Hi all,
I’m Anton Siskovich and I’m from Russia but until recently I had been living in Vietnam for 4 years. I’m 27 years young but I got into photography not a long time ago — around October 2020.
I always liked photography and took plenty of photos with my phone as a kid, but I didn’t take it seriously. I thought, one needs tons of expensive equipment to take decent photos. Later on, I got to know some people that take stunning photos with their phones or inexpensive cameras. I got myself a Canon 800D to just learn how to use DSLRs, but I still use it, as it produces pretty good quality images.
As soon as I put my hands on a DSLR, I started plowing through all sorts of tutorials on YouTube, from setting up your White Balance properly to Retouching, etc. I was greedy to learn as much as I could, and still am.
I prefer photographing landscapes and street portraits, but I don’t particularly like the idea of limiting myself to just those two genres, so I also photograph birds, buildings, products, etc. Most of my works are done outside, so I only use natural light, or any available light when it comes to night photos (neon signs, lamp posts, etc). I own 3 lenses in total: 70-300mm — for birds and parts of landscapes mostly, 28-70mm, f/2.8 — which is great for portraits, and a standard 18-55mm kit lens — which produces pretty good landscapes. I edit my photos in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.
I was lucky enough to be chosen in Top50 of #BestOfTheWeek24 #BestOfTheWeek28 #BestOfTheWeek40. I guess all of us feel bad about their work at times. It may sound incredulous, but every time I felt bad about my works, I was chosen in Top50, which brought my faith back and made me keep working. I’ve never made it to Top5 yet, but I’m striving to, and that makes me realize how much there’s to learn and improve, so I will keep going.
I really like Agora because it gives everyone equal chances to not only win and promote one’s work, but also see other professional photographers/videographers and get inspiration from them. Sometimes, I see people with very few followers winning contests and I realize that anything’s possible.
My latest image that made it to Top50, was the photo of a horse. I took it during my trip to Altai (mountains in the South-East of Siberia). It was late winter and my girlfriend and I were on a 5 km trek through the forest looking for “The Blue Lakes” (the series of turquoise lakes that don’t get frozen in winter). About halfway through, I saw a herd of horses. They were pawing the snow trying to find food under it. Forest, snow, horses, mountains in the back — all that looked like a fairy tale, so I snapped that photo. I can only guess why the Agora team chose it to Top 50 out of thousands of other photos. They probably felt the amount of work and sweat I put into it after walking 10 km in total through the snowy forest.
Apart from Agora, I have also participated in other competitions, such as Twenty20 and 35Awards. I was close to first places, but haven’t won yet. On the other hand, I’ve been doing photography for a bit over 6 months, so, I hope, it’s just a matter of time and practice.
So far, I can’t say there’s something special about my works. I’m just starting this exciting journey, so I tend to imitate other photographers’ style. But I hope in a couple of years, I will manage to become one of those whose style is being copied. Right now, I work as a translator and I do like the job, however, I feel that photography is my real passion and something I’d like to do full-time in the nearest future.
As a beginner photographer, I can give you the only piece of advice — never stop learning. Even when you think that you’ve already mastered something, there’s a high probability that you actually haven’t and there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
I’m shooting outside in nature pretty often lately and my heart falls every time I see tons of trash around me. I don’t do that myself and I beg people to refrain from littering. If you do so, you will not only make our planet better, but will also save yourself hours of photoshopping cans and cigarette butts out of your photos.
I’m always glad to make new friends, especially with people sharing my passion. You can reach out to me via Instagram @ant_on_ph, as well as check out my works on my Agora profile: @anton1st
Thanks for reading, hope to talk to you soon!