Irene Zeleskou Photography

 http://www.zeleskou.com/ 

http://ftourini.deviantart.com/  

https://www.facebook.com/Zeleskou

 

 

 

 

What kind of equipment (camera body, lens, filters, flash, tripod, cleaning equipment other) do you use? 

I am using a Canon EOS 7D, a benro A1980F tripod, a custom made softbox, a 16 GB sandisc card and two lenses EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM and EF-S 15-85mm.

 

What do you like and dislike about your equipment, specially your camera, and how would you improve it?

What I really like about my camera is that it has the ability to focus in many points at the same time, and that it has coped very well so far with many difficult conditions like weather, or packing and moving. It practically stays in my bag or changes bags most of the times ready to shoot some newly found texture or a strange wild flower or insect. Also it’s battery lasts long enough for my needs and I rarely needed to recharge it during a photo shoot or have a second one to replace it. Sometimes it’s weight can be very tiring for my arms since I carry it everywhere most of the time. But I guess it’s the price I have to pay if I want quality photos! Sometimes when I take HD video it overheats and closes after half hour and needs to be left for a while to cool down.

 

What is your favourite lens, and why?

My favourite lens is the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM since I love close ups and macro photography so this gives me the ability to draw my viewer’s eyes on the important little details and blur all the rest that is unwanted and distracting. This lens helps to magnify all those things that someone in real life would pay little to no attention to and would probably pass unnoticed and emphasize them creating a magical bokeh environment to compliment the subject.

 

When you travel, what is in your essential kit bag?

Since I don’t have too many stuff in my possession I usually take all of the above with me!

 

What kind of software/tools do you use for post-processing, if any?

I use Photoshop CS5 and a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium tablet.

 

How long have you been taking photographs? How do you find inspiration? 

I have been taking pictures and experimenting with shutter speed, aperture and light settings since I was a kid but most of my creativity burst in 2006 when I got my first digital camera a SONY DSC-W50. It helped me to experiment a lot with macro photography and composition and the first compliments about my professional looking work started coming to my ears. But most impressions about my professional looking work where usually being worn off when they heard it was a small compact camera like this that produced these results. I still love that camera and keep it by my side since it has taught me so much and although it was only 6MP back then it always surpassed all its later models in sharpness and clarity on macro subjects! So in 2010 I bought my Canon EOS 7D and have learned a lot of technical stuff from online tutorials and from fellow photographers. My inspiration comes from the world of glamour from beauty magazines, fantasy movies but also from nature. I don’t like very artificial subjects I like to mix things up and make my own interpretation of stories!

 

Which style of photography do you like the most, and why?

I am an open minded person, there are many kinds of photography that I like but the ones that have mostly appealed to me is portrait, macro glamour, macro nature and surreal photography.

 

What goal are you working towards within your photography and when will you know you have reached it?

I think I will never say that fully reach my goals but that is totally acceptable because I always want to look up to something and try to get better in skills so that I turn all this energy into motivating creativity. Sometimes I focus on developing the background of my subject while other times I work on my technical skills. Since I am self taught and I do this along with photo retouching and photo manipulation I have to try to maintain a good level in all of them and that is a constant struggle. But it leaves me with a good feeling every time  I compare my new works to my older ones and I see a significant difference!

 

Looking at your own work, which piece is your favourite? Why?

My favourite piece is Cherry bite http://ftourini.deviantart.com/art/cherry-bite-135750983?q=boost%3Apopular%20gallery%3Aftourini&qo=24 because of its technical difficulty and the innovations that I had to do in order to take this underwater shot! It think it turned out pretty well; don’t you find?

 

Are there any photography websites that you visit regularly?

Being a designer means I can find inspiration not only in photography websites. What is most important for me is the technical aspect as well as the application of the graphic elements over an image. I usually find great examples in www.abduzeedo.com www.deviantart.com, www.behance.net www.flickr.com and several facebook photography pages.

 

What is the one most important lesson that you have learned since you started taking photographs?

If you are looking for and artistic result avoid using direct flash at all costs and take lots of pictures of the same object from different angles and always experiment with the composition. It’s free of cost since we live in the era of digital photography and will help you understand which pictures will work and which not!

 

And finally, what other interesting photographers would you like to see in this blog?

Nick Sachos, http://nicksachos.deviantart.com/, Kimberley Camilleri, http://kimberleycamilleri.deviantart.com/ and Valentina Kallias, http://valentinakallias.deviantart.com/.