Author page of the Andrew Lazarev Production website

The About the Author page of the Andrew Lazarev Production website by videographer and photographer Andrey Vladimirovich Lazarev: a brief biography, education, and professional skills.

Hello! This is the author page of the Andrew Lazarev Production website. My name is Andrey Vladimirovich Lazarev.

I was born in Kharkiv in April 1977, into a family of engineers.

In 1992, I completed 8 years of school and received a certificate of incomplete secondary education.

I learned photography while at school. My father was passionate about photography — he had a full-frame SLR camera, the Zenit E, with a Helios 44-2 58/2.0 lens. I, on the other hand, had an Agat 18K camera with a crop factor of 2.0.

Thanks to this camera, I learned the basics of exposure and have school photos that I took myself (the photo printing was done with my father’s help). The film camera with a crop factor of 2.0 had a significant advantage—since each frame was halved, a standard 36-frame film roll could produce 72 photos!

After finishing secondary school, I enrolled in the Kharkiv Radio Engineering College to study the specialty “Production of Electronic Equipment” (microelectronics). Upon graduating in 1996, I received a Junior Specialist (technologist) diploma.

In the summer of 1996, I enrolled at the Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics (KhNURE, also known as KhIRE) in the Faculty of Radio Engineering, specializing in “Broadcasting and Television Equipment.”

At the university, I learned about how analog and digital images and sound are encoded, both with and without loss; the principles of recording, processing, and storing images and sound; stereo sound formats; and broadcasting standards.

This knowledge is invaluable every time I shoot or edit video or audio. Terms like:

PAL, NTSC
AB, XY, MS
JPG, MPEG2, MPEG4, MP3, AAC, FLAC
Interlaced and progressive scanning
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Nyquist-Shannon theorem
Compressor, limiter, reverb

are not just empty words to me. I understand the physics behind these processes, which allows me to make the right decisions both in the fast-paced conditions of on-location shooting and during thoughtful, creative post-production.

I graduated from the Radio Electronics Institute in 2001, first earning a bachelor’s degree and then a specialist diploma.

After graduating from the institute, I briefly worked as a radio engineer at a private metrology firm, where I was involved in the development and production of analog modules for ultrasonic level meters.

However, since earning a decent income as an engineer in the early 2000s was challenging, I transitioned into sales, where I worked until 2014. During the last six years of this period, I held the position of a top manager at a trading company with a staff of 31 employees and a monthly turnover of $125,000. I have practical experience in management and accounting (having completed accounting courses), office administration, and financial discipline.

In 2014, my son was born, and I changed jobs to work as a system administrator for a large wholesale and retail company. This career shift was possible because I had mastered Windows Server and 1S:Enterprise ERP system, as well as learned to program for 1S:Enterprise and Microsoft SQL Server.

However, since a system administrator earns less than a top manager, I had to acquire the craft of a videographer, which eventually became my second profession and, to this day, an additional source of income.

After the war began in Ukraine, my family and I moved to northern Italy, to the Trentino-Alto Adige region. Together with my wife, we film weddings and other events that require multi-camera video production. We collaborate with drone operators for aerial videography. In addition, we film children’s and sports events, as well as other types of documentary and staged video productions.

If you need videography or photography services in northern Italy or southern Germany, feel free to contact me in any way that is convenient for you.