Course · Moscow · 2017

Photoband 2017

My first crash course on producing complex photoshoots, June 2017: four weeks of lectures, hands-on workshops, guest lecturers and four full-scale shoots.

weeks

lectures

Including guest experts: photo editors and art directors from The Hollywood Reporter and Forbes.

shoots

In the hands-on part of the course, my students and I staged four shoots, each with its own story, heroes, styling, locations and set design. We called the first one The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

A young woman perches on stacked stools in a misty, curtained hall as an old man in a long coat looks on, a cloud hanging above.

A collaboration with the theatre actors Lada Churovskaya (Vakhtangov Theatre) and Igor Pekhovitch (Taganka Theatre).

A pen sketch of the set on squared paper: curtains, a hanging cloud and two small figures.

The very first draft of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

A woman in white lies back across stools in a dark hall, under a hanging cloud.

A red-haired woman in a loose white top leans on a dark banister, black feathers at her shoulder.

A woman crouches on a stool in a misty hall flooded with window light, the cloud hanging above.

The Spirit of the Ballet School is another story we shot in our practical sessions: a spirit, played by Artemy Fogel of the Salva Theatre, that inhabits a ballet school.

Young ballet students pose at the barres of a hall strung with white threads, a pale spirit behind them.

The spirit, played by Artemy Fogel, leans on a barre in a pale wrapped costume in a misty hall.

A ballerina in a pink leotard stands at a barre beside a column wrapped in white threads.

A young girl in a black leotard sits on a barre, her hair in a high bun.

The third shoot was The Vampire’s Winter Garden, an ironic take on vampire lore, starring Philipp Soloviev, frontman of the band Non-Adaptants.

Philipp Soloviev in a ruffled collar stands with a borzoi in a misty greenhouse.

A woman in a lace dress sits on a stool in a misty greenhouse.

A young man in a lace suit sits in a cloud of white smoke among greenhouse plants.

A young man in a ruffled collar under the glass roof of the greenhouse, close up.

Our final practical shoot was the women of the Plavinsky family, a famous dynasty of artists, with the focus on the classical family portrait.

Four women of the Plavinsky family pose together in period-style clothes against a dark backdrop.

The course students and crew in a group portrait on a dark studio set.

Production crew

Models: Lada Churovskaya, Igor Pekhovitch, Artemy Fogel and students of the Baletta school, Philipp Soloviev, the Plavinsky family · Styling: Tatiana Almond · Clothes: Naidal, Tali Rutman · First assistant: Timur Ivanov · Make-up: Oxana Rox, Irina Sheremetieva · Producer: Anna Bednieri · BTS photographer: Elina Wexler · BTS videographer: Nikita Goryachkin · Guest lecturers: Varvara Gladkaya (Forbes, RBC), Oleg Burnaev and Veniamin Fridhelm (The Hollywood Reporter) · Students: Irina Dengina, Alyona Kondyurina, Natalia Inkina, Anna Stefanenko, Arsen Galstyan, Alexandre Vainstein, Natalia Kirianova, Valentina Besprozvannykh, Vladimir Dolgov, Sergey Chernov, Julia Grigorieva, Nikita Sytnik, Silva Stepanian, Alexandra Introligator, Maria Ignatieva