Taken in a small Mayan village in Guatemala. The volcano in the background is Volcan Tajumulco, the tallest in Central America. This woman lives next door to my girlfriend; we can occasionally get her to crack a smile while attempting to speak Mam with her. Otherwise she, as with most Guatemalans, is very shy. Life in these small villages is very hard, rural Guatemala is still recovering from a 36 year civil war, and income stratification continues to grow amongst the urban rich, and the rural poor. It has been a complete pleasure to live amongst these noble people.
For this photo, I wanted to use a compisition different than the 3rds rule, and think the woman´s head, cactus, and cloud line up nicely. Post processing includes selective desaturation, some slight cloning along the edges of the woman to get rid of blank pixels (I really need more practice on this), USM, resize for web, and some slight dodging and burning. I hope you enjoy the image, it is the first I have submitted to a challenge.
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Love the contrast between the color image and the background. It could use a bit more cropping, though. The mountain is nice, but it wasn't needed to convey this wonderful image. I kind of like the village idea, which you overlooked in the picture because you were drawn to the mountain.
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