Pixiq

I just returned from Ethiopia where I led a photo tour to the Christian northern part of the country as well as the tribal south.  The most intriguing part of the trip, of course, was photographing the unique tribes in the Omo River Valley.  It was the lip-plate adorned Mursi tribe that originally drew me to this country.

I took many types of portraits during my time there, but one of the most interesting techniques I used was shooting the tribal people against a piece of black velvet. Everyone in my group loved it. This removed the subjects from their environment, and in this way nothing behind them could be distracting at all.  The exposure was a challenge because the meter was affected by the very dark subjects and the velvet.  It was a simple matter, though, to study the LCD monitor on the back of the camera and then tweak the exposure using the exposure compensation feature.  A hand held meter, though, would zero in on the perfect exposure without using any type of trial and error procedure.