People: Travel (PROFESSIONAL) - HONORABLE MENTION
Inked

Photo © Tanya Sharapova
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I first met the girls, women and elderly women of Chin State in Myanmar several years ago, during one of my trips to Myanmar. This time, I came back deliberately to shoot a story about women whose faces are hidden under tattoos.
Each woman has her own personal story and her attitude towards tattoos, but all of them are very similar - most tattoos were made by force at a very young age, from 5 to 16 years old. Some of the women did not remember the age when they had been tattooed and simply showed me their height at that moment with gestures. Some of them are embarrassed about their face, some got accustomed and love themselves. Though there are girls who really dreamed about tattoos and wanted to make them so sharp that they outlined tattoos several times. The Burmese government banned making tattoos in 1960, but some tattoo masters made tattoos for girls despite the ban. I shoot 33 women with tattoo on their faces. The youngest girl with tattoo I met is now 28 years old.
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I first met the girls, women and elderly women of Chin State in Myanmar several years ago, during one of my trips to Myanmar. This time, I came back deliberately to shoot a story about women whose faces are hidden under tattoos.
Each woman has her own personal story and her attitude towards tattoos, but all of them are very similar - most tattoos were made by force at a very young age, from 5 to 16 years old. Some of the women did not remember the age when they had been tattooed and simply showed me their height at that moment with gestures. Some of them are embarrassed about their face, some got accustomed and love themselves. Though there are girls who really dreamed about tattoos and wanted to make them so sharp that they outlined tattoos several times. The Burmese government banned making tattoos in 1960, but some tattoo masters made tattoos for girls despite the ban. I shoot 33 women with tattoo on their faces. The youngest girl with tattoo I met is now 28 years old.
About author:
Tanya Sharapova, born 1984 in Moscow, Russia. A self-taught photographer, she developed her skills and passion for photography during her work as Picture editor. Now Tanya Sharapova spends most of her life traveling around the globe. With a passion of curious photographer she explores rural and remote parts of our planet. She works as a freelance photojournalist and published her photos and stories, among others, in National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveller magazines. Tanya Sharapova works with the subjects of social injustice and daily life of different groups and communities in the context of environmental, political, cultural and economic change.BACK TO GALLERY