Ethiopia - Part 2 "Creative Direction"

Photographically Ethiopia was a challenge. When visiting tribal areas, it’s not like you can control events so that they always occur in good light. Traveling in a new and exotic place it is easy to get overwhelmed and lose creative energy and direction. This certainly was the case for me the first time we witnessed the tribal dances in the Omo river valley in Ethiopia.

My first set of images felt sterile. I did not feel as if I was capturing the feel of the moment, the intensity of the dance at all.

However, after reviewing my photo’s I could see a trend developing that I liked. The dances were alive and I wanted to show that with greater impact. The images with slower shutter speeds where the movement was emphasized were enticing to me. This gave me renewed creative energy and direction for capturing future dances should I see them.

As other shooting opportunities came about I looked for stationary individuals amongst the dancers to provide contrast and balance in the image. In these moments I kept the camera locked on the tripod and let the movement of the subjects create the impressionistic effect.

Finally, I was seeing images that I liked on the back of my camera. I increased the effect by panning with some of the women which caused a greater blur effect with the women behind moving in the opposite direction.

These last few were the images that were most appealing to me. I only wish I had recorded the singing and chanting to go along with the photographs.