They called her the gypsy

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Ruth Weal

I took this picture when I got home after attending a fantastic Buena Vista Social Club Gig that I attended with my dancing friends back in 2008. We had an after show party and several of the band members joined us, which made for a very memorable end to a fantastic night.

When I got home I felt inspired to do a little photo shoot and this was one of the shots. I later found out that the band members refered to me as Bonita Gitano Bailarín, which translates as pretty gyspy dancer, hence the title of the photo - The Gypsy.

As you probably guessed the image has been manipulated, I played around in Photoshop with it and using layers converted to sepia and recoloured the shawl back to red to get the distinctive two tone feel. I spent quite a lot of time editing the pic, but I was definitely pleased with the end result.

When it came to uploading the photo to flickr I remembered a short poem I wrote “A Spell”, which just seemed to fit with the image.

A SPELL

Night & Day
Black & White
Powers of Earth, Water, Wind & Fire
Grant me Strength of Heart
Bless me Clarity of Vision
Let me be my Own Decision