Amalya

Shandelman

Houston, Texas

🇺🇸 The United States

Ranking

Senior Member

7 awards left until the Grand Member

4th place in The United States

With us

2 years

Studio Name

Amalya Shandelman Photography

Amalya, a university-trained journalist now focusing exclusively on photography, hails from Moscow, Russia. As a schoolgirl she roamed the streets of that peerless Slavic metropolis (not alone, of course), honing her black-and-white skills on Grandpa's cherished prewar Leica. Now based in Houston, Texas, there is no finer day than one spent behind the camera, putting her subjects at ease and capturing them in their finest moments, candid or posed. Amalya's photography emanates from deep within - motivated and inspired, above all, by her love of the art and for her subjects, and for capturing everything that is human in every image.

Winning photos

EVOLVE
Each of us is born into a rigidly finite world, our uniquely inherited chain of DNA pervading our every cell. As we grow, we strive for the infinite, for liberation from that daisy chain, to become much more than mere natural determinism suggests.

Observe my alter ego Irina, a mirror image of myself, demonstrating that noble transformation from Prometheus bound to unbound. Like a serpent shedding its skin, she frees herself, in layers and stages, of a purely mathematical definition, congenitally bestowed. She unravels that chain of command. No longer controlled by nature, she influences nature, directs it, even creates it anew.

We grow and thus we evolve, to much more than nature alone would have had us become.

79th Collection

EMERGE

An "e" prefix is most often short for Latin "ex": "out of, from."

So "emerge" can be understood as "e-merge" - merging with something by leaving it.

Which is obviously a paradox on the face of it! Can we make some sense of this?

But look at it this way. By becoming each day a new and better version of ourselves, we also become newer, truer versions of everything we always were. Think of it as an e-merge: Leaving our old selves to merge back into ourselves, bigger and better.

Life is not static. It is about dynamics. Life is about change.

As a portrait photographer, those are the dynamics I endeavor always to capture in my subjects. To help them see themselves as I see them: Constantly emerging and stepping out of themselves, but then to come back in - truer and better.

77th Collection

What joys of expectant motherhood!

A harmonious blend of love and stylish glamour that leaps off the page and into our hearts.

74th Collection

What greater happiness can there be, than the imminent expectation of new life?

And not just any, but a new life that *we* are bringing into the world!

74th Collection

Is there anything greater than bringing new human life into the world?`
We don't think so.

This Mom Soon To Be has got it all well in hand.
As she awaits the big day.

It won't be long now.

73rd Collection

Motherhood is a joy to experience.
And also a joy to behold.

Behold.

Many mothers choose to de-emphasize their own needs for the sake of their baby.
Many do, but not all.

Observe, and be inspired.

72nd Collection

Man reaches for the heavens, but his success remains to be seen.

Woman ad-"dresses" that challenge very differently.

Wrapping herself in lustrous sky-blue azure, she declares:

I am woman. Look no higher, look no further.

I am your heaven on earth.

69th Collection

I stand before you, naked and concealed. A hard shell of glass surrounds me, a protective wall of translucent safety. Take it from me! My blooms pour from its spout for you, for me. Be gentle with them. Part of me wants me to let go, to shatter the vase and let its water flow. I stand before you holding nothing. Exposed. But I cannot bear to shatter my exquisite vase. And so I set it down gently. Do stand beside it as a friend. To admire me in my utter exposure is to admire my blooms and my vase.

68th Collection

I stand before you, naked and concealed. A hard shell of glass surrounds me, a protective wall of translucent safety. Take it from me! My blooms pour from its spout for you, for me. Be gentle with them. Part of me wants me to let go, to shatter the vase and let its water flow. I stand before you holding nothing. Exposed. But I cannot bear to shatter my exquisite vase. And so I set it down gently. Do stand beside it as a friend. To admire me in my utter exposure is to admire my blooms and my vase.

67th Collection

I stand before you, naked and concealed. A hard shell of glass surrounds me, a protective wall of translucent safety. Take it from me! My blooms pour from its spout for you, for me. Be gentle with them. Part of me wants me to let go, to shatter the vase and let its water flow. I stand before you holding nothing. Exposed. But I cannot bear to shatter my exquisite vase. And so I set it down gently. Do stand beside it as a friend. To admire me in my utter exposure is to admire my blooms and my vase.

66th Collection

Motherhood and family harmony - these are the themes that pervade this photograph.
These are fundamental values that make our lives happier and our world better.

65th Collection

Sarah is an uncommonly lovely and talented young lady, with career aspirations that will use both her looks and her brains to great advantage.

We know she will reach great heights. But if there's any ladder, corporate or otherwise, that Sarah plans to climb, assembly-line aluminum isn't going to cut it. Nope. Antique hardwood is much more her style. And, as you can see, she's already got herself planted firmly on its rungs, preparing for a swift ascent.

(P.S. My son hangs out with Sarah as often as he can. If that isn't a recommendation, then I don't know what is. :-)

64th Collection

Deep in the essence of every soul is a desire to feel what it means to "wander in wonder." Freedom, joy, and fresh experiences are luxurious invitations common to almost all people.
Travel is arguably the one process that encompasses all of these luxuries in a single framework. Seeing children playing naked and unabashed on a sandy beach, clothed in nothing but their birthday suits, and with sand between their toes - this is one of the grandest freedoms we can encounter. Feeling the skin of one's foot land on God's green earth opens one's spirit to the vastness of greater possibilities if you have never before experienced it except in the pages of a book. In this space, lands collide. The mountains touch the sea, complementary races embrace new cultures, and we experience acceptance. Travel is the most glamorous expression of a well-lived life.

63rd Collection

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