children's inks festival - 1

I had a solid two-days-pleasure of shooting children and their parents at the great event: annual St.Petersburg Children's Inks Festival ('Краски детства' in Russian, you may find more info about it here). Each year it is set at different location and usually runs for several days (with no speciphic time period, pretty randomly). This festival was anniversary, 20th edition! (...and we were lucky to catch it 3 times before). Funny thing: this time it almost came to the very neighborhood of my location. A nice touch.

me! I was tearing myself all the way between the camera / helping my babygirl / and other children volunteerly.

Sadly, 1st two days as it was off, were my ordinary office slavery days, but on Saturday and Sunday me and my baby were there on duty. Also, on Sunday I invited my steemian friend @bambuka to join us (sadly, he could bring in only his camera, but not his children... Well, you cant have everything at once, right? Theres room for the next year plans now!). You may head here for his 1st report on this evening.

I've took pretty much photos, and it really will take some time to sort it out, what I've harvested. For now, here's a few shots for you. I borrowed with me a full backpack of lenses on both days, but actually I used just two: wide-angle Canon 16-35 2.8L lens on the 1st day, and an old soviet manual fish-eye lens, famous 'lowcost' Zenitar 16 2.8. It wasnt too dark, so they worked pretty well -- couldnt say that about me, cause (lol part here) I really forgot that Zenitar has manually changeable options for focusing distance! All -- all of my shots I did were set to the distance of 1.3m. So, something turned out good, something just went to the trash. But the joy and the drive of the event will stay with me anyway... and I hope for my baby, too.

Actually, Zenitar is my new lens, I just obtained it this Summer and didnt use it properly, put it on the shelf in my closet. It is a great lowcost lens, tho, very useful for creating artsy photos, or taking shots in a limited space.

It is to blame for all artsy softness (i.e. out-of-the-focus), not me!

The Program

The list of events for all four days of the festival was impressive, and we were able to catch only a few of them by the tail.

• Fashion design (painting on fabric)
• Building and coloring your own dream house
• Inventing and drawing your own coat of arms (hold by artist Arthur Molev)
• Building and painting a cardboard castle
• Creation of a cartoon, hold by the animation studio "YES": the drawing, as well as animation, work on the script, lay-out and voice acting! (This one was absolutely fantastic, and I will create a separate post to tell this story! We did it, and my baby had shivers when discovered herself in the credits section!)
• painting the "tantamareski" pictures, together with artists Dmitry Shagin, Nikolai Kopeikin and Pavlik Lemtybozh. (Tantamaresca is a picture with a hole instead of the face. Your own face will fill in that spot later! well, or anyone else)
• Origami paper action workshop
• Plasticine drawing ...
• And the creation of a whole plasticine city
• Workshops on the creation and artistic coloring of hats, cards, and lots more...

Lets give Caesar's to the Caesar: the festival would not be possible without all the materials and immensive help, given by the sponsors: Bereg, Koler Product, Komus, Smurfit Kappa, Dulux. A tonn of good karma your way!

Asya -- one of the chiefs and driving forces of the festival.

The inscription says in Russian: "Where the dreams bring you"

Peppa pig definitely was one of the highlights and successful works out there -- everybody wanted to take their pic with it!

My baby discovered a pleasure of pure abstractionism! She really enjoyed drawing a plot-free pictures, and this is where she finished, just blending inks this way, into lovely abstract textures.

Hats masterclass hold by the 'Mad Hatter studio' very soon mutated into something self-sufficient, children - actively supported by the parents - were producing huge quantaties of crowns, swords, shields, and other amunition (including machineguns), pretty much everything! Children's creativity is not in the know of 'I cant' motto... I took many pics which are scattered among the folders, probably worth combining into a separate post...

What I was impressed especially, were the top-hats!

Placticine 'city of a dream', created by the children during all 4 days of the festival.

All images taken by me.

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To be continued!