Uzbek Woman Drinking Tea
Samarkand, Uzbekistan 1989
It was the time of Perestroika and the Russian populace was beginning to feel unwelcome as the Uzbeks, who had been second class citizens, were rising to power. Later many Russians moved back to Mother Russia, but received no welcome there. It turned out that they were neither Russian or Uzbek. They came to the U.S. and now there is a large population of Uzbek immigrants in Southern California. They are happy here for many reasons, but one is that the climate reminds them of Uzbekistan.
In 1989 almost all the women of Samarkand wore dresses of the traditional ikat silk that has been woven in Uzbekistan for centuries. Even street sweepers wore silks of yellows, reds, lavenders…lovely.
I managed to get several shots of ikat wearing women but none of them turned out perfect. I would shoot once and hope I’d gotten my picture. It is a far cry from today when, using a digital camera, I can take ten or twenty or more shots and still have plenty of room for other exposures.
The woman helped me by holding still. (There was very little light in the market and who knows what my shutter speed or ISO was or anything else for that matter.) The background is colorful and I love those paintings of vegetables. A perfect background for my young, pretty and confident Uzbek woman.
I scanned the slide with poor results. Yet I couldn’t give up on this portrait. That woman and I had connected for a moment and the memory stayed with me. I worked in Photoshop to get the colors right. (Her skin was too red due to the reflection of color from her dress but with my NIK plug-ins, I was easily able to reduce that.) I wound up making a digital painting using Snap Art 3 from Alien Skin. Snap Art 3 gave an airy feeling to the colors, a dreamy picture book quality that I like.
To find your own portrait of an Uzbek woman, travel with Penelope Price at www.uzbekjourneys.com Penelope has just published her itineraries for next year. I’m sure you will find one that will be perfect for you.
My first thought was French peasant drinking cows milk by Van Gogh. I liked it a lot and your various corrections and additions were just right for me. Jerry
Thanks, Jerry!