This is one of the shots I did for the Harper's Bazaar Russia Best Dressed List. She was one of my favorite young ladies I met while in Moscow. She has great natural style, a great wardrobe and was up for whatever kind of shot I wanted to do - so I knew she would be the perfect young woman for this location.
While I was riding in the car with Mira (I posted several photos of her on November 5th) I noticed this one particular kind of hot dog stand that I kept seeing around the city. I asked her, "what does Crapdozis mean in Russian?"
She looked at me very strangely, so I pointed at the hot dog stand and explained that, to me, the sign said Crapdozis. She laughed and said in Russian it meant something like Starfish or Star-something.
Then she said, "What is a Crapdozi?"
"Well," I said "Crapdozi is like....well...kinda...it might mean something like....well....big poop"
She could not stop laughing. It became the running joke during my time in Moscow.
When we were on one of the last shots for the day I decided we had to get Crapdozis in the story, luckily there was one only a few blocks away. We ran down there quickly because we were losing light fast.
I wanted her to stand close to the table that had Crapdozis written down the side. Unfortunately, there was a guy already standing there finishing his meal. They asked him in Russian if we could join him for a minute while we got the shot.
I still have no idea who that guy in the far background is, but they all seemed to have a good laugh while we did the shots.
And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.