Tanya

This is a pensive Tanya, an Odessa, Ukraine resident and student,

found elsewhere in my Single Photo Folder (mainly color), now a year

later, as she appeared recently in her home town. (Her

older 'sister' had recently been crowned Miss Odessa for 2006 --

sisters in Russia/Ukraine include 'cousins')

 

Your ratings and comments are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help improve my

photography) Thanks! Enjoy! John

Nice picture but not the best example of capturing ukrainian women. Especially Miss Odessa :)

This is NOT Miss Odessa; this is her 'cousin' which in the vernacular of Ukraine/Russia is 'sister'.

 

If you want to see 'beauty' pure and simple, scroll down in my single photo folder, and you'll find a stunning photo of Tanya, taken last year, filled with honey-blonde, golden hair, taken slightly from above, also candid.

 

This portrays her in a more pensive mood. This 21-year-old has the maturity lacked by most 35-year-olds in the United States and has great intellectual prowess as well as great facility with the English language. (Her beauty about equals her 'sister's' whom I haven't met; I have a photo shoot of the two done by another photographer who was very skilled of the two in bikinis on seashore rocks, and they are stunning, but it's not for distribution, ever, as I have no permission.

 

Tanya is about 6' tall -- over 1.8 meters as far as I can tell, and then she puts on her high heels, habitually -- even her boots have high heels, and she doesn't slouch like many tall women.

 

This wasn't meant to 'show off' Ukrainian women -- for that, just look in any 'mail order bride' catalog. I watched while one photographer with a Nikon D100 and softboxes for a Moscow 'mail order bride' agency labored for hours taking photos of a few 'ordinarily attractive' Ukrainian women -- prospective international bridal corrspondents -- one summer day a year and a half ago, then saw the Photoshopped versions of their images, and they all looked like goddesses.

 

Here, Tanya is essentially without makeup (and she has a boyfriend, a prospective attorney, about her age, and she has no plans to venture outside Ukraine.)

 

However, my money is on her to become a big-time leader or figure in Ukraine simply because of her outstanding maturity and intelligence. (looks won't hurt her either).

 

This 'street portrait' is for my 'Faces I Have Seen' folder, which has a concentration on interesting and unusual looks, not physical beauty per se. The attractiveness of this photo, to me, is in the pensive pose, unusual for a beautiful woman (I tend to exclude cliches from my posted photographs, I hope. It's really not hard to take a photograph of the head and face of a stunningly attractive woman, but to take a 'different' photograph, that's an entirely different thing.

 

I do have another photo or so awaiting upload that are quite different and eye-catching.

 

(In fact, a member just wrote me about a point of 'street photography' and I sent him 25 unpublished photos, just a sample from posts to be made, all taken in the last 45 days, in which I have taken or processed about 120 photos I am considering posting.)

 

John

This is a photo (posted last year) from my single photo folder, of Tanya showing her, candidly, when she was 'dressed up' and 'made up'.

 

She looks as good or better now when she is similarly dressed. This posted photo was not to show off 'party' and 'dressed up' good looks, but her pensiveness (hand to collar, mouth on collar).

 

John

GREAT mood, perfect composition (where the coat occupies, the hand framed against the negative space of the coat, etc), nice color and detail... well done. This captures a small, pensive moment, which is wonderful.

That's exactly what it was meant to be -- a small, pensive moment. Not every photo has to be a 'major' photo, full-blown and glitzy. Life has its pensive moments, even for beautiful women, also.

 

Here, I was having a morning/brunch meal with Tanya, she was perusing the menu and looked so elegant in her pensiveness I decided to preserve the moment. (Her mother treasures this photo.)

 

John

Here is another photo of Tanya, with makeup, taken a year previously, showing her from the back seat of a car to the front seat, in fall daylight's glow.

 

John

this photo certainly has been underrated.