Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Peter 072 - Samantha



Samantha's cultural name is Nyawurra Nyadbi, she's an Aboriginal woman from the Kija/Jaru and Woolahnga tribes in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia, and performed a traditional "smoking" or cleansing ceremony at today's Australia Day function on the Sunshine Coast.

She was rather busy welcoming 180 new Australian citizens so I didn't get to ask her permission to publish this photo, however given her profile I'm sure she won't mind. You can check out more information about her here: Samantha Martin

Oh, and see that yellow blur in the top left hand corner?  I was trying desperately to get the Australian coat of Arms in the shot (and the coloured feather in her head dress as well) but with a busy subject, I'll take what I can get!

6 comments:

bitingmidge said...

In a city where non Anglo Saxon's are rare, it was interesting to see the press swoop on the three or four new Australians who were of other than light complexion. The African lady, the Buddhist Monk and the Thai family were all newsworthy, the Canadians, Kiwis, English and Americans not so.

So here's a picture of an Australian! ;-)

Ann said...

Absolutely beautiful portrait, I can see where a lot of my portrait style has come from.

bitingmidge said...

Thanks Ann, I like this one a lot too, although I think it's drawing a long bow to say your style came from moi! You are only about two hundred ahead at last count!

bitingmidge said...

I hit the wrong key so now I'll finish!

I think we have all been influenced by each other, whether consciously or not, and I'm still ploughing back through all of your (and Julie and Cara's) other shots just to analyse them and to try to determine what I would do differently.

I said to Joan on my Fading Memories blog, that I just seem to be getting lucky more often. It's not really a conscious thing, but I am certainly aware of when NOT to take a photo, and I think that's the main difference of late.

Ann said...

I think what this exercise has given me is so much more confidence, I go in closer, even if I don't always ask. (Looking back, I've always taken people shots, though only when travelling.) My composition has definitley been influenced by your horizontal compositions, I'm pretty sure I never used to shoot horizontally unless it was what I now know is called an environmental portrait. Use of the wide aperture to blur the background has come from reading and experimenting.

bitingmidge said...

I used to shoot in portrait a lot too, which is why I set myself the task of using only landscape compositions for this project.

It's a bit automatic now, but I've found that it's also been really useful in making me think about other subjects which would be quite easily composed by simply tilting the camera on its side.