Captured freedom on photo

I prefer heights for the perfect shot. My favorite places are roofs and bridges. I do not feel fear, aerial landscapes captures me. Firstly looking at the view and enjoying, next taking a shoot. "Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of camera", Yousuf Karsh. The process is absolutely breathtaking. This clear passion for photography obviously reflects my lifestyle. I am not hurry up in making the decision. Look through and think over for a while it is my usual point of view.
Some of the images below show the incredible heights while other shots show the beautiful scenes. 

I absorb every detail from alive cities and places. Each of it unique, having history, and a soul. My work shows that China has no border. I've read that people always talking about borders and limits, but I've never noticed any. I run my blog and make a promise to rise and develop as a photographer and as a person. I think I will reach all my goals.

luxury lace
SIUF 2016 – China (Shenzhen) International Brand Underwear Fair
Photographer: Vladyslav Ga

An expensive combination of gold and black
SIUF-2016
Photographer: Vladyslav Ga

SIUF 2016 – China (Shenzhen) International Brand Underwear Fair 

The leading lingerie trade show for industry professionals.
SIUF 2016 – China (Shenzhen) International Brand Underwear Fair and Shenzhen International Underwear OEM and Fabrics & Accessories Fair – the premier China underwear trade show was held from 05-07 May 2016 at SZCEC. With strong support from the Guangdong Textile Association, Shenzhen Futian District people’s Government, and Shenzhen Underwear Association, this event it has become the leading industry event where companies looking to expand their lingerie business in China.

    The annual event, launched last year, fuses aesthetics from the East and West and showcases the biggest style trends, the organizers said.

 One of UNESCO’s Cities of Design,held in Shenzhen the fashion week is sponsored by the city government and organized by the Shenzhen Garment Industry Association and IMG, a global leader in fashion. The weeklong event will promote original fashion brands.

    Shenzhen has developed into a fashion hub in China, with original fashion brands, industrial clusters and low-to-high-end manufacturing sites.

Photo by: Vladyslav Ga
In Hong Kong during spring you will encounter four festivals, with hundreds of performers, thousands of years of traditions, hundreds of thousands of incense sticks and who knows how many buns!
Whether you’re following the sounds of rousing gongs and drums, watching locals commemorating the birthdays of Tin Hau, Buddha and Tam Kung, or cheering on competitors scrambling up a tower of buns at the Cheung Chau Bun Festival, this is a great time to soak up the energy, tradition and passion that comprise the very soul of Hong Kong.

Photographer: Vladyslav Ga
Fashion show of Jewerly Wang
The 2016 Bridal Collection transcends seasonal bridal trends, offering a creative vision for brides-in-waiting who are seeking for a timeless look that is sophisticated and ultimately, out- of-the-world.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts"

William Shakespeare 

Model: DARIA
MUA: Eve
Photo by: Vladyslav Ga

10 Tips & tricks for better portrait photography

How does a photographer capture a good portrait? Below are some tips and tricks.

1. Background. Background plays a vital role to a portrait. As you know, portrait is all about someone’s face. So it is important to have a background which is not interfering with the subject. A simpler and less cluttered background works better for portraits. However, sometimes surroundings may need to be considered to bring out the personality of the subject.

For example, if you are taking a photo of a lawyer, you may like to do it in their office where you may see stacks of legal books or references. Including them in the background will establish identity. However, the background does not have to be prominent. Make it blurred or dimmed by focusing on the subject. The same applies to almost all types of portraits. In most cases, it is a good idea to blur or dim the background. This can be accomplished by using a zoom lens and shooting from a short distance or with a wide aperture manual setting.

2. Light. If you take the portrait in natural light, you have the best chance of getting a great look with the natural colors and skin tones. However, shooting outdoors may be tricky, as you may not be able to control the light in most situations. Make sure that you don’t pose the subject right in front of the sun. This may cause unwanted brightness or deep shadow. Shooting in mid-day also should be avoided as much as possible. For best results, position the subject in such a way that sunlight falls on the face from the side. You may also use reflectors or an external flash to light up some parts of the face. If you are shooting indoors, make sure that you use a soft, evenly distributed light source to light up the subject.

3. Aperture. Try different apertures. A wide open aperture (with a lower number) will blur the background and make the subject stand out. A smaller aperture (with a higher number) will make the whole scene come into better focus. Typically f/2.0 to f/5.0 is good for portraits.

4. Focus. As it is said, “Eyes are the mirrors of mind.” That’s true in portraits, too. When taking portraits, your focus should be your model’s eyes. Eyes have a lot of stories to tell, and as a good portrait photographer; you should be able to bring those out in your photographs. And it’s not always a smiling face which makes a good portrait. Try capturing different expressions while keeping focus on eyes.

5. Angle and Pose. Pose and the angle of the body and face play a key role. Looking straight at the camera with motionless expression can be boring. Try to flare up your portraits with some twist. Maybe it is an inviting smile, a sexy expression, a flamboyant look, tilting the chin down or up, turning the head back while walking forward, or sitting and looking up. Experiment with poses and you will get some great portraits.

6. Make the model comfortable. In order for the portrait to look natural and in order to bring out the true personality of your subject, you must make your model comfortable. He or she must feel at home in order to be free and spontaneous. Make sure you spend some time with your model before starting the shoot to get to know him or her better and also make him or her comfortable. Also, don’t forget to smile and make some jokes or talk about something which interests the model.

7. Take a lot of shots. It’s the digital age. Unlike with conventional film shooting, your digital photos cost nothing. So why not shoot as many as you can with as many angles, poses, and expressions from your model as possible? Shoot inside, go outside, walk around and shoot, sit in the park and shoot, change outfits, change makeup. Apply lots of creativity. Keep shooting. It will not only give you the chance to shortlist some great portraits but it will make your model more comfortable; she will get used to your shooting and it will bring out her true personality. Your portraits will look more natural.

8. Get high or get low. Taking a portrait is not always shooting at the eye level. Positioning the camera high or low while keeping the focus on the eyes brings out interesting features and adds different flavors to the portraits. So make the model sit, stand up, climb up to the stool or ladder or stairs and shoot. Or you go high, climb up, or position your camera high and shoot. You will have more and more interesting options.

9. Makeup. Makeup is an essential element for most portrait shots. Makeup not only covers up blemishes, it may also makes a face glow and look even. Some creative makeup also can be done to give your model a sophisticated or trendy or different type of look based on her personality. It may also make your model feel more confident.

10. Get a helping hand. Getting an assistant to hold the reflector or help your model is always a good idea. You may ask your model to bring a friend or family member with him or her who can give a helping hand and make the model more comfortable. You may also hire someone who is experienced for the job. An intern from a local photography school may come in handy.

THE SECRET LIFE OF COCO CHANEL
 Exclusive illustrations of Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld.

The trail began in Paris at 31 Rue Cambon, the backbone of the House of Chanel, where the famous mirrored staircase leads from the ground-floor entrance to the couture salon on the first floor and then to Mademoiselle's private apartment. The doors into the apartment are hidden within the looking-glass walls of the landing, and slipping inside feels oddly akin to entering an Alice in Wonderland realm. On the other side of the glass, there are more mirrors — each reflecting the other, in a myriad of perspectives — and a crystal chandelier designed by Chanel herself, with hidden double C's in its wrought-iron frame and, at the top, G's for Gabrielle, her real name. And everywhere is evidence of what she had and what she lost: On a wall of bookshelves are leather-bound volumes from her first great love, Boy Capel, the British playboy and industrialist who was killed in a car crash in 1919 (by which point he had already betrayed her by marrying another woman, although their affair continued until his death); on the table in front of the beige suede sofa (the cushions quilted like Chanel's iconic bags) sit a set of crested, gold-lined boxes presented to her by the Duke of Westminster, the second Englishman to whom she gave her heart but whose name was never to become hers in marriage.

Most poignant of all, in this glittering salon where Mademoiselle entertained some of the most celebrated men of the century — Picasso, Dalí, Cocteau, Diaghilev, Churchill — yet finally found herself alone, are the pairs of animals that seem to stand like talismans: two bronze deer by the fireplace, almost life-size; a stag and a doe, their cloven feet sinking into the carpet, and another tiny pair beside the sofa in painted metal, with vases of pink flowers on their backs; two camels on a side table; two frogs (one glass, one bronze); two lovebirds made of pearl in a tiny jeweled cage; two porcelain horses on either side of the smoky mirror; and two golden firedogs in the empty hearth.

Long before Gabrielle reinvented herself as Coco, she knew the meaning of abandonment, and the evidence of her unhappy childhood is not entirely absent from her Parisian salon. There is a set of tarot cards on her desk, just as she left them before her death at 87 in January 1971 (among them is the number five, her lucky number, illustrated by a picture of a green tree, its roots visible above the ground), and a gold crucifix; the mystical and Catholic symbols coexist yet also form the outlines of an iconography of Chanel's own making.

But much else was hidden away, hundreds of miles from Rue Cambon, at Aubazine, a remote 12th-century Cistercian abbey high in the hills of the Corrèze, where Gabrielle was shaped by the nuns who raised her. Chanel never admitted to her years at Aubazine, where she lived from the age of 11 to 18, in an orphanage run by the sisters of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Her father, a feckless peddler always on the run from his family, left his three daughters there after the death of their mother from TB and disappeared forever.

The nuns who still live at Aubazine are more concerned with the worship of God than the antecedents of fashion,  Gabrielle came here with her two sisters in February 1895. Only a handful of nuns remained, the orphans long since vanished, though their dormitories were untouched, the children's iron beds lined against whitewashed walls hung with crucifixes.

At Aubazine she learned to sew, which would prove to be the means of her early employment as a seamstress in a provincial town, but she also grasped the austere beauty of her surroundings and transformed them in the course of her career into her signature style. The black and white of the nuns' habits would reappear in the restrained yet fluid couture so characteristic of Chanel, their rosary beads, crosses, and chains transfigured into pearls and jewelry that were more significant than mere accessories.

And beyond that, Chanel also displayed the heroic qualities that would make her so successful: the vision to turn black, the color of mourning, into the symbol of independence, freedom, and strength and the courage to keep working, even when love failed her. She was flawed, of course, like all the most compelling characters: hard and pitiless and mistaken at times, like the nuns who educated her. But she was also vulnerable enough to grieve for those she had lost and loyal to the series of men who left her, including the father she never saw again. Where had he gone, at least in the tale she told in adulthood (one in a series of stories that formed so many layers of myth)? To America, the promised land, to make his fortune. He never got there, of course — his path ended in drunken obscurity in the bars of rural French market towns — but his daughter did, and America applauded her, coast to coast. Emerging from behind the forbidding walls of the orphanage, via Paris all the way to uptown Manhattan and the Hollywood Hills, Gabrielle Chanel proved that a woman need not define herself by the men who desired and deserted her. For in the end, Chanel was entirely her own creation, still seeking perfection in her designs until the very last day of her life.

Photo by: Vladyslav Ga
Preparation for fashion show

Mannequins

The first wickerwork mannequins appeared in the mid-to late-eighteenth century and were made to order. In 1835 a Parisian ironmonger introduced a wirework model, and it was in France in the mid-nineteenth century that the first fashion mannequins were developed. Among the first mannequins to be patented were those designed by Professor Lavigne. He had begun manufacturing tailor's dummies, but won a medal in 1848 for his patented trunk mannequin, and opened a mannequin house in France in the 1850s. He went on, together with a student of his, Fred Stockman (who founded Stockman Brothers in 1869, later Siegel and Stockman's) to develop mannequins with legs and realistic heads and hands made from wax, improving on the earlier and cruder papiermâché ones. When clothed, these wax mannequins appeared strangely lifelike, with features detailed down to individual hairs and glass eyes. The market for fashion mannequins quickly opened up with the department stores built in Paris in the 1850s and soon after that in America and Britain.

Mannequins Now
In the late-twentieth century, supermodels and television stars served as models for fashion mannequins. Conversely, the mannequin again became a subject for artists as fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville featured mannequins extensively in her work, and fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo designed a plus-sized mannequin for manufacturer Pucci. Mannequins have also captured the interest of designers like Alexander McQueen, whose innovative shop windows provide alternatives to the ubiquitous visual merchandising of the large fashion chains.

Photo by: Vladyslav Ga
Shanghai Fashion Week