My grandmother Olga is 93 years old, soon to be 94. She is an amazing woman and one of the most important people in my life. Even though I talk to her on the phone about 3 times a week, I only get to see her 2-3 times a year. Every time I take the drive from Pittsburgh to Norfolk, I promise myself that I will take a ton of photos of her; when I get to Norfolk I get caught up in shuttling my kids between my mom and my dad, doing family things and essentially not taking any photos of my grandmother. This time I actually managed to stick with my intentions and over the last week I shot over a thousand digital frames of my grandmother and 4 rolls of film. About half of the photos below were shot with a Canon 5D Mark III and processed with VSCO presets. The rest were shot on Kodak 400 CN pushed to 800.
Category / Family
A Few Outtakes from Josh’s Bar Mitzvah | Bill Chisnell Productions
Huge thanks to Rhaina Taylor for second-shooting for me on such a short notice and for doing such an amazing job! This was my first time shooting at Bill Chisnel Productions – what an awesome location and Bill is the nicest guy in the world!
My (Other) Grandfather
My maternal grandfather passed away in 1998; he spent 11 years of his life in Soviet labor camps and I spent the past 15 years researching his life and trying to find out what happened with his family. In doing that, I completely neglected the other side of my family.
A few days ago I sat down with Daniella (my older daughter) to show her the contents of my keepsake box. As I opened the box, I came across a ziplock bag full of Soviet-era medals. I completely forgot that I even had these medals in my possession – my paternal grandmother gave them to me before moving to a nursing home in 2011. My paternal grandfather – David – passed away when I was 5 years old, and I have very few memories of him. Seeing these medals and explaining what they are and what they mean to Daniella made me feel terribly guilty about knowing virtually nothing about my grandfather David’s life.
Given my grandmother’s mental state I have a very short window of opportunity to find out as much as I can about my grandfather. I guess I know what I’m doing over Thanksgiving holidays.
Fire truck @ Soergel Orchards
A few photos from today’s trip to Soergel Orchards in Wexford. They brought in an antique fire truck and the kids had a blast climbing all over it for about two hours. I used this trip as an opportunity to shoot a few rolls of film. The ones in this post were shot on Fuji Reala 100.
Almost There…
My good friends Dilyara and Alexey are having a baby in a few weeks and they asked me to photograph a mini pregnancy sessions.
Daniella and Sophia – Hanging Out at Mellon Park
Extreme sports with Daniella | Frick Park
Geek in Training
Skyping with Grandma
Family Trip to Ireland – 6 days in 6 minutes
This has been an absolutely insane year and we really needed to get out of Pittsburgh for a few days, change the scenery and do something fun. We usually take one big trip (usually abroad) every year; this year we picked Ireland by pretty much pointing blindly at the map of Europe. We were a bit concerned about traveling that far with two small children – Daniella is 3.5 years old and Sophia is only 11 months old. We weren’t too worried about Daniella – she is a seasoned traveler. She’s traveled to 4 countries outside of the US and has been on at least 20 flights. Sophia is a travel noob and we weren’t sure how well she would handle the trip.
We had a blast! The trip was incredible and we managed to see and do way more than we expected, even with two small kids in tow. Instead of rambling, let me present to you – Ireland: 6 days in 6 minutes.
Trip to Ireland, 2012 from Dmitriy Babichenko on Vimeo.
If you prefer to see individual images, you can see photos from the entire trip on Flickr
Dmitriy B. 
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