The Ethiopian – A Collection of Photographs from Ethiopia by Cyndy B. Waters
September 5-27, 2025
The Ethiopian – A Collection of Photographs from Ethiopia by Cyndy B. Waters
Opening reception: Friday, September 5, 5:00-9:00 PM
The Emporium, 100 S. Gay Street. Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 9-5; Sat 10-1; Additional hours: Fridays Sep 12, 19 & 26, 5-7 PM (Gallery 1010 openings).
Enjoy a welcome statement from the artist!
The Ethiopian is a deep look into the country where the oldest known people in the world lived. It is also the second most populated African country. While I did not find it to be crowded, I did find the most wonderful variety of people and traditions there. As a photographer, more so, a people photographer who likes to photograph people immersed in their real lives, I was drawn in to the uniqueness and beauty of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian.
My first plans in the country were designated to see the Simien mountains and their many beautiful landscapes along with questing after the Ethiopian wolf, the Gelada Baboon and a couple other of the few remaining species of wild animals left in Ethiopia. Fighting and unrest in the Simien’s made the trip there impossible, so we decided to venture up to a place that lies far below sea level, and the hottest place by yearly average, on the planet, the Danakil Depression. A sight like none I had ever seen. This is up north in the Afar region, close to the Red Sea and the Eritrea border where camels number more than inhabitance, pillars of salt loom like city skylines and volcanoes still regularly erupt.
My show, “The Ethiopian” will include images from that area and a few wildlife and birds photographs, as I did manage to find the Gelada or other wise know as “beast ape”. I hiked along a cliff moving quietly near these beautiful creatures in the Debre Libanos highlands, the only other place on earth the Gelada still live.
A large part of my show will focus on the people in Southern Ethiopia that are part of Omo River Valley tribes. Each tribe is quite different from the others and photographing these people was a step back in time and a long look into windows of their culture and traditions that are still very much alive today. From the huts they live in, to the beads that adorn their bodies, and heavy necklaces the Hamer women wear from marriage till after death that announce which wife they are, to the scaring and cuttings that prove their strength and artistic individuality, they are all interestingly beautiful and fiercely unique.
The Kara tribe among others, still paint their faces and bodies for decoration, identification and protection. We camped on their land and existed together for days in a beautiful forrest where massive trees glowed golden at sunset on the banks of the Omo River.
The tribes are fighting to stay strong and continue to keep their culture and what outsiders may see as a very difficult and out of date lifestyle. But they will fight to keep their rights to live tribally and peacefully as Ethiopians. I was privileged to walk in their midst and be allowed to take photographs. We shared no common language aside for the nodding of heads, motions and facial expressions and the magical sharing of eyes seeing and meeting thru the lens of my cameras.
I carried only my Nikon Z9 & Z8, a few lenses, a reflector and diffuser and a small light cube along a black piece of cloth. Mostly I shaded them from harsh sunlight or bounced the morning light back towards them to fill in shadows. I often shot at a very high ISO with long exposures ,praying for stillness as we stared at each other in the near darkness of huts and churches. Often, I felt oddly invisible.
Recently on a return visit to capture more the many people groups in Ethiopia, I traveled thru the lake regions in the Rift Valley up to the mountains of Lalibela where in the 11th century King Lalibela and his men carved 14 churches out of the mountains and they are still in use today by the Orthodox Christians. Lalibela is drenched in the history of the struggles of Christianity across the ages. The route to Jerusalem had been cut off to the Christians, and the king was determined to build a Jerusalem of their own, where they would always be allowed to freely worship. It was like the Old Testament coming to life. The churches are connect by tunnels, arches and small walkways that lead you deep into crowds of people worshiping throughout the night and in the hours before daylight. Long twisted candles light up chiseled faces of priest, monks and white robbed women with small prayer books held close to their faces. Music vibrates thru the rock hewn walls, woven with chants and prayers that flood the night air. Images and sounds still linger inside of me, calling me to go back again.
I hope the images in “The Ethiopian” and the stories they tell will introduce you to a new part of Africa and you will be as mesmerized as I am by the beauty of this part of the world and the beautiful people who dwell there.
Biography: Cyndy B. Waters
Born in Sevierville, Tennessee in 1957
1976 Graduate-Art Institute of Atlanta.
Cyndy worked throughout the United States after graduation with jobs such as,
Photographer for the State of Tennessee and Official Photographer for the 1982 World’s
Fair in Knoxville TN. With a great list of references from the Fair in 1983, Cyndy moved
to Washington DC and operated Paine & Waters Photography specializing in political
PR on Capital Hill and documentary photograph. She has photographed 5 U.S.
Presidents. While photographing the opening of Dollywood in 1986, Cyndy met a Los
Angeles film crew, Johnson/Klein Productions. They invited her to join their production
company. She made the move and enjoyed 6 years of working in LA photographing
many of the people from the “Woodstock Generation” such Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Whoopie Goldberg and many other celebs.
She often photographed children in challenging situations, using her images to expose
their needs. Cyndy traveled to Kenya on a spiritual journey in 1995. She was
overwhelmed by the lack of education, food, and physical care many women and
children faced causing her to step out from behind her camera and develop The Orbit
Village Project, Inc. In July 2025 the project celebrated it 30th birthday with many guest
from Tennessee and the USA traveling there for the celebration. Today, the project is
quite large and feeds, cares for, and educates approximately five hundred children and
youth, and focuses on helping hundreds of families survive and rebuild from a broken
generation. She works between Sevierville and Nairobi, Kenya for most of the year and
takes a few photographic trips annually.
Rotary Clubs from the Knoxville and surrounding areas have become very involved in
the Orbit Village Project and many local Rotarians have visited and worked at the Orbit
Village in Kenya.
While not working as a profession photographer for many years Cyndy still
photographed her life and work in Africa and had many opportunities to photograph the
people of Kenya and the children she worked with. She often takes people/
photographers on safari and had a large collection of safari images. She has a
collection of images that have shown in Knoxville called African Eye, made up of people
and wildlife from Africa. She has traveled to Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda & Ethiopia
photographing the landscape, wildlife, people and chasing the MilkyWay.
In 2018 Cyndy decided to start traveling and camping thru the American West when
ever possible and putting as much time in to redeveloping her photographic skills by
focusing on landscape photography and showing her work. She is committed to finding
people groups to photograph who’s lifestyles tell a story and help to preserve the history
and culture of their countries.
Cyndy’s work from Africa has recently been published in FAWCO’s Inspiring Women
Online Magazine fall of 2020. She was featured as one of 16 American women
photographers working around the world. Along with regularly having images hung on
the walls of SxSE Gallery, in Molena, GA, SxSE published Cyndy’s work in an Article
The Land Of The Maasai, in the Dec-Jan 2022 Issue of SxSE Photomagazine. Her
work is regally selected as part of gallery shows and several of her images have won
awards.
She was featured in Volumes 1, 2 & 4 of the book series How I Created This, A
Celebration of Images From The Road in 2021.
She has adopted 3 Kenyan children, all now adults, and has her first grandchild still
making her home both Sevierville and Nairobi, Kenya.
https://cyndybwaters.smugmug.com | www.OrbitVillage.org |
| Instagram @CyndyBWatersPhotographer | Instagram @ AretEnkeraSafaris