I feel like I’ve been seeing photographs of the tribal people who live in Ethiopia since I was little. As a young girl growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I had no idea where these people lived, but I was fascinated nonetheless by the women with the lip plates, all the colorful beads they wore, their seemingly easy way of life. When I decided to go back to Ethiopia earlier this year, I knew I had to visit the Omo Valley and photograph these interesting people for myself. I wanted to truly live out a “National Geographic moment.”