The Welcoming Committee
Ethiopia 2013
Abore women pose near one of their homes. The poles form a fence for livestock. I imagine the goats or cattle are taken out during the day to graze but are brought home and corralled for safety. There are cheetahs in the nearby hills.
The Abore women wore many layers of beads that nearly covered their chest. Many bracelets adorned their arms and ankles. It was obvious that they took pride in their appearance.
Abore Women
This top photo is one of my favorite photo “treatments”. It resembles a page torn from a book from the 19th century. I added a yellow overlay, saturated the colors, and added the scratches. This procedure doesn’t take long when you have the plug-in called Exposure 5 from Alien Skin. I have ‘saved’ this treatment among others and I can immediately see if it suits the photo I’m working on. And the best part is if it doesn’t work, you can go back and tweak it.
The second photo has a natural look. I like it, too. The huge expanse of blue sky, the rather barren land tells a bit about the lives of the people who live in this area.
Plug-ins can be expensive. I feel guilty recommending them to you because maybe you have other places to spend your money. It was years and years before I bought any plug-ins. I knew it was possible to do the same actions in Photoshop. My problem was I didn’t know how to do it in Photoshop and to learn would have taken hours if not days. A good company for plug-ins is Topaz Labs. They aren’t expensive and the updates are always free.