KYRGYZ MATRIARCH
Kyrgyzstan 2012: Barskoon village
Torie and I visited the master yurt maker of Kyrgyzstan. Torie was planning to write a magazine article on him and she was a frenzy of note taking and photo shooting. I wasn’t as interested. It was high noon and the women of the family were in the yard cooking plov, a type of pilaf. I was wondering when it would be cooked and if we would be invited to eat.
This woman, part of the family, wears the typical headdress of a Kyrgyz tribeswoman. Full of energy, she never stopped working, from tending the fire under the plov, to helping to lay the heavy felt yurt cover, she radiated authority. I photographed her in front of the family’s first home, a log cabin built in the style of cabins found in Siberia.
Last week my friend, Torie, finished her photo book on the Stans. I read it eagerly and saw her photos for the first time…and they were fabulous! It’s interesting that you can put two photographers in front of the same scene and each person’s photo will be entirely different. When I look at Torie’s photos, I try to figure out how she looks at things. Torie sees shapes and colors and humor is what I’ve decided. Torie’s mother was an artist and Torie was fortunate to work with a famous photographer in her youth…Richard Avedon. It shows!
You can see Torie’s book here:
I am certainly not a professional, nor semi, nor even amateur photography. Having made what I think are adequate disclaimers, I want to make a comment on this. I don’t like having part of the hat cut off and I also think it would be much nicer as a full frontal shot. Don’t forge! I don’t know what I’m talking about. J.
Hi, Jerry.
If it were your photo, then frontal would be best. The photographer is the final arbiter. I do have some face on shots of her, but the background on those is not interesting. I was fascinated with the log cabin. I went inside and imagined Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and snows up to the windows.
Rosemary