Party time! A late-afternoon communal dance in a small Kara settlement (Korcho) set high on a fertile east bank of southern Ethiopia's lower Omo River. Adorned with finger-painted white-chalk body markings, glass-bead necklaces, and clay hair buns with ostrich feathers.
The essential life-sustaining Omo River is situated (out of sight) below the edge of a steep riverbank in the backdrop. The Nyangatom (past enemies, current allies) are established on other side of the river. The river carves a hard winding course south through the volcanic-rock floor of the Great Rift Valley for another 50-60 kilometres before pouring into Lake Turkana at the border with Kenya.
This photograph pays homage to the extraordinary analog images of the peoples of East Africa that appear in the seminal book Vanishing Africa, published in 1971 by eminent Africanist and social documentary photographer, Mirella Ricciardi.
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Peoples of the Omo Valley
Rethinking Portraiture | Social Documentary | Lonely Planet 