RM: Kevin, thank you again for letting us feature you and your work on Robot Melon.com
1. Tell us a little bit about how you got into photography and where do you draw your inspiration from?
Kevin Russ: I got into photography when I got bored at college and wanted something fun to do. And inspiration comes from other pictures I see.
2. How has istockphoto.com helped you?
iStockphoto has helped me a lot. They have high standards for technical quality so when I started uploading to there I learned from the beginning that your images need to be focused well, have good lighting and be noise and compression free. They have also helped me get my pictures out there for designers to download and use. My gear is all bought with money I have earned from iStock. And they also gave me a job as an image inspector.
3. Do you travel a lot for your shoots and are you the only one to carry all your lighting and camera equipment around or do you have assistants?
I don't travel too much for shoots except for last year I went to New York, Mexico, Canada, London and California. This year it has just been California and Washington.
I don't have an assistant so most of the time it's just me or the model and if there's a makeup artist they help too.
4. What was your first publication and what were your thoughts about it?
I don't remember what my first publication was. With iStock your pictures get used all over all the time. A few of them that stand out was when I was in London I saw a wedding photo I took on a book cover, in Nigeria one of my photos was on a billboard and the guys uncle who lived there spotted it, and a magazine cover I did for Radiant Magazine.
5. One last question, do you think robots will rule the world in the future?
And I don't really have a good answer for this one.