German startup

Nowadays Lamoda is the leading online retailer in Russia and CIS with very impressive numbers: more than 6 million products and 3,000 international and local brands across fashion, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and perfumery, with over 16 million unique visits per month. But when I joined the company it was just a startup of Global Fashion Group and due to saving costs, the first office was not in Moscow but in my Yaroslavl.

By this time I've been freelancing as a photographer/retoucher and studying for a postgraduate degree (after Master of History of Arts and Cultorology) but I couldn't resist applying because photography, retouching, and fashion were a killing mix for me. It was the first official work for me and it couldn't be a better experience - European work culture, impressive salary, cool young colleagues, and flexible shifts.

My work

Depends on the schedule I worked some days as a photographer in studio shootings fashion items or models. But even more than photo shooting I liked retouching shifts when you get hundreds of photos after primary colour correction and you have to make them look just perfect, desirable. Even tricky ones like white fur on white background. No dust, no wrinkles, no colour inconsistency - it was definitely an art! Retouching always was a sort of meditation for me - the process I was endlessly enjoying but working at Lamoda I had to make it speedy meditation=)

"I got skills"

  • Object photography skills for sure, because before I did take photos in a studio with special lighting but here were certain product photography specifications and following them I learned successful practices how to match quality and speed on the high level and make the work for next people in your production chain as easy as possible (colour editors and retouchers).
  • Devil in details! While you cut and glue it is easy to lose some piece (just imagine sneakers without laces!)or during brightening/darkening make texture almost invisible.
  • Talking about software tools I mastered Pen and some hotkeys.
  • I started to take my graphic tablet automatically when I opened Photoshop. Extremely handy and it just feels more natural for your hand than a mouse or touchpad.

After the first success the investors started to think about relocating business to the capital and expanding business and due to private reasons moving to Moscow was not possible for me so I have decided to focus on study and freelance again having no idea what future prepared for me.