I was having a discussion with a writer from India a few weeks ago about favorite images and he was surprised to learn that one of my favorite images was, in his words, “an image without color”, yet I was quick to point out that ‘technically’ this IS an image of ALL colors since white is the result of all color wavelengths reflecting off of a given subject, in this case, white robed women, an image I shot back in 2018 during the Epiphany celebration in Addis Abba, Ethiopia.
It was a Sunday morning, above the city, thousands of worshipers were spread out on a soccer field, everyone had their back to me, giving their undivided attention to the priests who were giving their sermons, one at a time, up on the distant stage, and within seconds, I sense that feeling of desperation rising up inside me, desperate to see one of these ladies turn around, looking in my direction preferably, which I knew would create an image of stark contrast, but as the minutes ticked by, about ten minutes to be fair, all eyes remained focused towards that distant stage, and now I could feel my inner desperation reaching the critical phase, that feeling of now or never, and almost always I will choose NOW, and it was then that I simply shouted, loud enough to be heard, “Hey, excuse me!” shouting not once, not even twice, but maybe it was on the fifth shout, the woman you see here turned around for what may have been all of two seconds, and I couldn’t have been more ready! A ten minute wait, that felt like a lifetime, yet captured at a mere 1/200 second!
I will add, because of all that white, I set my exposure at a + 1 1/3rd thus assuring me of recording white robed and very ‘colorful’ women instead of grey robed women. Nikon D500, Nikkor 18-300 at 300, F/22 at 1/200 sec. 400 ISO, Daylight/Sunny WB
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