The Vendor

'The Vendor' is a one of numerous people in Ukraine who

sell 'refills' for mobile telephone SIM cards, of all makes and

companies -- with choices for refills shown behind her. Her plastic-

wrapped SIM cards refills full of PIN numbers are in the bag around

her neck -- a very valuable bag filled with hundreds, perhaps

thousands of dollars worth of such cards that can't be trusted to a

mobile cart display. Your ratings and critiques are invited and most

welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

well captured, a real human life story here, well done!!

It took a few frames to 'get it right' -- such 'simple' photos can be more elusive than one can realize.

 

But this woman just 'had' to be captured -- with that cigarette and all, tired after a hard day's work. It's no wonder that women in Ukraine age fast -- standing outside all day, winter and summer as she does and so many like her, and very, very long days, too. Then, at the end of her day, she must take her display with her, sleep and get up early to get her display set up again, day in and day out.

 

But if you need to make a phone call and run out of units, you'll appreciate her quickly enough.

 

Thanks for noticing.

 

John (Crosley)

Her face really shows a lifetime of hard work and hardships, nice capture.

Hi John, great capture. Thanks for explaining what was going on. I was thinking she was the customer and that the story was about cigarettes. Would never have thought Cell Phones.

John, I started to bypass this shot because you asked for "superior knowledge of photography" which I do not have, since I am so new to it. But then, I decided, maybe I can make a worthwhile comment anyway. I do know what interests me, after all.

 

 

I like your shot because of the composition - regardless of your explanation. This lady is captured in her element, obviously intent on what she needs to do - not at all aware of her environment or at least doesn't seem to care. This shot has a story to it, and I think you proved that there is more to consider than what is shown. The cigarette is very important as well. She's a tough old broad, isn't she?

This woman may actually be quite a bit younger than you imagine, despite her facing showing a 'lifetime' of the things you say.

 

You may imagine her in her mid to late '50s but I daresay she's 10 years younger than that.

 

Yes, she probably works morning to night, every day, and that's how she ekes out a living, maybe with a relative or worker to spell her during the day or during certain days. Sometimes these people are employed by larger firms and they 'work position on a company route' as they don't have the capital to invest in the 'recharge PIN' number cards each she carries in a pouch -- several hundred of them, in all denominations for all the various mobile phone carriers and in various denominations from 25 hrivna to 300 hrivna (pronounced grivna), which is the currency unit, at about 5 to the dollar or 20 cents apiece.) It's a huge capital investment all those cards and if anyone stole her pouch, she'd be out of a living.

 

Further, f she works for anyone, it's Ukrainian tradition that if an employee causes a loss, even a few cents, the employee has to cough up the money -- making employees terribly afraid to make decisions in favor of the customer, no matter how kind hearted they are, and this extends even to the big international airlines such as Lufthansa -- if they sell a ticket at the wrong price, or a hotel clerk sells a room at a price too low, they take the money out of their salary (and two mistakes could wipe out a month's salary -- one reason that people there are corrupt -- they view employer/employee as 'us' vs. 'them', and if they can sneak something away from their employer, many will do so, so long as they don't get caught (and alliances are formed just for that purpose.)

 

The rate of exchange to the dollar hasn't fluctuated much in the past three years, despite the so-called 'Orange Revolution', steadily increasing prosperity, and the rise of the Euro, which means as relates to the Euro, the Hrivna has fallen in step with the dollar's plummet (but stayed steady with the dollar).

 

If the dollar ever bottoms out and inflation starts though, you'll see the dollar skyrocket . . . (its value works with interest rates -- as interest rates go up relatively in the US, money from Europe and elsewhere rushes to the US -- to invest -- and then the dollar gets more 'expensive' and the Euro gets more cheap. Right now, inflation is greatly in check, so the dollar -- Euro rate is in relative stasis.

 

But the Euro may not be as stable as it looks -- the European union is not so strong as it appears on paper, though I argue it will stay around -- it's just that it has expanded greatly recently, and that will tend toward weakening the Euro a little, I guess.

 

Check me out in a couple of years and compare this to events. I was traveling heavily when the 82 cents bought one Euro, and now it takes $1.33 or so to buy one Euro, meaning European travel is out of the question.

 

Then, for the equivalent of the price of one Santa Cruz, CA bungalow, you could buy a French country castle, with everything including working central heating and 15 baronial bedrooms, in the center of rural France -- and live a handsome lifestyle

 

"Get the whippets from in front of the fire, saddle up the and horses out from their 'box' (stables), Maurice, I'm going on 'la chasse'" -- the hunt.

 

And there's one reason the French eat rabbits, (which they do) -- that's the rabbits eat their lettuce and other garden goodies, and the French, being very sporting, like to shoot them after giving the dogs a workout first, then saute them in juices with butter, olive oil, onion and a little garlic (ail) -- and with all those things, anything can taste good -- even shrimp, frog's legs and snails (which are fed cornmeal for months to take away their 'gamy' flavor before they're stewed (in garlic and butter of course).

 

One doubts that this woman sees more than sausage for meat, and more than once a week at that, and she'll never see a French castle.

 

Her work is situated next to a giant freeway/highway at a huge crossroads, near a major Metro stop that feeds a huge complex of Soviet-style, 23-story apartment flats.

 

And the Soviets, wherever they built, had everything down to a science. The same water tap swiveled in every bathroom, so it could fill the bath and the bathroom sink at once (toilet in a separate enclosure next door).

 

That describes almost all those high rises all over the former Soviet Union. The idea of a separate bathroom tap for the bathtub end the sink was too luxurious for the proletariat (I've stayed in high officials' former flats and they had two different taps -- so some were 'more equal' than others.)

 

Next time I see this woman, in my meager Russian, I'll try to find out how old she is (she'll be much younger than I, no matter what, since I'm an old guy, at least in years -- the Ukrainians never can believe I am my stated age 'you go to a spa?' they ask incredulously. . . . . ).

 

Women live long there, but men die very, very young, and increasingly women will die younger too -- the cigarette companies from Britain and the USA have given out free cigarettes and hooked half the young women into thinking smoking is 'fashionable', and now they all have a nicotine fit if they can't get their hands on a cigarette (though they will ask if they can smoke and go on a balcony to do so, or near an open window, as they know it's pretty disgusting).

 

But still, Lorillard, British Tobacco, and the others have handed out free cigarettes to anyone who could take them across Russia and Ukraine, from pretty girls in uniform starting several years ago. (If it was heroin, it couldn't be more deadly . . . it's just that the price is paid less immediately).

 

Imagine the outcry if we heard that American companies were in former Soviet countries handing out heroin . . . . but tobacco, well that's legal.

 

Shame on American and British tobacco!!!!

 

Our own companies are going to shorten this woman's life, and she doesn't even know it. . . .

 

John (Crosley)

This is about cell (mobile) phones and seemingly not about cigarettes, until you read the comment by me next above, and yes, it all boils down to Russian and Ukrainian women never smoked according to a 7-year-old UN survey.

 

Only about less than 10 per cent of them smoked, and now well over a quarter to a third of them smoke -- especially the young pretty ones who have been given the idea (sold the idea) that cigarettes are a 'fashion accessory'

 

Again, for shame, American and British tobacco companies!

 

Thanks for commenting.

 

John (Crosley)

There was a crowd about, I had a telephoto cranked up to 200 mm and it's at maximum setting in daylight and look how much extraneous area I was able to capture so you can figure I was some distance away. She'd have needed her glasses (see they're atop her head) to figure out that this distant guy was actually photographing her, so I took a variety of shots.

 

There were people coming and going between her and me. Those shots I tend to delete as they have NO merit at all, keeping only those in which a passerby crossing might have merit, and deleting anything also that's greatly out of focus.

 

The key to a shot like this is to keep everything interesting in the frame and everything that's not, outside the frame -- that's my general rule. Sounds simple doesn't it. But you have to understand the photo you're trying to take, to do that.

 

So, if someone is passing by and they break the frame, you either have to crop them out, or take another shot, or figure out some inventive way that they add to the capture.

 

By the way, the services in the background are UMC, ACE and Base (dJuice from KievStar), Beeline, Life and Uni, -- all mobile companies.

 

I prefer Kievstar, but it's hugely in debt and owes more than it has, but still extremely popular -- it just owes a lot of money, and may technically be bankrupt, but it has no worth of any creditor pulls the plug so the creditors will work it out.

 

Now, figure each of those companies has refill cards in various denominations from 25 hrivna ($5.00) to 300 hrivna ($60.00) and you figure she's got a lot of little credit-card size pieces of plastic each containing a very long reload unit PIN under that gray scratchoff stuff, all wrapped in tight cellophane in her bag (and they're all in her bag, because they have value if stolen.)

 

The display is just that -- a display. Everything important is in that bag strung around her front which holds those valuable cards.

 

Tough old broad? Possibly, especially on the street, where there are all sorts of weirdos, including old guys with cameras and long lenses poking them into others' businesses.

 

But, like those of Russian/slav heritage, when she gets next to her grandchildren, I'll bet you never saw a grandma (or she may be just a mother), who would spoil grandkids more than this woman -- probably in the US you never met anyone who has spoiled children so much as a Russian parent/grandparent (she's Russian living in Ukraine and probably a Ukrainian citizen, judging by her features, which are more Russian than Ukraine (there are discrete differences.)

 

I can even tell young models if their parents were both Russian or both Ukraine or were mixed or otherwise had mixed heritage, even though you would never see the difference as a casual observer.

 

I'm right 90% of the time.

 

So, she looks tough, but I bet her granchildren are like hellions around her, and get anything they want (which may not be so good for them).

 

:-))

 

John (Crosley)