ground and you can just feel that nature is ready to burst out its rage.

I have not witnessed many thunderstorms in the desert but when they do happen it totally makes my day. Yesterday we had a big storm across the valley. It didn't rain much in our part of town but there was enough lightning and thunder to satisfy my appetite for the whole year. I also tried to photograph some lightning bolts and was quite happy with the result considering that it was my first attempt.

On - Air With Sophia Choi

Last week I had a pleasure photographing Sophia Choi - one of the most talented and definitely unforgettable Las Vegas news anchors. My assignment was to cover all stages of Sophia's work day on KVBC Channel 3 for an article "Professional Women in Global News and Broadcasting" which is supposed to appear in a major Asian publication called "Singles Magazine". I don't have the tearsheets yet but they will definitely go up on my blog once I receive them. So check back soon. Meanwhile here's some highlights from the shoot (in reverse order).

Ms. Choi is getting ready for a 4PM News.


Doing a news teaser.

Editing material for newscast.

Sophia and her producer go over the details of a feature story.

Vote For My Ad On ZOOPPA.COM

If you haven't heard of Zooppa, check it out now because it is one of the best websites out there. Not only it unites artistic people from all over the world but gives everyone an opportunity to create print ads, banners, videos and other forms of advertising for big companies and earn some cash for doing that. Not everyone wins of course, but those who get the most votes.

Currently Zooppa has a number of competitions going on and the one I'm participating in is for Jones Soda Co. Here's my print ad.

Since Jones gives everyone an opportunity to have their photograph printed on soda's bottle labels (if they like it obviously) I decided to base my ad on that. As usually I wanted to come up with something clever, so after challenging my brain with different concepts I chose the one above.

My Jones bottle is floating in the tray with photo developer like a normal print would, while tongs are resting on the side and the film reel is saying "Reveal Yourself". Vibrant colors accent a hip look of the ad and give it a feel of a darkroom.

So if you like my ad and think that I deserve to win, then vote for me here.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

I've been debating for a while whether to start my own blog or not. At first blogging seemed to me like a new trend - everyone was expressing their thoughts in the cyber world and if you didn't regularly type your internet memoirs you were not cool enough. Since I never got influenced by any social obsessions I decided to leave blogs aside.

Today having a blog became a real necessity if you run your own business. Although wedding and portrait photographers are the ones who blog the most, I did manage to find some blogs on the websites of commercial photographers. I wish there were more because it is always very exciting to find out some details about photographers' work process when you are already impressed by their unique portfolio. It's like getting a backstage pass.

With this being said, I'm officially starting "Olga Minkevitch Photography Blog", which I hope will be of interest to all working professionals and everyone else who shares the love for photography and art.