The (art) education of Nia Simone, GIMP
Blogging brings new people and new things to try, like learning art, for now a self-education, but one day, who knows?
Today’s discovery: How to tone down the green after auto-enhancing the color in header photo.
Original photo:
To increase pop, perform Colors->Auto->White Enhance then Colors->Auto->Color Enhance:
Too green. But… better than the washed-out original.
A week later, notice something called “Fade Color Enhance” appears in the Edit menu, but only after you have performed a color enhancement. If you perform a color enhancement, close the file and re-open it, you do not get this operation showing in the Edit menu.
Use Edit->Fade Color Enhancement to tone down the color on the whole picture. It gives you a preview and a sliding scale so you can see what the adjustment is doing. Get the undesired color down to where you want it, then tone up the colors you want to intensify.
In this example, select the other colors (non-green) one at a time by using Tools->Selection Tools->By Color Select, then Colors->Auto->Color Enhance.
When all the colors are done, use Select->None to eliminate the selection dashes so you can see the results. If you like it, File->Export it to JPEG. Otherwise, use the same process to intensify more colors.
The result is at the top of today’s post (and in the new blog header image). There is not so much green on the statues.
Welcome to Easter Island
Here is the view from your room:
Here is the restaurant at your hotel. You will have an unobstructed view of the Pacific ocean and the sunset-pinked clouds just might write your name if you have a short one like “Nia.”
Walk a bit up the road and find directions:
Keep going:
and find this:
Walk a bit in the opposite direction:
and you can bank here:
dine here:
and shop here:
This will be your guide. His name is Christian, he is half Chilean and half Rapanui. He is an historian and will tell you secrets not in the books about Easter Island:
He’ll take you places like this ahu (ancient Rapanui platform that holds the moai (statues)), which is very near the hotel:
and he’ll take you to the opposite side of the island where, if you look closely, you’ll see these are more than just mossy rocks:
or a chunk of red lava (pukaos, topknot carved from red scoria):
Drive to the top of a hill and see fluorescent pools in a caldera: 
See most of the island from atop this hill:
Observe this hill:
And prepare for rain. California’s spring is Easter Island’s winter:
A new longing, Rano Raraku, the quarry, Easter Island.
Long after the original statues and the population decimation caused by slavery and disease, a Rapanui artist came to the quarry and carved this sculpture.
He used different stone than the original carvers, lava. Notice the skyward gaze…
and the magnificent, ancient Ahu Tongariki on the shore in the background, all statues gazing inward.
Progress snuffs art? Rano Raraku, the quarry, Easter Island
Why did they stop?
Stone fetuses – abandoned, bewildered, eternal.
The ships carrying Europeans arrived. Excitement at the new? The artist carved a picture of the ship on the belly of his creation.
Then carving and moving stopped.
Did war really destroy Easter Island?
The Rapanui, the ancient people of Easter Island, the old theory went, committed ecoside, chopping down all the trees and bashing each other over the heads with them. True?
Maybe not. Read my favorite book, The Statues that Walked, by Terry Hunt and Carl Lippo, and decide for yourself.
http://www.thestatuesthatwalked.com/The_Statues_That_Walked/Home.html
The ancient Rapanui rocked! (Literally.)
Modern Rapanui are funny. What’s wrong with this picture? Hint: ancient Rapanui didn’t have rebar.
Modern Rapanui are handsome and very smart. (Christian, tour guide and historian:)
What negative stories of places or people did your travels debunk?
Nicci Carrera 