Our annual competition on the theme of “nature” deserves a special kind of judge with special sensitivities to images depicting this theme. Sasha Vasiljev is one rare pro who meets such a criterion. Sasha is no stranger to SSCC. In 2011, he judged an abstracts competition for us, and last year, as speaker, he shared his exhilarating photos of Nepal and the Himalyas.
His portraits – which were on exhibit at the Watergate Gallery in DC – were as striking as his landscapes. What was so surprising about his presentation last year is that we know Sasha primarily as a photographer of the rain forests of Costa Rica and South America. The full range of Sasha’s work covers conceptual photography, fine art, portraiture, wildlife, and commercial photography.
Sasha is not only an award-winning photographer but is also co-director of Nature & Photography Tours, LLC (www.NaturePhotographyTours.com), which is a boutique tour company specializing in nature, culture, and photography eco-travel. As an educator, he is on the faculty of The Washington School of Photography and Washington Studio School. He also independently teaches classes and workshops one-on-one or with groups and maintains a studio in Dupont Circle.
At the beginning of Sasha’s education, he concentrated on fine art, but ultimately received his degree in biology with a major in botany. He went on to curate major tropical orchid collections in his native Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. While living in Moscow, he had the opportunity to study photography under the mentorship of distinguished Russian landscape photographer Boris Mashkov.
Since immigrating to the US over a decade ago, Sasha’s work has been exhibited in galleries and has been acquired by many private collections worldwide. He is honored by having several of his images in the permanent collection at the Embassy of the Republic of Costa Rica in Washington, DC. His work has also been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and has been published in the following magazines: Home & Décor, Nature’s Best Photography Magazine, Fine Gardening, Washingtonian, Orchids Magazine, and Ecuador Infinito Magazine.
This season, Sasha is offering a number of local workshops, including such topics as headshots and portraits, editing with Lightroom, and external flash photography. For complete workshop descriptions and registration information, go to: http://alexandervasiljev.com. In the spring of 2014, Sasha will be leading rainforest photo tours to Cost Rica and Ecuador in February, to Nepal in March, and to East Ecuador, from the Andes to the Amazon rainforest, in April. See http://naturephotographytours.com/ for all the details.