A lot to choose from here James, i particularly like 6 the detail is great, are you processing these in Lightroom ? i can never seem to get my shots processed like this, can i ask what methods you use, thanks Tel
Thanks
Its a mixture of lightroom and photoshop.
I bring the RAW into lightroom and tweak the exposure as needed. Then it goes into photoshop where I use multiple layers of sharpening, unsharpen masks, high pass, guasian (sp) blur and blending modes to create the gritty feel.
Then its back into lightroom to do curves adjustments, de-saturate, boost the contrast, vibrance and clarity a little, add a vignette and done.
Its not for everyone thats for sure, but I absolutely love it and its just how I wanted to display these photos. I am sure there is a better way of achieving the results, and if I ever discover it I will tell
I might have to look into some really advanced photoshop and re-touching courses to improve my post skills a little further.
Lovely series of shots
If I had to pick a couple, they'd be #1 for its' simplicity and #3 for being so naturally part of their livelihood (I would think).
I'm curious, if you don't mind me asking; were you there on vacation and stopped by a village or on a prescheduled trip (business / documentary etc.) where the villagers were expecting to be photographed? I ask as I'm doing a bit of reading & research into going more often to Africa.
Thanks for sharing these
Thank you
This trip had been planned for around 18 months, and was a cultural study into the roots of music in ancient cultures. I travelled with my father who is a musician and singer who is also a transpersonal psychotherapist and nardi yoga teacher. Our interest was (and still is) to find tribes that still use the oral traditions within their culture and use music as part of their daily life, teaching and healing.
We would never have been able to meet these people, let alone film and photograph them if it wasnt for our guide who we met through the trust, who is a Lutheran pastor who these remote tribes trust. We also had 2 other guides with us as well, to translate swahili into the local tribal dialects.
I organised the trip with my father alongside the Livingstone Tanzania Trust as I am also helping to build schools for the tribes too, as part of their government law is that all tribal children must be educated.
Its a long story, with a lot more to it, and we are in the process of gathering all the material (photos, video and audio) and turning it into a full documentary piece.
Fab series of shots,
#8 my fav if I had to pick one
Very evocative shots. Love the PP - just right for me.
James, these are all stunning, mate. The richness and detail really captures the grit of the people. The lighting in #1 blows me away.
Fabulous set of images. Lots of power and say so much. Thanks for sharing these.
Fantastic set James - I love nr 2, it reminds me of National Geographic quality. Looks like an amazing trip.
Too many to crit but very impressive imo and I like the processing - must have been an amazing experience.
very powerful indeed. 1, 3, 4, and 11 are crackers. could easily be in national geographic or something like that, but they are all wonderful and i like the desaturated tones - it really suits the subject matter well.
Thank you all so much, I am extremely proud of myself for not only managing to put myself so far out of my comfort zone, but also to capture these photos... for me it is a real achievement and I am glad you like them.
Hi
A very good set. I'm left wondering why the woman in number one is carrying keys.
Graham
Funnily enough, I thought they were just for jewellery but it turns out that one of the hut in the bush that is probalby a good 20km away from the nearest other Boma had a padlock on the door! Must be some theiving Zebras around
1,3,5 for me.
