'Dressed for the Cold'

It was a relatively warmer day, slightly above freezing, but Tatiana

had come from very much warmer climes and was suffering as she waited

for a long distance bus in Ukraine to take her to her home in winter

and somewhat warmer climes, at least for Ukraine. Your ratings,

critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; thank you in advance for sharing

your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Enjoy! John

Something about the vibrancy of her eyes gets me.  Nice one John.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Thank you for your thoughts.

john

John (Crosley)

Magnificant, eye(s), hand (!) "visor", light, color, texture. A portrait being alive, if bursting out, maybe there only would be an overwhelming silence..     

You are as eloquent a commenter as I have ever encountered.

Thank you so much.

john

John (Crosley)

Wild colors but what I notice is the skin tones.  The redish knuckles and around the eyes say it's cold.  And it also says this person can't seem to get any relief from the elements.  I know we're stuck in an arctic blast here in the northeast, so I certainly understand this cold.  I can't make it outside to get to my car without the same red knuckles.

This was taken almost exactly a week ago Wednesday in Kyiv, Ukraine, on a bus route start to the city (1.2 million) of Dnipropetrovs'k -- an eight hour bus ride (no stops for toilet for the first four and one half hours, so if you think her knuckles are red from cold, you should have seen mine when we arrived at the first stop 4-1/2 hours later, with no rest stops, and no on-board toilet. 

Driver stopped at roadside for a smoke half way but no toilet or anybody even allowed off, and BOY I think the Ukrainians must have tremendous bladders!  My knuckles were white just from grabbing the armrest by the time we arrived at the first stop (with toilets).  And it wasn't from the cold!

This woman had just returned (I think I understood her correctly) from Italy where the weather is more California-like, and when this photo was taken the temperature was just over 0 Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit, somewhat sunny nearby and no wind.  Not a recipe for red knuckles!

Not really cold at all.  I was two days ago in LA where it was shirtsleeve weather even into the night, so I do understand that cold is relative.

In Ukraine at the same time, the temperature was turning to freezing and to the mid '20s, then above freezing or about freezing during the daytime.

She got her red knuckles in part because this was edited on a brand new laptop which was not color adjusted; they were a little whiter, I think, in person; this is how a D70 would have portrayed them/her with its reddish cast.

I could work this up more 'true' with color, but the next version is B&W which is really wonderful looking, and the contrast from the colors make converting this into B&W a better proposition than checking the box in Adobe Camera Raw to make it a monochrome/grayscale version. Sometimes the 'raw' process can be done better in the full version of Photoshop with its better color channel sliders; not all but sometimes.

I happen to like it 'saturated' as here, but she could be made to look mostly white-knuckled, like having been through a scary carnival ride;~))  It's all in the processing, and in this case the 'screen' of my new 'cheap' laptop.

I got what I paid for.  Viewing this on one of my three Samsung monitors reveals substantial saturation, but the laptop on whcih it was worked up, shows a pleasant blend of flesh colors without excessive or LOTS of reddishness.

Go figure.

Thanks for the help in evaluating this, the story, and the aid in 'color management' for my end, since I cannot visualize what it looks like to you without some description, as you gave here.

Compared to last year (one of Ukraine's snowiest and coldest on record) this year is like a walk at the beach (Coney Island on a blustery, snowy day for sure).

Thanks again.

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks for the explanation, However I like my original interpretation of the image.  Sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder.  I see the red knuckles as an enhancement to the idea that she's reall cold.  I can understand that because we've had a miserable winter in the northeast.  And we're at the start of another major snow storm.  If I were to draw attention to color in this photgraph it would be the pink in the background.  I think that's the part that doesn't 'fit'.  Maybe in this version a tighter crop to eliminate the pink would help from my perspective.  But you a better expert that me on this.  I would like to see the B&W version, that would be cool.  But the one thing that that would detract from this somewhat poerful image is the beautiful color in her right eye.  Very nice...

This photo was taken at the main bus station for bus departures within Ukraine (and also an occasional departure to a place like Russia - the previous bus was to St. Petersburg, but mostly the buses here depart for parts south as Kiev is in the north of Ukraine.)

A former Soviet country, the Ukrainians, like the Soviets, which built much of their housing and construction with mass production and little real 'architecture' in a 'design' sense, and with much utilitarianism, painting of cinder blocks and bricks is common, often with pastels and brighter colors such as the pink here.

I seldom, almost never, manipulate colors especially by replacing them (never have that I can recall), and often just lessen saturation if they conflict, but pink with red knuckles -- that's 'mirroring' and something I would think twice or thrice about before undertaking.

But you are right, this is quite a good portrait when cropped tighter; I often post without such things as tightest cropping to give members a choice and something to suggest, even if I might choose the tighter  cropping myself; it was very attractive (use your fingers to crop and see).

The black and white version also is wonderful in my view.  This just was better, or I'd easily have posted the other.

Ukrainians are one of the most blue-eyed nations on earth; even Jews here are blue-eyed in part, and I have commented before on meeting Jews from Israel who have made the journey to Ukraine in part to find for their Jewish wife a blue-eyed Jewish woman. 

Now that sounds to me like interesting reasoning - choosing a wife for eye color, but stranger things have occurred, and all other things being equal, among a nation (a diaspora) of brown-eyed people, a blue-eyed true Jewish wife seems highly prized by some. 

Me, I could care less, though I have peered closely into blue and blue/grey eyes much of my life . . . . . but also almond, brown, and even almost black.   The underlying person is so much more important to me.

Ukrainian woman should be prized for their hardiness and endurance and unwillingness to carp when the going gets tough; which is how I happened to go to neighboring Russia in the first place -- on recommendation of a scuba-diving partner whose best friend had a Russian wife who was said to be a notably hard worker and non-complainer, happy with her circumstance and not trivial.  (Ukraine and Russia are next door neighbors and share a language for over half of Ukraine - Russian, and the West speaks Ukrainian more and sometimes life is hard, for some it's very hard, and the ability to endure is ingrained for many.)

This woman does have beautiful eyes; she slipped me her address AND telephone number and made mention of the fact I was 'welcome', I think, though my Russian is bad.  She was very nice and happy (after she saw this) to have her photo taken; before this she was highly skeptical.

(There's a lesson in that; take a good photo and show it to a reluctant subject.)

Thanks, Bob, for the additional, helpful comment.

john

John (Crosley)