'Marriage For Sale'

Famed Photo Printer and photo/art connoisseur Michel Karman chose this from my captures last year, and while praising it, said it also had 'timeless qualities', but I simply scoffed in disbelief. Now I have new feelings after having reviewed the collections of countless famed historical photographic artists, and having found a recurrent theme of the sandwich board advertisement which is symbolic of 'the times' for each of certain eras.

The era depicted here is the era of the beautiful Russian/Ukrainian bride who travels abroad to America or Europe for marriage, based on her beauty, education, and her hope for a new and better life fueled in large part on unhappiness with the attitude toward women and marriage by men of her native country. 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

Lucie Award Winner Michel Karman, of Los Angeles/Hollywood, who prints for more photographic luminaries than I had even then knew existed, spent six months last year reviewing gigabytes of my captures, searching for 'good ones' and essentially to 'curate' them for me possibly to approach galleries and museums with the best -- a job he did as a labor of love, after having reviewed selected captures one day -- a task for which he allocated 15 minutes but which turned into four to six hours that day followed the next day by a gallery opening to meet a gallery owner of great fame.

Since I was then (and mostly still am) a naif about the business and even the 'art' of photography, Karman arranged to review all my captures, and said he did so out of the goodness of his heart, and whatever little expenses he was paid were a small pittance for the enormous undertaking of reviewing gigabytes of captures that were never seen mostly by anyone.

From those he selected various captures he deemed 'significant' and this was among them.

I scoffed at this choice, since this was then (last year when taken) a common enough scene in the Kyiv, Ukraine Metro. How, I asked, could that be an 'important' photo as he urged on me?

I was more than skeptical; I was dismissive.

But Corbis had chosen Karman to select some of its long-forgotten and archived photos to republish them and renew them for a new collection,and to print them with his name and imprimatur on them. (He studied through a doctorate in art at the Sorbonne/ I have no art education other than a survey course in 'art' at Columbia College, Columbia University. So what do I know?)

Playboy had done the same thing.

Revered artists like Helmut Newton trusted him with his captures (until his untimely death). So did current luminaries like Sally Mann (Time Magazine Photographer of the Year) who displays her photographs not at photography galleries, but at 'Art Galleries' - which right now is the multi-branched and huge Gagosian Gallery.

Same with famed Mexican photographer Isabelle Iturbede, who recently showed photos in thousands of square feet at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

In short Karman spent a substantial time ending this January promoting my hoped for future as a photographer with possible gallery/museum exposure.

But when he chose this one, I was unaware of the importance that photos of sandwich board advertisements played in the history of important and representative photographs from history.

There is a substantial history of sandwich board advertising photographs that is roughly correlative with the early parts of this century and from various parts of the US and Europe, where sandwich board advertising was used most frequently.

And here, is the ultimate sandwich board.

Although it's more discreet than the caption 'Marriage for Sale' -- that's basically what it's saying.

And in 2007.

In 2007, last year (and this year too, I think), there are such advertisements in the Kyiv Metro. At the very least, the entire country of Ukraine is dotted with hundreds of marriage agencies. Hopeful girls from their teens to their forties, call into them periodically (or simply show up) to get their messages (and sometimes gifts) from American or other foreign men, and to send off messages in return.

Some of them are plain hucksters, but many others are more serious -- hoping for a good life with a good man in another country.

Ukrainian people are notorious for their good physical looks - men and women -- and a woman in Ukraine is expected to marry by age 20 and have children by age 21 or 22 or her relatives complain that something's wrong with her.

If she does have children, the most part of Ukrainian men are said to drink too much beer, contribute little around the house, leave most of the work to the woman, watch a lot of sports on television, hang around with their friends way too much, and in general a very large number of marriages fall apart before the woman reaches her mid to late '20s or early '30s -- and in Ukraine, that is the beginning of 'middle age'.

People age rapidly under harsh conditions in Ukraine.

But not in America or Western Europe or such countries as Australia where young women of late '20s or early '30s are just getting ready to marry and in full flower, but often are spoiled.

Ukrainian woman often are very hardy and many of them that seek a life abroad have good educations and are well suited for life abroad -- I have met many so-called 'mail order brides' who were not 'mail order' at all, and to a one, they all were happy with their spouses and their new lives and families abroad.

Of course there surely are unhappy stories, but I have not run into them.

And of course, there are scammers -- women who fake their availability to scam hopeful grooms out of money and presents; -- sort of an outgrowth of the world's oldest profession, but under a new guise.

(After all, the world's oldest profession actually does business through the Internet in Ukraine, and in clubs in various cities, and it seems to be tolerated . . . at least at some level . . . . at least at certain times . . . just so long as it stays 'in its place')

But the most part of women who patronize such agencies genuinely are looking to get married, often have children, and are looking for good fathers. Often having found Ukrainian men, famous for drinking and womanizing in a country filled with sexually liberated and beautiful women, the men are famous (in general, not specifically in every instance) for overstepping marital bounds, thus fueling the ambitions of their beautiful one-time brides to leave.

And that is the story.

I've lived in Russia and Ukraine.

At one time I married such a woman in Russia, smart as a PhD and beautiful as a movie star, but the marriage fell apart when she got brain cancer. Still, I'd do it again in an instant, and would never have a hesitancy also to marry a Ukrainian bride (though I'd be VERY choosy, of course and spend LOTS of time with her, and do NOTHING based on letter writing, as that's more than extremely risky-- it's almost suicidal).

Before I married my Russian bride, I moved to Russia and lived with her for almost three years, on and off in Russia, Thailand and even for a short time in America, before taking the plunge (three months later came the diagnosis -- almost certainly fatal brain cancer).

Not every Ukrainian man is a beer-swilling swine who watches sports on TV all day, ignores the kiddies and complains when the refrigerator is empty of new, cold beer. Some Ukrainian men are wonderful husbands and treasured by their wives.

I write about 'generalities', but there is truth in them, in part because these stories are stories I have been told over and over by a large number of Ukraine's young, beautiful women -- the greater part of whom would prefer to stay in Ukraine . . . if they could find a decent husband who embodies values that the women seek.

And, in my experience, the women are NOT gold diggers, although there also are exceptions. They seek a 'good enough life' but not wealth. For a great number of them, having a husband who pays attention to them, comes home at night, doesn't drink to excess and is a good father is a treasure they appreciate.

(from experience)

John (Crosley)

Beautiful street work.Nice shot andmood.

All the best

Thanks for the compliment.

This one seems to have underwhelmed Photo.net viewers.

I am convinced, though, as I have finally learned, that is fits into a body of work regarding 'sandwich board advertising' as indicative of certain times -- literally an embodiment of a culture.

This one embodies an entire cultural development that has overtaken Ukraine for the last eight or so years, maybe longer -- the bride who goes abroad and the searching English-speaking bride-seeker drawn by the attractive Eastern European women, beautiful, often very bright, often very highly educated and often saddled by backward culture.

It seems a natural to many men from more highly developed Western nations.

And such signs date back to the 'teens of the last century or earlier and many were photographed by famous photographers in the '30s of the USA, where such signs no longer are usual.

Which is one reason I often travel to Ukraine -- things that are long gone in the USA are found relatively commonly in Ukraine, even though it has embraced modernization with a vengeance.

Thanks again for your observation and comment.

John (Crosley)

I had long wondered why raters passed this photo up, as it came highly endorsed by a world class critic and follows a body of photography that is almost or more than 100 years old -- that of sandwich board advertising -- and this sandwich board offers the ultimate - brides!

It turns out I thought I had submitted it for critique and ratings, and critiques did come in, but never ratings because in actuality I had not requested them or because of software/transmission error, a request for both got dropped, and because some critiques came in, I was mislead.

When Photo.net confirms that for older photos you can request a critique and the time starts running from the request, not the posting, then I'll put it up for critique and request ratings, but this photo seems to be holding its own, partly because it's interesting and partly because it's in a pretty good folder/portfolio.

Mystery solved -- why no ratings. 

None were possible.

I'd have been very interested to see them.

Maybe someday this one'll get a chance.

john

John (Crosley)

Times have been tough in Ukraine for a long time, and one way for one

of the country's many beautiful, industrious, and well-educated women

to 'get ahead' is to marry and move abroad. (These marriages often

succeed, according to feedback I get at the airport from brides and

grooms returning on holiday to visit relatives.) This photo was taken

several years ago. 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;

please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

I returned home to the US for a couple of days without hard drives in my carry-on and decided this is the perfect time to move this from the photos for which I have 'views' and for which I thought I had requested a critique but inadvertently never had. 

Rather than look through backups, I just moved this photo, comments and all from 2008, and requested critique, making up for the critique request I thought I had made then rather than try a repost.  I'll be in Ukraine shortly after the start of March, shooting again as the weather is turning to Spring there, I read, and the weather will be little different than the NW corner of the US where I am. 

john

John (Crosley)

Very impressive shot and the text which you have written here.

I'm so glad you approve of both photo AND text, as a Kyiv native.

That is important to me as a visitor/tourist/documentarian of your fair city and your country (as well as any other place I happen to be).

john

John (Crosley)