color -- then and now Tanya

This is Tanya, friend, advisor, beauty, and one of the most able and

brightest people I have met -- mature beyone her 20 years, but with

a heart full of joy. Your ratings and critiques are most welcome.

(If you rate harshly or very negatively, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

advance my art). Thanks. Enjoy.

Hi John, I like this natural photograph of Tania, was she aware/prepared for the shot?

She has strong eastern European features perhaps Russian or Ukrainian? (Just guessing!)

Is this natural light (always my preferred choice) if not try some shots early morning when the sun is just up 10am and have her slowly lift her head for you leaving her gaze slightly dropped so she does not stare straight into the camera making a more natural shot.

You sound very fond of her; she must be a remarkable person indeed.

 

Regards

 

Thanks for the nice, helpful comments. Tanya is Ukrainian -- the nose is trademark central Ukraine, of the sort found more toward Dnepropetrovsk, etc., but I met her in Odessa, and she's an Odessa native, but Odessa is a melting pot, boasting 60 different nationalities -- even a few blacks.

 

This photo was when I first met her when she worked for me as an interpreter; we just had met, barely shaken hands, and she sat down to work -- I had my camera and wanted to demonstrate how my photography and camera were part of me before I sat down so I snapped this photo. I am very attracted to 'quality', and this woman is a woman of 'quality'. She passed up a modeling career with one of Ukraine's top modeling agencies, to pursue her education, although she would have been a shoe-in. She says she's 6'0" = 1.8 meters, but she's far taller than that and very, very thin. If she walked down the street in America men would stop in their tracks and gawk, but I found her true beauty inside. (I'm impressed by your insight). John.

This is 'natural' light only in the sense that it is 'available'. This is fluorescent light from overhead fixtures in a large meeting room with some sidelighting through windows, but windows were far away. The Nikon D-70 has pretty wonderful automatic color correction, and the 'yellow' color of her skin is less a function of problems with the color 'cast' on her skin from the illumination source, than the fact that the illumination source was filtered through her yellow hair and the light falling on her face was more yellow from passing through her hair and being reflected off her yellow hair. Literally, this is a felicitious study in yellow, and she was very impressed -- it got our relationship off to a good start, and her work has helped change my life. John

Nicely done!

Thanks for the very nice comment. This photo is an unexpected 'hit'. I posted another two very nice photos and couldn't get a single rating and threw this up just to see if anybody was 'awake' at this late hour -- evidently for the right photo, everybody is. John.

John apart from my work with the homeless and vulnerable for the past 10n years I have been heavily involved with helping eastern Europeans

mainly Russian, Ukrainians, Latvians Belarusian?s, etc, I work on my own apart from any organisations or official bodies as most of the people who first come have little trust for these groups as you must know considering the political situation in the Ukraine.

I have taught English, educated my friends on the cultures of the British, our history and leaders. I am considered one of them although I still cannot speak the language (down to their insistence that English is much more important for them to learn.)Although I do understand quite a bit of Russian when it's spoken.

I find eastern Europeans beautiful people, very intelligent, modest and extremely family orientated and I will stand up and defend all of those that I have come into contact with in the past 10 yrs for in my opinion each and everyone of them are beautiful individuals in their own right.

I will carry on helping assisting for as long as I can but now I have taught my closest friends how to help each other so my services are not demanded so much although I meet up with lots of my friends as they always want to develope their English skills.

I only wish more British people would give them the chance they deserve.

 

Thanks for the advice on 'Morning Glory' as I said children are not my best subjects.

 

Regards

 

 

This woman was unaware of her photo's being taken. The entire process of taking this woman's photo took maybe ten-fifteen seconds, and she was unaware of the process until I showed her the digital back of my camera which displayed the result. John.

Well, I have close ties with the East also, having married a Russian woman of amazingly high intelligence, great beauty, high family status, and remarkable other qualities. Regrettably she got brain cancer shortly after marriage, but after a very long courtship. She often was compared to Uma Thurman for looks -- i.e., Uma Thurman looked half as good as she. No one was as good a cook as she. I still have very strong feelings about Russia and Ukraine, especially the way the men treat their women (and die so young they literally abandon their women -- you never see healthy 'old' Russian, Ukrainian men, but you see many, many old, healthy Russian, Ukrainian women, despite a hard life for each, resulting in a severe demographic inbalance.)

Hallo John,

 

I tried to find out which way you want to go with your new photos, but there are too few to decide. I like the photos you made before very much as I have already mentioned I guess. The trials with studio photography do not seem very convincing to me. You are more the guy to go around and find your things in real world.

 

I like your new ?self-portrait? very much. The portrait of Olga is much more impressive to me than this portrait. Whereas that one is showing the strength and self consciousness of a woman as a person, this one is somehow reproducing the faintness of womanhood. (Maybe you have read Ortega y Gasset on that). I am not into women liberation to much, but I like strong pictures presenting strong personalities.

 

This portrait is somehow not presenting the person but your very personal view of the person. This is in opposition to most of your other photos which are much more objective and clear.

 

I would not be able to do all these photos in the street with the people like you do. I tend to avoid discussions and argumentations you always run into when pointing at someone with a camera in Central Europe. I do not know how that is in your place, but I do not think it is very different. That street photography seems to be one of your superior talents. So I hope you will give us more of this.

 

Best regards

 

Alexander

 

Thanks for the comment, but I have barely begun to post the studio work -- this is not one of them. This is a 'street' photo, if you will, just as the others -- impromptu, and not posed at all. So, if you have objections to this one, don't place it on my studio work. See the 'Anna's lips' and 'Anna's eye',

one under 'Ukrainian Models' folder and one under 'Single Folder Photos', for the studio work that's been posted so far. I think it may be too early for you to judge. More studio work coming. And more 'nature' work coming, which also is outside what I have posted heretofore, but that's what I have been taking the last couple of days. Who knows what I'll be taking next -- just what pleases me and what I can do well. Thanks again for the nice comment and for caring about my work. I have much more good 'street' work to post. Best regards. John

I've been thinking about your comment about 'street' work being my forte, and it is a strong point with me, but only because I have more practice.

 

There is a talent to taking a photograph and not getting beaten up, shot, or having your camera destroyed . . . and maybe I'd like to write about that . . . maybe a column or a book . . . I have enormous experience . . . from around the world spanning decades . . . what do you think?

 

I've walked the streets of Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant in New York City, been in the Viet Nam war, been in race riots, student riots, in and out of ghettos, both in the U.S. and abroad -- with ultra expensive cameras over my shoulders . . . and been remarkably lucky . . . or I have developed good instincts which I think I can teach about to others . . . as I've analyzed what comprises the skills that keep me out of trouble -- kind of like an NBA player who practices his basketball plays time and again.

 

Each experience teaches me a new skill and I have a whole repertory of skills for 'street' shooting which keep me mostly out of trouble when shooting and which I could teach if there were a suitable forum.

 

Any thoughts viewers? Where do you viewers turn to for guidance about 'street' photography? Let me know, please.

 

John

Hallo John.

 

You do not look that old in the back of your self portrait(hint hint hint).

 

I do not really want to learn that job of a street photographer, but I would like to learn about you doing it. So if you have your book published, which is a matter of a few weeks, taking your remarkable and immens literary output here into account, give me a message. I will be the first to order an autographed one.(mostly serious).

 

I saw your next part of that other young lady today. The puzzle is starting to be interesting, but to be honest - maybe I allready mentioned - I am not a fan of this kind of photography. Though I must admit your dramatological (hope that word exist in english) approach is interesting.

 

Best regards

 

Alexander

Perhaps my youthful appearance had something to do with the smile on the young woman's face?

 

As to my literary output, I have been a writer in a past life -- long past, and I can write like the wind, when I know what to write -- I wrote for Associated Press, at 66 words per minute -- the speed a teletype read the tape that the keyboard generated the tape. I used to sit down at the teletype keyboard when I first was hired and posted as a Nevada correspondent (after being briefly in San Francisco and before being moved to New York headquarters) and would arrive late to write the 5:20 radio newscast, pick up the phone and local newspaper printed overnight to scan for new stories, and write the 5:30 a.m. newscast wire at 5:20 a.m. on the teletype in full newscast style -- at 66 words per minute, and sometimes the tape I generated would droop to the floor as the teletype which 'read' the tape could not process it as fast as I generated it. (literally, I can write as fast as I can think - and I lose track of my ideas if I cannot write so fast -- I am now partially paralyzed in one hand and that interferes with my writing immensely, and there are many times I cannot write at all or even use a pen without significant, fresh, very strong pain medication -- so my alacrity in writing may be confusing to evaluators).

 

But if I can think it, I can write it, and quickly.

 

I would be pleased to autograph anything I produce for you -- in fact I produce output primarily for viewers like you who express and show a specific interest in my work -- not just who 'view' and show numbers but those who 'feed back'.

 

For instance a PN member who complained I cut off the top of heads had a real point, and I keep taking it into heart. I still cut off the tops of heads, but I keep his advice in mind. It was distracting to him -- but not everybody. I have a good, artistic reason for it, but I'm aware of it, which I was not before.

 

I take comments very, very much to heart, and learn from most very much -- even if they are sometimes disheartening -- and they teach me very much, and they NEVER are wasted.

 

For some reason my photos (and perhaps my commentators erudition) generate an unusual number of comments, and for that I am proud.

 

As always, thanks for commenting; you are always welcome here.

 

John

This is an excellent portrait. I like the way her face is isolated in the mass of blonde hair. No distractions.

I just found your comment, and like the others, I think it is very astute. The idea behind this particular image was to 'isolate' the face within the blondeness of her hair (including both the reflection of the blondness on her face, and the diffused light which became blonde as it passed onto her face). Thanks. John