February 26, 2017

Meet Lydia & Alex Baikalov of The “I Do” Photography in West Los Angeles

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lydia & Alex Baikalov.

Lydia & Alex, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
“Can you believe this?” – we find ourselves asking each other this questions often when we think of how far we’ve gotten from when we started our business. We are siblings, brother and sister, and photography and film-making have been our hobbies for most of our lives (Lydia: Although still longer for me as I’m older!). We come from a very creative family with our grandma being the original photographer with her old black & white film camera and a makeshift darkroom with sheets over the windows for printing photos.

To be honest we never thought of getting into weddings until we fell into it accidentally after Alex moved to Los Angeles almost 5 years ago. Both of us were born and raised in Ukraine, where all weddings have to happen at the registrar’s office, which did not seem to present a creative opportunity and we never considered it when we lived there. In the US, however, you can get married wherever you want and make your wedding personal and unique, which seemed completely amazing to us, so when we were offered an opportunity to shoot our first wedding here, we gladly jumped on it and fell completely in love with the emotions and the beautiful settings, which quickly became a canvas for our creativity.

In 5 years and 300+ weddings, we went from 2 people with one camera and a lens to 15 amazing creatives with a studio full of equipment and this is only the beginning!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Amazingly, it has been a very smooth road! We are so blessed. Almost right when we started, two vendors started using us as their default photographers/videographers and then it was a smooth sailing. The only negative thing this business brought is a new type of nightmares – waking up in cold sweat after dreaming that the bride is walking down the isle and you don’t have your camera!

So, as you know, we’re impressed with The “I Do” Photography – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We do Photography, Videography, and Photo Booth services in Los Angeles and Southern California. We specialize in weddings, but we also shoot Events like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Birthday Parties, Anniversaries and Quinceaneras.

Our style in photography & videography is vibrant, colorful and full of light and emotions. Our presence in a wedding also became a part of that style as we are a bunch of young creatives that are full of energy and passion for what we do that are in touch with our human side. We are there for out couples whether they need a shoulder to lean on or a spicy joke when they are exhausted and our couples love it! We are immensely grateful to them for all the amazing reviews they left us (currently over 200 5-star reviews across different platforms).

What sets us apart is simple, but true – we love what we do and we do it well. We are honored to have the amazing team that has brought so much to our company. Together, we love finding new unique ways to show human emotion through the lenses of our cameras.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
So far the trend of our company has been constant growth and we hope to keep it this way. We’re about to launch a new version of our website, which we have put a lot of work into. We also stay on top of technology as Photography & Videography is a blend of skill and equipment, so we constantly add new gadgets to our arsenal. Sounds very fancy, I know, but also hey, who doesn’t love a new toy? For instance, we recently added a 360 VR option to our video menu.

We are also lucky to be based in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and there are still so many photo ops to explore with our couples – from new Downtown rooftops to the breathtaking views of Californian landscapes.

How far we’ve gotten is truly amazing and we hope that as we’re seeing new love stories come to their peak right in from of our eyes, we’ll stop in awe to ask each other “Can you believe this?”

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