Credit: Anatoly Borodin | pro-kolgotki.com
Anatoly Borodin is a photographer and entrepreneur from Moscow. He produces a digital magazine called pro-kolgotki (or Pantyhose Magazine). For the last 10 years, he’s taken photos of women in pantyhose and even produced a high end, limited edition photobook last year, raising the capital via Indigogo. Women in Pantyhose was released at the end of 2017 and was well received.
His models are not professionals—they’re all amateur girls from Moscow, Kiev and other Russian and Ukrainian cities. Borodin’s main goal is to raise their self-esteem and get them good photos to use on their blogs and other social media. Many get paid to shoot with him. Some of the girls wear hardly any makeup and have an all-natural look.
He photographs women in underwear and pantyhose and doesn’t consider them to be fetish shoots. His sessions are more about women and their true beauty. And he’s done his research for 15 years—Borodin has tested hundreds of pairs of pantyhose and learned everything he can about the hosiery industry. Wolford is his favorite brand. According to Borodin most women shockingly don’t know anything about pantyhose—this could be from the decline that started in the 1990s. His conclusion is that they don’t care about hosiery and they just purchase random tights whenever and don’t worry about brand names or quality.
Borodin enjoys seeing women in pantyhose in everyday life, even if few women wear them these days. His fetish has become his art and the goal of his book Women in Pantyhose was to have more women wear pantyhose. And, he doesn’t use seamless pantyhose in his shoots anymore—they’re hard to photograph since they’re too matt and thin, lighting and angles are difficult, and models can’t wear panties since they’re made to have nothing worn with them, so the photos become too explicit.
Credit: Anatoly Borodin | pro-kolgotki.com
Most fashion photographers say they don’t retouch photos, but they do. Borodin spends 10 to 30 minutes retouching a photo. Each issue of his magazine pro-kolgotki features 400 photos and that ends up being 66 to 200 hours of work just in the editing. He sees editing as art and making a vivid image you don’t see in everyday life. The photo shoots themselves are completely directed and prearranged—this is another way Borodin gets such amazing images.
Bordin’s photos revolve around feminine beauty and showcase women in all stages of dress and undress. He uses mainly younger women, but he features all body types and has even shot plus-sized models. Borodin photographs the more sultry photos in his studio, but he also uses nature like parks and farms to photograph women dressed as professionals or wearing cute sundresses.
Bordin has realized from shooting hundreds of women that most of them have no idea what does and doesn’t fit them, and how important matching panties and pantyhose colors are. They think no one will notice, but men definitely notice stockings. He insists on matching underwear and pantyhose on his sets and views white panties under sheer, black pantyhose a major fashion violation. He even has his own guide to matching. Black pantyhose should be worn with black or dark panties. Nude pantyhose call for nude, white, or light panties. If you’re going to sport colorful pantyhose, you can make your own call but go for complimentary colors. Look at panties and pantyhose as you would any other accessory like belts, bracelets, earrings, lipstick, etc. And all his advice comes from photographing thousands of models, as well as wearing pantyhose himself to get the feel and sensation, as well as understand women better.
Watch the trailer for Pantyhose Magazine on Vimeo:
See glimpses of his sold-out, limited edition book Women in Pantyhose on YouTube:
Pick up his digital magazine pro-kolgotki (Panyhose Magazine) that includes photos and videos at https://pro-kolgotki.com/magazine-collection/.
