Age

Still Beautiful

Uzbekistan 2012

I prefer to photograph a face that has seen the passage of time, a face that has been etched by life’s vicissitudes, a face that reveals the character of the person.

I saw the woman sitting in the market selling her loaves of bread. I don’t know her circumstances, but she wouldn’t be baking and selling if she were well off. Her face shows no anger or resentment. She seems to be enjoying the market activities going on around her. It’s enough to be well, to sit in the sunshine, to call out to friends as they pass by, to be able to bake and sell her bread. It’s called independence.

At the Chaikhana

Torie and I were waiting for prayers to begin at the mosque next to a teahouse surrounded by leafy trees. We chose to sit next to this man and his friend while we waited. They wore knee high black leather boots and chapans  (quilted coats) and tubetekas (embroidered skull caps) and had wispy beards. A dream come true! Of course, we had our cameras and were almost salivating at the chance to photograph the two of them. But we were polite and waited. And somehow conversation began. The men tried out their English by listing the places they’d visited: Sebastopol, Moscow, Budapest. They had been in the Red Army. Their service numbers were tattooed on their forearms. It’s cheaper than dog-tags. They had ordered bread and tea and when they’d finished, they took the uneaten bread and placed it in a plastic bag to take home. The last we saw of them was as they passed behind the mosque. They leaned forward a bit as they walked, their long coats flowed out behind them and we could see that they held hands. Friends.

I emphasized age in these portraits by using black and white but with a yellow tint and a white vignette that hides part of the photo as if it were faded. This is easily accomplished with plug-ins. I used Exposure 4 (now they have Exposure 5) and Photoshop. Or you can use Nik Filters.  Or you can do it yourself in Photoshop, but it will take you longer.

One more thing. It seems to be that the word Grandmother or Grandma is not in fashion now. Many women choose a word for themselves that doesn’t sound so oldish. I remember a friend whose mother said that her grandchildren were not to call her “Grandma”, they could call her Mrs. Callahan. The Uzbeks have a cute name for Grandma. It’s Bibi. For grandfather it is Bobo.