Amazon warriors - Paris!

The Amazon River Basin is home to the largest rainforest on Earth. The basin -- roughly the size of the main land United States -- covers some 40% of the South American continent and includes parts of eight South American countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname. 

Tropical rainforests have long been home to indigenous peoples who have shaped civilizations and cultures based on the environment in which they live. Great civilizations like the Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs developed complex societies and made great contributions to science. Living from nature and lacking the technology to dominate their environment, native peoples have learned to watch their surroundings and understand the intricacies of the rainforest. Over generations these people have learned the importance of living within their environment and come to rely on the countless renewable benefits that forests can provide.

Recently during a family trip to Paris I visited a large Amazonian exhibition which was highlighting the problems in the area, largely due to the de-forestation and exploitation of the natural environment by the richer developed world. Part of the exhibition showed the culture of some of the indigenous people with live demonstration throughout the city. These photographs were taken during one such exhibition.

In the top and second photographs I tried to isolate one of the dancers and concentrate purely on them against a blank but appropriate background. Although taken in Europe the images still suffer from the normal problem of bright sunshine portraits, overhead shadows, deep black shadows and squinting eyes. Although an interesting subject and dynamic pose Not a very good portrait.

The bottom image taken at the same time but benefits from fill in flash. I used a small add on flash gun which I set to introduce a small amount of extra light to balance the overpowering sun. Notice that the face especially the eyes are now properly lit and the deep shadows have all but gone, there is even a small catch light in the eyes! Fill-in flash is a tremendously flattering and effective technique when it is done well. However if done badly it can produce double shadows and destroy subtle modeling effects which 'shape' the face. The secret is accurate metering in the shadows to establish the camera settings, and subtle (under) use of the flash.