Welcome to my Unsung creatives – Sergey Vostrikov post!

Hi everyone!

Sergey Vostrikov is a wedding photographer that works out of Orenburg in Russia. Wedding photography is always a wild ride, it’s super stressful and a good photographer ends up running the whole wedding to ensure all the necessary shots are taking. It’s exhausting, and so it’s super interesting that Sergey also does portraiture photography in his spare time…

How many people essentially do their work as their hobby?

The thing that is incredible about Sergey’s work is the balance of light in his photos.

The image above of the model Lily is honestly incredibly lit… so well that you don’t even think about it. The background is almost invisible, which is incredibly hard to do… the lighting on Lily’s leg is amazing (although I think there might be a bit of photoshop at play here) with the balance of shadow on the top and bottom of her thigh and the highlight in the middle.

The pose is fascinating as well, and so different from so many photos I’ve seen, while still showing off her athletic frame.

I love the above shot so much… I’m sure you’re aware that under water photography is super hard… but to get the actual water’s edge to reflect back underwater is just brilliant. I would absolutely love to get a shot like this…

You might have worked out that this shot is a bit of a trick… but it definitely makes you take a second look…

I love black and white photography… it’s not always about getting the contrast between black and white to be sharp… but also about the different shades of grey. At the very least a photo should be interesting, and the shot above of Anastasia has that in spades.

I’m honestly not sure how Sergey was able to lit his model Anjelika so well, I think it has to be natural light from the window… purely because most studio lights would spill onto the floor. I’ve always been a fan of depth of field (getting the subject sharp while everything else is blurry) and to have both the foreground (the edges of the mirror) and the background (the wall and chair) is just super cool. This is a great shot and the lighting on Anjelika’s leg is so nice. Her pose flows so nicely from the top of the right hand side to the bottom(ish) of the left hand side… which is essentially how we read, and how our eyes naturally fall on an image.

I love the vivid colour in this one, the light blues, the pink eye shadow, the black nail polish… everything is vying for attention in this shot and it makes for a super interesting image. This too would have been hard to get… I reckon there is probably 5 or 6 lights on Alena here.

Everything about this shot is perfect… the lighting on the model, the model Alena’s hair positioned the way it is, the arch in her back, the lighting on the waterfall, it’s amazing.

I think this model might actually be Sergey’s partner, she’s in so many of his best photos, and they’re in a lot of shots together being all cute and coupley. She’s a great model… it took me ages to figure it out because she looks so different in so many of the different shots.

I love this photo so much… there’s a lot going on, but it’s surprisingly simple. You really see lights actually in the shot, but I think this strip light adds so much… the lighting on the model, Julie’s back is so good… I love love the line of blue light.

Of course her body and face are also lit perfectly. Her eyes and lips are lit amazingly, which the shadow framing her face. Julie’s side and chest are also lit so well, and obviously meant to be a feature of the shot. This shot would have taken a long time to get exactly right… so worth it.

The below is another shot of his partner Alena, and while I know she doesn’t have a lot on, it’s just so sweet…

This is quite a good example that nudity doesn’t always have to be about sex… and while obviously there is a sexiness to it, it’s also colourful, exciting, comfortable and innocent. The light bouncing off the Coke bottle I’m sure was accidental, but amazing in itself. There is so much incredible lighting in this shot… her face, the yellow light on her back, the red light on her back, the blue tinge in the background… a ton of extremely careful lighting when into this shot… it’s so easy for one light to overpower everything else, it takes so much effort to achieve this kind of balance.

Alena again… but this time it’s all about the bra and/or the earrings. You don’t see many shots where the model is completely ignoring the camera, but it really works here… especially with the lighting on her legs, chest and the different muscles in her neck. So good!

This shot with the model Lily is just so strange, and yet so intriguing.

Her face is so relaxed (which is so hard for a model to accomplish, even at the best of times) but the arch of her back and the lighting of her arm and face are so nice. I think everything in this shot was completely thought through, even the position of her fingers… I’m just not sure why, except to intrigue us.

Thanks so much for reading my Unsung creatives – Sergey Vostrikov post.

I’ve got a few other posts in my Unsung Creatives series:

Unsung creatives – Pier Sparello

Unsung creatives – Peter Nguyen

I’ve also got my own photography posts available if you’d be interested…

Photography – Gemma shoot

Please hit me up on Twitter if you love to chat about photography…

———————-Sources: Header Image : Source – Lizz by Sergey Vostrikov———————-

———————-Post Title: Unsung creatives – Sergey Vostrikov———————————–