St. Therapont of Belozersk monastery and vicinities.

I should state that clearly enough, as a counterlight shooting here is a challengeable job, early – before sunset – arrival is the only way to take a good landscape series. The monastery is situated on a hill, so sun would hit through all of your lenses with no remotest possibility to escape it. Transient clouds sometimes provide a kind of shade shelter, but a white balance would be objectionable anyway. As we arrived at the spot at 14 o’clock, nature provided us with no other options, but using either cloud shades or ND filters up to 400th with aperture values like f13 in order to avoid overexposure. If your main objective is the landscape/panoramic shooting, including architectural, then while mapping out your trip it would be preferable to visit Ferapontovo first – in the morning – delaying Kirillov for the midday, since in Kirillov landscape views are so-so, the architecture is not only the must, but also the only object.

Ver. 1, CPL+gradient grey, f13, 1/80s.

Ver. 2, CPL+skylight L1A, f13, 1/60s. 

Ver. 3, CPL+gradient blue, f13, 1/40s.  

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and the church of Saint Martinian. CPL+gradient grey, f13, 1/60s. A counterlight shot taken while sun was covered by clouds. Since we arrived at 14 o’clock, lighting conditions were totally dissatisfactory. 

The Annunciation church. Direct counterlight. f13, 1/30s, CPL+ND2. Unsure of the second filter type, may be either ND2 or gradient grey. Extremely unfavorable conditions – direct counterlight. I my opinion, everything possible is done to process the source .nef image in order to achieve a satisfactory result. 

Ferapontovo village panorama. f13, 1/25s, CPL+gradient grey. 

Ferapontovo village panorama, position 2. 

Paskoye lake and Ferapontovo village. f13, 1/60s, CPL+gradient grey. 

Borodayevskoye lake. Two images taken with different filters. This one – with CPL+gradient grey combination, f13, 1/30s. 

The second image taken from the same spot is experimental: here I used ND400, by the way, with not too long shutter speed – just 1/2s, but open aperture. IMHO, looks better than its more conventional counterpart taken with CPL+gradient grey. 

St. Nilus of Sora church.

Bowdlerizing gloomy life.

Small towns built in the XX century around one or two factories typically provide no extraordinary opportunities for the landscape photography. However, there is a genre combining landscape and industrial photography traits, whose sustenance is the darkest and dullest sides of life in such towns: fumes, ruins of factories, tailings dumps, dust. I define that as infernal esthetics. Political including ecological connotation in this genre in my opinion is absent, it’s all about silent statement of facts.

Any attempt to find something eye-catching among routine circumstances of places like that typically fails in desperate efforts. Everything is fruitless like the barren land you see in this series. But if you have a bit of imagination, the things can change: lifeless, sometimes dangerous places like this tailings dump, become objects of human creative thought. Their nature being infernal from the very outset will never change, the gist here is disclosing, highlighting this essence.

As for technical means, here a photographer benefits by filters enabling him to improve his work quality in some way or another: gradient orange adds an infernality shade to quarries, ruins, landfills and eve storm clouds; gradient grey increases sky depth; the ND group up to 400th brings in an alien shade to bottoms of quarries, rocks and grey ruins of factories; skylight group sometimes (no warranty though) saves blue colour of sky covered by clouds or dissipated fumes. 

Doesn’t this genre bespeak signs of overgeneralization and exaggeration? No, absolutely, in my opinion, even more to say – I try to bowdlerize the reality that causes disgust in any sane person and impels him to flee from there, accentuating esthetic nuances created by nature. In particular, this goal is achieved by serial shooting of an object in different seasons and various weather conditions. 

Dawn over the factory. Northerly wind. CPL+skylight L1A filters.

Same, CPL+gradient grey.

Waiting for sunrise. CPL+skylight L1A filters.

Same, CPL+gradient grey.

Same, CPL+gradient blue.

Pink dawn. Westerly wind. CPL+skylight L1A filters.

Just before the sunrise. CPL+skylight L1A filters.

First sunrays. CPL+gradient grey filters.

Let's make that copper-like.

Sunset over the factory. Northerly wind.

Same with the gradient blue.

Copper-like sunset. CPL+gradient grey (unsure) filters.

The day is over.

Umber everywhere. CPL+skylight L1A filters.

Umber everywhere. CPL+gradient grey filters.

Same.

Sunset over Grishkino village.

The bridge across Lid (soft “d”) river in Grishkino village. As usual, I used 2 combinations of filters: CPL+L1A and CPL+gradient grey. All attempts to take panoramic views of the river completely failed as a result of lighting conditions.

Some day it will be completely washed away.

It's unchangeable year to year. Despite the winter’s being dry enough, the road is traditionally washed away. No aesthetic value is implied in the series, just notes made while passing by.

Approaching to Zamoshye:

Explore before driving: 

How deep?

How deep?

Recently Nissan got stuck here. But the byke will pass. 

How deep?

A wide stream crossing the road:

Gloomy view:

A tractor seems to have successfully ignored the pitfall: 

Try measuring! 

The bridge across Lid’ (with soft “d”) river in Grishkino village.

Sad, but true – all old shots from this place were mere jpegs, no one nef, so I have nothing to show. Accidentally, a couple of tolerable examples turned up, all the rest may go well somewhere in Facebook personal albums, nowhere else, since they are incorrigible.

Technical data:

1. f13,1/40, CPL+gradient grey.

2. f13,1/40, CPL+gradient orange.

3. f13,1/30, CPL+gradient blue.

4. jpeg only.

5. f14, 1/50, CPL+gradient grey.

6. f11, 1/50, CPL+ND2. 

7. Old, jpeg only.

Upstream view:

Downstream view:

Shallow waters:

The Theotokos of Tikhvin church in Potok village.

More correctly, between Potok and Grishkino. Technical data:

1. Aperture f14, shutter speed 1/20 s, CPL+gradient grey filters, nef.

2. f18, 1/100 s – quaint settings – either the aperture priority or what? – I don’t remember. No nef, just jpeg, no tripod. It seems to have been taken from an open door. Consequently, the result is shitty. This April I’ll make a new try at the same time.