I am curious, dear friend, not being a photographer myself, are your fine and worthy photo images re-worked with additional color and/or post-production enhancing techniques such as photoshop? I know Ansel Adams, the famous American black and white photographer of an earlier age, used to rework all of his images in the dark room.

I do have some knowledge in the mineral gem field, many of which come from Russia, as you likely know, and there are sophisticated techniques in this realm, such as heat and oil treatments, which can enliven the color palette and raise the value of many gemstones.

I am perfectly OK with this sort of thing. But I am curious if there is more to your images than simply clicking the camera image.

After World War One my own family immigrated from Moscow to Canada, by the way, so I know a fair bit about Russian culture. In fact, a lady cousin of mine, from an earlier generation, was friends with the much-loved Bolshoi ballerina, Maya Plisetskya, a legend in her homeland and, in fact, the whole world. Russian culture never ceases to amaze me.

I might mention, I never used to follow ice-skating but a few weeks ago, by chance, I discovered a pair of Russian Olympic skating champions affectionately known as the two G's who paired up first as children and on into the '90s as young adults. I watched all of their YouTubes and was truly heartbroken to learn that the fellow had actually died unexpectedly in his late twenties. I wept when I watched his funeral. She is petite and both innocent as well as very pretty and he was the son of not one but two policemen, and he himself was tall and very masculine, so the two complemented each other perfectly until tragically he was no more.

No one does it quite like the Russians, and I am getting the feeling you are no exception!

Joel