The FED camera was named for Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, the founder of the Soviet state security agency “Cheka” which later became the KGB.  The FED 1 was first built in Kharkov, Ukraine in 1934.  Their design is based upon German Leica cameras.  The FED 5B was built from 1977 through the mid-1990s.  They are no longer made today.

The camera operates on manual–there are controls for aperture and shutter speed. We bought Kodak 400 ISO film.  We played around with our Canon 5D mkII to help us with the settings (since we’d never used a film camera on manual before).  We were shocked with the results!! Below you see a candid shot of Nikita taken on the 5D (top) and the FED 5B (bottom).  Both are straight out of the camera:

I love the film tint of the FED 5B and the soft focus it has.  Here’s another example from Thanksgiving dinner:

This time the FED 5B is on the top while the Canon 5D mkII is on the bottom.  The digital camera is sharper, but there’s something very appealing to the film look.

The next day, we had fun going to the park to take some family pics with the camera–its low-light as well as bright-light capabilities are great!!

Jennifer and Nikita

Even Sasha got in on the action!

(all pics straight out of the camera!)

images by Voir Photography

We are finally settling into a routine with our new little one – as much as you can have a routine with a new baby who grows and changes every day.  We do most of our work these days at night–Nikita’s fussiest time is around 3am and we’ve found it easiest to stay up until then. Which means we go to bed around dawn and sleep until the afternoon.  We are so lucky to both have flexible schedules and work at home!

In the past week we have gotten back to a good working routine.  Jennifer has been working with many new couples, including the silent auction winners from last week’s Get Hitched, Give Hope.  Sasha is back to the ‘editing cave’ and clearing out our editing queue.  We have no events all winter and for this we are glad–we have time to finish up our past obligations, we can enjoy life as a new family, and focus our energy on making next summer’s wedding season AMAZING!

Over the next few months, we will be blogging some new highlights films–we have some really creative edits to share! However, finishing our past feature film edits is our priority. So hold tight and check back occasionally for new films and new baby pics

We have new equipment, new weddings . . . and a new baby on the way!!

In the next few weeks, we’ll be shooting a love story, our first weddings of 2011, and some new videos will come online.

In the next few months, we are excited to tell the story of so many wonderful couples.  Because of Jennifer’s growing belly and our expanding family, we are excited to bring some second shooters into our team.  We are so excited to work with the amazing couples holding weddings in some really cool locations (Olympic Peninsula! Seattle Aquarium!).

See you soon!

We began the year with two gorgeous winter weddings. Both Vasiliy and Irina and Nick and Anna began their lives together last January.

Also last winter, we had two fun Love Story shoots: Valentin and Julia had a very snowy shoot on Mt Rainier.  Although Chris and Jodie’s love story was shot in February, you’d never guess–it was t-shirt weather. Chris & Jodie are adventurers–they introduced us to Seattle’s version of tight-rope-walking, also known as slacklining.

In March, Ruslan and Lena said their vows & Ruslan serenaded his bride with the most romantic love song.

We headed to Bellingham for an emotional April wedding: Dan and Tracy are so in love and they had such great support from an amazing family.

In May, we captured Viktor and Alena’s wedding day alongside photographer Alex Udodik, followed by an epic Trash the Dress session that included an encounter with the law!  This month we also had a few commercial shoots: we captured Mario Batali’s interview with Tom Douglas for Seattle Met Magazine as well as a top-secret commercial video shoot in Tacoma.

Just as the summer season began, we packed our bags and headed to our first destination wedding ever–in Anchorage, Alaska.  It took quite a bit of strategizing to bring 3 cameras, 2 tripods, a steadicam, a slider, and plenty of lenses in our luggage, but we managed. It was actually easier than we thought!  Max and Tamila were the best hosts ever–showing us around the Anchorage area, taking us shooting, and of course, putting on the wedding of the year!

July was a busy month–we had several Seattle-area weddings. Karen and Steve put on an elegant wedding at Seattle’s Sunset club and we were proud that their hilarious Love Story set the mood for their reception.

Daniela & Greg were married at the beautiful St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church  and had a fun Moldovan-style reception in Bellevue.  Chris and Jodie tied the knot in Queen Anne and had a fun reception in Snohomish.  It was quite the month of love!

August was our busiest month yet!  Aaron and Milana put on a sophisticated affair: wedding at Kubota Gardens followed by a lovely reception at the Harbor Club in Seattle. The next weekend we headed to Spokane for Irina and Alex’s anniversary celebration.  Kathryn and Edwin married in a gorgeous Catholic ceremony at Seattle University, followed by a great lunch reception at Newcastle Golf Club.

To round out the month, we helped Valentin and Julia finally celebrate their big day!  We also managed to shoot a promo film for Voir Photography!

Our wedding season wrapped up with a bang! Labor Day weekend was spent on the Big Island, Hawaii.  Matt and Nikki had the most laid back wedding I’ve ever experienced–tropical air, salty waters, good food, and close friends and family definitely helped create the mood.  After getting back, we spent the day with Julie and Gena, celebrating their love and happiness.

October was a quiet month–after Alex headed to Ukraine for a few weeks to spend time with his family, we had some time to relax–and have fun.  One highlight of the month was the amazing evening spent at Get Hitched, Give Hope where we auctioned off a Love Story for a very good cause!  The month ended with the wedding of the very sweet couple: Roman & Nataliya.

Since our season ended, we have been hiding away working.  Although we’re not out shooting each weekend, Alex has been working in his “editing cave” daily.  This is the season when we finish wedding edits and make deliveries of final wedding films.  It is also the season for new bookings.  If you, or anyone you know, have an upcoming event, contact us to schedule your date!

Here’s to YOU for your support and love during a very busy and successful year! We wish you all much success, happiness and LOVE in 2011! Happy New Year!!

Much love,

Alex & Jennifer

ZinchukFilms

There’s something about the place you grow up that is both precious and nerve-wracking.  It is freeing to be in a place you feel so comfortable, but strange to fall back into old habits.  Helena, Montana is my hometown and I love it. We don’t get over there as often as we should–it’s only a 10-hour drive from Seattle, but driving so far you gotta stay a while and with school and weddings, we don’t have big blocks of free time.  For Christmas this year we headed over the mountains for a week in a winter wonderland.

The whole state is covered in crystalline snow–crisp, cold and beautiful. We had a great time exploring downtown Helena, visiting all the landmarks and capturing the winter wonderland!

IMG_8047 IMG_8056 IMG_8060 IMG_8117 IMG_8101 IMG_8113 IMG_8172 IMG_8125 IMG_8158

Happy Holidays from Zinchuk Films!

Sometimes my two worlds collide in a beautiful way.

A few days ago I was teaching visual rhetoric to my students.  I was asking them to take the tools of rhetorical analysis we had been working with all quarter and apply them to still images.  As I was developing my lesson plan, I realized just how much the questions I was asking my students applied to my own work as a filmmaker, photographer, and artist.  The concepts of framing, denoted and connoted meaning, audience. . .they are all considerations we make instantaneously as creative artists without thinking of it.

But what if we really thought about it?

I really had to step back and consider how I create films and still images.  In the whirlwind of a wedding, how much time do we actually take to frame an image for meaning rather than just beauty?  How much time do I take to get my tripod set up at just the right angle to capture meaning in both the foreground and background.  We like to walk a wedding before the big day: visit the ceremony and reception venue to visualize where we will set our cameras and how we will choreograph our behind the scenes movement while the action rolls.  But in the moment it is hard to always be aware and not get caught up in the action.

The basic tenets of rhetorical analysis became just so crystal clear when I applied them to visuals:

1) Situation: What motivates the photographer to capture this image? What motivates the filmmaker to press record?

2) Purpose: What is the photographer/filmmaker trying to show in this image?

3) Claim: What argument the artist is trying to make in this visual?

4) Audience: Who is the intended audience for this image? What can we tell about the audience from the image?

There is so much creativity in the work we do, but this creativity is most powerful when it tells a story.  The cameras we use have great rhetorical power: we have the ability to change zoom lengths to capture a moment close up or far away.  The manual controls allow us to highlight parts of a scene by changing the depth of focus.  In film, we blend real speech, music, and moving images to tell a story.  When we embrace the rhetorical power in our work and use it to tell our couples’ stories, then we are creating a truly memorable film that will last for generations.

Take a moment to consider the gorgeous Paris photos I posted at the top of this post. The first photo is the Eiffel Tower from a Parisian alley. The second is a very impressive view of the Eiffel Tower standing over the city.  Each angle has layered into its differing perspectives different motivations & different goals.  In each picture, The arguments being made by the photographer as an artist, Paris as a city, and the Eiffel Tower as a symbol are wildly different.  And we can see different audiences responding differently to the images separately and together.  In short, the perspective we choose, the way we frame and crop an image, the way we edit. . . each of those minute decisions affect the rhetorical voice of that visual.

And so I challenge myself to slow down when I shoot and consciously ask myself:

• What is the situation that brings my camera up, my index finger to the shutter?
• What is my purpose in framing an image: with a tight zoom or wide to capture everything?
• In the blur of the wedding day, sometimes it is difficult to consider the claim I am making as a filmmaker and artist: what part of this couple’s story am I trying to tell?
• And in the case of paid shoots, my audience is of ultimate importance. We are telling the story of one couple’s wedding day back to them, to their families and friends, and to the world.

As a scholar, I consider these elements in my work, but as an artist, how do we consider these elements as we create?

When we unveiled our new brand, we were asked about the bird.  Where did it come from? What does it mean?

We began brainstorming for our re-brand last spring. We knew we needed not only a name for our business, but also a visual representation that would be easy to remember. Over dinner one night we literally sketched every idea that came to mind. At that time, a family of swallows were living  just outside our door and they brought us so much happiness.  That was one idea that was drawn on the paper and it was the one that persisted.

Swallows are symbols of loyalty and home in many cultures. For sailors, they are a symbol of travel as well as returning home.  Swallows are beautiful creatures of nature with a rich symbolic history that we really felt represents what ZinchukFilms is about.

Both Alex and I have traveled extensively,  and living in Seattle we are both far from our childhood homes.  We create a home where ever we are together, but we never forget where we have come from. Many of our couples come from far away but have found love in each other. There is a simple beauty in that.

Swallows are loyal, we are to our clients.   Over the years, we have realized that it isn’t our style to film by the hour–we are there for our couples for their entire wedding day.  It is important to us to tell their love story from beginning to end, and our new full coverage packages reflect that.  And as we have become friends with our couples, it is a great joy when we are able to work with their friends and relatives as they celebrate their special events. We love to see the families of our couples grow as they have children and settle into their lives.

Finally, we love nature. As a girl from Montana, I have always had a special love for wild creatures and the swallow represents that wild freedom that both Alex and I treasure so much about the Pacific Northwest. That is why we are working hard to make our business as green as possible: from online bookkeeping to recycled print products and packaging, ZinchukFilms is conscious of how we use resources and create waste.

There is no one simple reason why our  little turquoise swallow represents us; rather, it is a feeling in our hearts that comes from many different factors. But we hope that by glancing upon our little bird you will think of us and what we do.

Finally *** As promised, I have a winner from our Re-brand Giveaway!!**

We were so busy last week with Get Hitched, Give Hope and our final wedding of the year, that I didn’t have time to post. And so .. .drumroll . . .the winner of the $25 itunes giftcard is . . .

Erin! Send me your address by Monday and I’ll get that gift card sent out!

Congrats–and thank you to everyone for the “likes” on our new Facebook page and for all the supportive comments!

Now that we’re back to business, we have a lot of work to get caught up on. A few more sets of wedding pics will be up soon, as well as a constant stream of wedding films! We also have an exciting announcement to come later this month.

So until we can get our blogs up and scheduled, here’s my baby, Jack. He is my first dog and Alex and my first pet together. We got him 5 years ago while we both lived in Ukraine. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the trip to the US with us (he’s a BIG puppy), but he’s always happy to see us when we go back to visit. He is the king of Alex’s home and protects his parents admirably.