Vogue Russia Shoot

My 2020 started with the most beautiful trip to the island of Koh Samui in Thailand - a peaceful place filled with kindness. The project came to life in about two weeks by the super team from Vogue Russia and fashion editor Katerina Zolototrubova. The most stunning model Caroline Knudsen, casted by Tasha Tongpreecha, happened to be with her family on vacation in Thailand during the time and had to take just a short flight to the island. Lucky us! :)

Just imagine going on a scout in a big opened car around all the exotic places, and then getting on a bike to get to set. Shooting two days is a luxury - that's when you can really take your time with each shot and travel from one breathtaking location to another. Thinking about this now feels surreal. In between all of it eating the most delicious exotic fruits that the island has to offer.

During the shoot, makeup artist Kirstin Piggott added fake tan to Caroline to add to the summer feeling and make Caroline's eyes pop more. Hair stylist Cyrill added raw texture to the model's hair in some images. Katerina kept styling to minimum and we decided to stick to all black to add sophistication to the photographs.

I've shot the story with IQ3 100MP using 55mm, 80mm lenses and 120mm for the beauty closeup. I'm a fan of fixed lenses. I wanted to keep the feeling of the story more real so I skipped my favorite 35mm wide angle lens this time.

This story taught me a lot about post-production.Often I’m stopping myself from making images look too perfect, I’m learning more and more that beauty is in imperfections. On the shoot day I was telling Katerina that I’d fill in the missing gaps in the trees, I’d perfect the horizon line with the straight line of stones in post production. She said it’s beautiful as is and she personally wouldn’t touch it. When I got home and my team started retouching I realized that perfect is just boring indeed and that Kat was right, perfect is what’s natural, or real - that is true beauty.

My favorite image from the series is from the natural wonder - untouched nature - Overlap Stone. It feels like a postcard, timeless together with all the memories that come with it.

We were previously discussing potential trip collaboration with PhaseOne in collaboration with editorial magazine, I'm happy to resume discussion about it. Think we can make it all happen this winter. Let me know your thoughts.