The Photo Gallery

This page is a work in progress. I will keep adding more pictures to the gallery. But it takes time, time, time... So have patience and enjoy these meanwhile!

Exciting Stuff from Fall '99

Yelena's Birthday
In a limo
The DDT Concert
Outside Lowell High School
A few drinks at Spat's

New Pics from this Summer

The Washington Trip

Night Life

'Smores

Independence Day

Uncle Sam Wants You!

At the Sultan's

The Hawaii Vacation

Aloha from a Luau!

Chilling at the Manoa Falls

The Washington Trip
Night Life
'Smores
Independence Day
Uncle Sam Wants You!
At the Sultan's
The Hawaii Vacation
Aloha from a Luau!
Chilling at the Manoa Falls

The Older Collection

Pictures w/ me Pictures w/ Gundars Yelena & Me

Dorm Life
This photograph is of true historic significance. It is only one of two pictures I had ever taken in the dorms. Here my roommate, Annalise Keen, and a girl from the jail cell... oops, I mean, the room, across the hall, Nancy Rinderle are all dressed up for Halloween. Unfortunately, the dressing up and picture taking was very likely the most exciting part of that night. Umm... Tree
Here you will find Gundars picking at a tree and wonder why in the world I chose this picture for my on-line gallery. Well, I'll gladly explain. This picture was taken on the Big Island in Hawaii, at a place known as the Black Sand Beach. If you'll look carefully, Gundars is surrounded... no, not by dirt, by ash colored sand. The island of Hawaii is actually famous for having beaches with sand of just about any color imaginable. Yelena's 21st B-Day
I really like this picture, which is basically the reason it's up here. At every party or event that we go to together Yelena and I take a picture of the two of us. This is pretty much a new tradition that started about the time that Yelena got a new, totally awesome camera. But it has an ultimate purpose, I think. In 10 years we'll have a good record of how we have aged. Ouch! ;)

Inna & Inna
You've got to admit that Inna isn't exactly the most common of names, and yet here it is - myself and another Inna in one photograph, taken at a club in Vancouver, Canada. If you are wondering about the guy in the middle, well, he's just a random bar tender. He looked bored. Plus, isn't it just the kind of thing you do when you are in a foreign country - take random pictures of random people? Contemplative
This is another picture from our trip to Hawaii (summer '97). Now this one is memorable because it's taken in Waipio Valley, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever descended into, and one of the most inaccessible ones, as well. Because we were on a student budget, and perhaps because of some strange need for adventure, we decided to hike down and then climb back up instead of taking the bus. Did I mention it rained cats and dogs for about 95% of the time we were down there? :) It was a great experience. A Typical Night
Every so often, Yelena and I have sleep-overs. Well, the "sleep" part of the term is exaggerated perhaps. We stay up for most of the night either playing with her camera and taking strange pictures such as this one, or using a scanner and a graphics program to blot people we don't like out of photographs. Just evil, aren't we? No, most of the time we actually try to fall asleep but constantly distract one another with stories, gossip, and all those other things that wait to be said till the pre-morning hours.

Pictures w/ Andrew

Smile!
Meet my family! I think it is pretty self-explanatory who is who here. I will only say that on the right is the much celebrated job-search guru of the Russian community, as well as a regionally famous columnist, whom I generally call "dad". If my memory serves me right, when the picture was taken he was telling a joke to the photographer, which would explain why his mouth is open. ;) I'll mention my mom, too, because she never gets the credit she deserves. Let me tell you, she's the backbone behind everything: the school, my dad, our whole family. But that's just between you and me. ;) A Restaurant Shot
As you can see, I am starting to run out of names for the photos. If you have any suggestions for more descriptive or clever names, please don't be shy and suggest them. Anyway, we took this picture at Sochi. It's a cozy little Russian restaurant somewhere in Sunnyvale, I think, and my parents celebrated an early New Year's there with some of their co-workers. A one-man band, who, as we found out later, actually works as a computer programmer during the day, sang old Russian restaurant songs with ardour, if a little out of tune. Jingle Ball
The Jingle Ball was organized by our favorite radio station - Z95.7. It promised to be a truly wonderful experience. All our favorite music - LIVE. What more could we ask for? Well, as it turned out, we could also ask for several thousand screaming teenage (if not prepubescent) girls, who would tear off their clothes for 'NSINC, if only they weren't brought to the concert by their babysitters and parents. Screaming their lungs out and probably permanently damaging our eardrums was all they could do to compensate.

New Year 1999
Unfortunately this is one of the only pictures that survived from the roll that I took on our Tahoe trip and the New Year's party soon thereafter. Here I am sitting between Sveta Haykina and Marina Rubina, with Ilya Nemenman taking the picture. The fact that Ilya tilted the camera is actually only partly responsible for the trippy effect on this photograph. What happened was, and this also explains why the other Tahoe pictures didn't come out, somehow I loaded the film wrong which superimposed pictures onto each other. Never mind if you have no idea what I am talking about. It's less visible on the scanned in version anyway. How sweet
Now Andy, as you may already have noticed, has the remarkable gift of looking absolutely the same in every picture he takes, which is great, because he always looks good. Here we are at my birthday party, waiting for the guests to get there. It was about and hour, and hour and a half perhaps, after the time the party was announced to begin, but Andy, Yelena, and Yana were still my only guests. So we entertained ourselves as we could, i.e. took pictures of each other, danced, and drank Baileys. Ummm, Baileys is the elixir of the gods. My 20th B-Day
When I see this picture, the first thing that comes to mind is that Yelena and I should remember never to wear black if we are going somewhere together, or we look like Siamese twins on photographs. Still, it's a pretty neat picture, even if our bodies do blend into one big whole. Anyway, for the purposes of our aging diary all we need are faces, right? Alright, I am getting tired of writing commentary and this is not funny anymore. Sorry. Maybe I'll revise this later when I replenish my creative strengths, or something. :)

Pictures w/ me	Pictures w/ Gundars	Yelena & Me
Dorm Life This photograph is of true historic significance. It is only one of two pictures I had ever taken in the dorms. Here my roommate, Annalise Keen, and a girl from the jail cell... oops, I mean, the room, across the hall, Nancy Rinderle are all dressed up for Halloween. Unfortunately, the dressing up and picture taking was very likely the most exciting part of that night.	Umm... Tree Here you will find Gundars picking at a tree and wonder why in the world I chose this picture for my on-line gallery. Well, I'll gladly explain. This picture was taken on the Big Island in Hawaii, at a place known as the Black Sand Beach. If you'll look carefully, Gundars is surrounded... no, not by dirt, by ash colored sand. The island of Hawaii is actually famous for having beaches with sand of just about any color imaginable.	Yelena's 21st B-Day I really like this picture, which is basically the reason it's up here. At every party or event that we go to together Yelena and I take a picture of the two of us. This is pretty much a new tradition that started about the time that Yelena got a new, totally awesome camera. But it has an ultimate purpose, I think. In 10 years we'll have a good record of how we have aged. Ouch! ;)
Inna & Inna You've got to admit that Inna isn't exactly the most common of names, and yet here it is - myself and another Inna in one photograph, taken at a club in Vancouver, Canada. If you are wondering about the guy in the middle, well, he's just a random bar tender. He looked bored. Plus, isn't it just the kind of thing you do when you are in a foreign country - take random pictures of random people?	Contemplative This is another picture from our trip to Hawaii (summer '97). Now this one is memorable because it's taken in Waipio Valley, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever descended into, and one of the most inaccessible ones, as well. Because we were on a student budget, and perhaps because of some strange need for adventure, we decided to hike down and then climb back up instead of taking the bus. Did I mention it rained cats and dogs for about 95% of the time we were down there? :) It was a great experience.	A Typical Night Every so often, Yelena and I have sleep-overs. Well, the "sleep" part of the term is exaggerated perhaps. We stay up for most of the night either playing with her camera and taking strange pictures such as this one, or using a scanner and a graphics program to blot people we don't like out of photographs. Just evil, aren't we? No, most of the time we actually try to fall asleep but constantly distract one another with stories, gossip, and all those other things that wait to be said till the pre-morning hours.
	Pictures w/ Andrew
Smile! Meet my family! I think it is pretty self-explanatory who is who here. I will only say that on the right is the much celebrated job-search guru of the Russian community, as well as a regionally famous columnist, whom I generally call "dad". If my memory serves me right, when the picture was taken he was telling a joke to the photographer, which would explain why his mouth is open. ;) I'll mention my mom, too, because she never gets the credit she deserves. Let me tell you, she's the backbone behind everything: the school, my dad, our whole family. But that's just between you and me. ;)	A Restaurant Shot As you can see, I am starting to run out of names for the photos. If you have any suggestions for more descriptive or clever names, please don't be shy and suggest them. Anyway, we took this picture at Sochi. It's a cozy little Russian restaurant somewhere in Sunnyvale, I think, and my parents celebrated an early New Year's there with some of their co-workers. A one-man band, who, as we found out later, actually works as a computer programmer during the day, sang old Russian restaurant songs with ardour, if a little out of tune.	Jingle Ball The Jingle Ball was organized by our favorite radio station - Z95.7. It promised to be a truly wonderful experience. All our favorite music - LIVE. What more could we ask for? Well, as it turned out, we could also ask for several thousand screaming teenage (if not prepubescent) girls, who would tear off their clothes for 'NSINC, if only they weren't brought to the concert by their babysitters and parents. Screaming their lungs out and probably permanently damaging our eardrums was all they could do to compensate.
New Year 1999 Unfortunately this is one of the only pictures that survived from the roll that I took on our Tahoe trip and the New Year's party soon thereafter. Here I am sitting between Sveta Haykina and Marina Rubina, with Ilya Nemenman taking the picture. The fact that Ilya tilted the camera is actually only partly responsible for the trippy effect on this photograph. What happened was, and this also explains why the other Tahoe pictures didn't come out, somehow I loaded the film wrong which superimposed pictures onto each other. Never mind if you have no idea what I am talking about. It's less visible on the scanned in version anyway.	How sweet Now Andy, as you may already have noticed, has the remarkable gift of looking absolutely the same in every picture he takes, which is great, because he always looks good. Here we are at my birthday party, waiting for the guests to get there. It was about and hour, and hour and a half perhaps, after the time the party was announced to begin, but Andy, Yelena, and Yana were still my only guests. So we entertained ourselves as we could, i.e. took pictures of each other, danced, and drank Baileys. Ummm, Baileys is the elixir of the gods.	My 20th B-Day When I see this picture, the first thing that comes to mind is that Yelena and I should remember never to wear black if we are going somewhere together, or we look like Siamese twins on photographs. Still, it's a pretty neat picture, even if our bodies do blend into one big whole. Anyway, for the purposes of our aging diary all we need are faces, right? Alright, I am getting tired of writing commentary and this is not funny anymore. Sorry. Maybe I'll revise this later when I replenish my creative strengths, or something. :)

This page was updated September 18, 1999 by Inna Portnova.
Click here to contact me.