Bwato means canoe in Chichewa, one of the languages in Malawi. I thought of calling her The Mokoro Girl because more people would understand it, but "mokoro" is Setswana and I wanted to keep it Malawian.
I went to Chirombo Village, near where I'm living, in hopes of photographing one of the local men in his bwato. Actually, I knew I would find someone who would let me photograph them, so I brought some human light stands along to help me : ) While I was photographing one of the men, an audience of almost thirty people gathered behind me. Most of them were children. They kept jumping in front of my camera, so I finished up with the owner of the bwato and told the children that I would photograph them one by one in the boat as well.
The photos of the original guy were great, but something about the poise and the look of strength of this girl caught my eye. One of the younger girls had the most amazing smile, but I had focused too much on that and the boat wasn't prominent enough for this challenge. This photo kept the girl and the boat equal in strength.
I also can't even tell you how happy I was with the sky. It isn't terribly impressive in this shot, but it was absolutely gorgeous in some of the others.
And nope, there were no gels and I didn't have trouble with the lighting/white balance. I purposely changed the foreground and the water to be warmer. I also purposely darkened only part of the sky. I can't tell if I over-did it because I'm editing on a laptop! Eep!
Lighting was done with a 430exII shot through the diffusion layer of a 48" 5-in-1 reflector. Two human light stands used : )
Edit: DPP
- Curves
- Sharpen
- Convert to tif
Edit: Gimp
- New Layer > Colorize yellow/orange > Mode: Soft light > Desaturate > Add layer mask to mask out sky
- New Layer from original layer > Saturate and darken > Mode: Overlay > Add layer mask to show only part of sky
- Copy ^above^ layer > Delete layer mask > Add layer mask to show different part of sky
- Repeat above two steps for lower left corner
- Desaturate and darken the two layers dealing with the sky
- Add BnW layer > Mode: Overlay
- Flatten image
- Save as jpg
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 171 Avg (all users): 6.8557 Avg (commenters): 7.8462 Avg (participants): 6.5970 Avg (non-participants): 6.9921 Views since voting: 6078 Views during voting: 378 Votes: 194 Comments: 36 Favorites: 7 (view)
This was my absolute favorite on the challenge...and I really appreciated you sharing the story behind it and the other photos! I enjoyed seeing the other 'models'...you definitely had a lot to choose from!
BEAUTIFUL. What a lovely way to give meaning and warmth to "boats". And I love the story you shared as well! Congrats on an excellent experience. The little ribbon is just very nice icing on the cake.
Congrats teammate Stephanie, on this wonderful image! Too bad we're not in the DPL challenge! ;-)
I read parts of your blog and it sounds like you are having a very interesting and productive time in Malawi. Good luck to you!
I did not vote in this challenge. Had I voted, I would have given it a 7. It would have gotten a 10 from me had it been B&W, and grainy. IMO, all these wonderful shades of colors and the crisp feel only helps to awe DPC masses. But they create a mismatch between the girl's look and the surroundings.
Ask yourself: is this girl's life (in reality) so colorful? Is it so bright, so crisp?
This picture is a very separated third person's view of what they saw in the scene. I bet if the girl had the camera, she would show you a different side of her life.
In summary: a gripping subject, but an average picture (overall in terms of how it connects to you).
ETA: I just got your PM, thank you. I am still reading it. I will also read your blog. To be fair, I am not questioning that the subject is not content or happy in her real life. And its a wonderful image. All I am saying is: images like this (portraying someone else's life as you see it) will always be in a third person perspective, and hence disengaged from the subject's real life, unless you have lived through and seen what she has, which may be more good than bad perhaps:-):-)
wow. i love the lighting of this image and the strength of the little girl subject. i think you did a great job with this image and should be very proud.
I love the subject matter and composition, even though a bit centered. I can see this in Natl Geo. However, I find exposure and color off. Flash is a bit too hot and it looks as though you used a gel to poor effect. The water is a strange yellow green and the sky is of uneven brightness. Also, is that flare in the upper right corner? Most of all, I would have liked more sharpness and detail evident in the boat.
This almost looks like a studio shot with a backdrop. I'm wondering about that odd smudge in the sky on the right edge. Wonderful light and processing.
The Bwato Girl
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