Passenger: Cocachacra

subtle and imperfect mirror…

In middle of the highway that links Arequipa city to Ilo city there is a place called Cocachacra. It’s closer to the sea and it’s a little city whose main activity is agriculture. I think I’ve never poot foot in the ground, as I seen from the car, and being the sea so close actually I am attracted more to the latter. This are photographs from a car in movement…

frontiers in the countryside

The farmers were preparing the field for new crops… I don’t know if it’s the better way to do it, I mean… burning.

a road of flames

lord of the fields (published before)

man at work

painting the sky with white smoke

yellow happiness

textile countryside

World of silhouettes…

Mar’s maritime garden

Silhouettes are those shapes whose forms we can intuit just by their borders… inside them there is a plain mystery with details, colors and stories hide from us.

Perhaps that is the fascination with silhouettes, in our hope that nothing is empty or meaningless they invite us to create stories to explain them.

Errant in a long travel

sparks in orange

Very often silhouettes belong to the kingdoms of duks and dawn, but not always…

Silhouette framed by a wave in turquoise (published before)

Sleepy Sun ~_~

hand waving its fingers

2D Tower (published before)

a desire of outside

Campiña (published before)

Distant borders (published before)

powerful wings (published before)

luces distantes

a knot with the sun

sharp and distant lady

Of course with the technology of current cameras we can illuminate what seems a pure and total shadow; but a world without mystery would lose so many beauty as we fill the shadows with our dreams…

emerging rock

 

Pichu Pichu

behind the mountain a fire borns

Seven peaks shape the extinct volcano named Pichu Pichu. Allegedly the name means “Group of Peaks” It is located near Arequipa city in the Peruvian south. The highest peak is at 5664 meters above sea level (18,356 ft), the height is not much (the city is at 2335 meters/7661 ft)  With centuries of history.

Morning

As it is toward the East I like to photograph it at morning, in the few times I can wake up so early xP

orange clouds

warm sunrise

ethereal fire

cold dawn

afternoon

peaks of light

sculpture of unknown creature

Other point of view

From the national park behind it looks like this:

long shadows

Ascension

Once I climbed up it. It was with the first camera I had… without memory I had just take twelve photographs, from those twelve just three survived the crash of my hard disk. So here I have a lot of memories, but just three photographs :D

a kiss in your forehead

heads seeing the deep blue

king of the mountain

Actually the mountain is an old place, quite old… there are mummies and in one of the seven peaks with an Incan platform. We went to a peak where there is a metallic cross. I am doing something I never did before in my blog and is to post a photograph that wasn’t taken by me. It was taken by one of the climbers, I have not his name but thanks and credit to him (we shared among everybody the photos we took) I am the one in the front in white, the others had jackets… me not, because I am from the highlands, actually I feel so much heat in the coast! (I edited the white balance and exposure of the photograph to show it with more clarity) In the background is the volcano Misti.

And that’s all. A mountain with my memories, one that I have climbed to the peak, I am the one of white clothes : )

The night of the human moths

Tears in fire TTTnTTT

There are a race of hunters interested in human beings, to chase them they take advantage of the fascination for light of our species. Hidden I got to see their work.

Placing the bait

elemental castles

They prepare their traps at day, with lines they erect temporal structures.

cubes, lines and a star of six points

Song of fire

And at night they fire them, to gather and harvest the human moths.

fury in fire

I can barely bear the vision of the light… so haunting, so spectacular…

electrical garden

A red flower that exists for around a heartbeat to vanish into the black without stars.

two stars

blooming flower

a burning temple

heart of the night

rock star

lord of smoke

explosion

“welcome to hell” said the devil

grand finale

End of the night

And the lights starts to vanish. The hunters are going to harvest the mesmerized crowd.

magic world, make a wish

M&M – Misti and moon

orbiting a god-forgotten planet…

Well, another Monday in the new world. There is a volcano with a pure shape called Misti. It’s a triangle, the Moon is a circle.

Today I want to show a register of a circle and its bond to a triangle. : )

Moon, Volcano and afternoon

Eye in the sky (published before)

allignment

Every time the moon appears is like it had an invisible bond or tie to the volcano. I adore when the shapes are pure, is like we could choose messages with capitals letters… a direct message without additional ornaments except its own beauty.

 

White moon

Memories of Paucarpata

rain of light over me

I know I have not posted longer articles since a time. I am quite busy with my projects. But today I decided to give me a relax and to publish some photographs. These are from some years ago with a point and shoot of four megapixels in a place named Paucarpata.

walking to another realm

Paucarpata means “flowery platform” and it’s actually pre-hispanic farm platforms still in use. It’s located in Peru in one of the districts of Arequipa city. I walked with a friend philosopher when I was at university.

stone by stone

These barriers made with stone are called “pirka” you can found them in every farmland in the Peruvian highlands, in the deserts of the coast use vegetal fibers instead.

two old plas talking

family

I don’t know if they are related, but I liked so much the idea of family ties in the vast countryside.

a road to fantasy land

radiography

Remains of buildings, exposing the with volcanic rock as a kind of bones after the rain…

watcher of the sky

light painting softly the countryside

Seeing from the distance I think the fully automatic little camera did a good job. But that time I was getting closer to its limits…

a last try of warmness

And that was just a good time. It was one of the few times I walked with somebody else. Except the last year in July… And I think I can notice that my partners in crime get quickly impatient… I am not the kind of guy that just walk away and snap shots. I like so much to taste the place and see… and walk and get lost in it, even if I cannot get to discover it completely.

I prefer to know a little but well that know  everything but just superficially.

thinking in a far past

Sunset in the port…

The forgotten planet and its sunset of two Suns

I used to work long hours in Ilo city, but I had the option to choose my hours to eat… the sunset in the port (when it’s not cloudy I mean) are fantastic and I used that time to eat something fast and see from the port the ocean.

a far eye

There are just a few people there, and when there are more persons usually it’s to celebrate an event. In winter it has no lights so the sunset turns into a game of silhouettes, like a chinese shadow play.

in the border of the world a tree

The boats take a breath between waves, the ocean leave behind her turquoise and dress clothes of fire: it’s another sunset in the sea of Ilo.

vast openness

In the brief moments when there aren’t people around (and that happens frequently) I have that feeling to being in an empty museum. Signals from a civilization know from another life and another time.

sleeping navy

The sky takes colors that make me think in a popular brand of Peruvian ice-cream, it has three colors melting inside and shaping candy landscapes. The ice-cream sky takes a breath and the flying creatures return to their secret homes in the trees in the border of the sea or in the beams and columns under the wooden and old port.

Reader at the end of the Ocean

The time is gentle there, so everybody there takes the chance to try a bit of slowness in middle of a modern city. Of course it’s an illusion, the feeling of eternity vanish after a while when the night turns the sea into a blind noise of waves breaking against the shores.

Infinite Sky

In Ilo the winter is sometimes quite warm. The sea is a sort of sorcerer, once you see it you get frozen staring to it, besides a few laughs of children and little chatting of friends it’s a place where people just see as in a hunting mirror something mysterious but common to each of us.

Men bowing their head in respect for the dying king

This is actually the story of two sunsets. But also is true that in that moment every sunset is the same, a little travel to a magical land of golden tones.

Some thoughts about street photography

See into the light

I am thinking about street photography.  I understand about life in cities and people is important to have a reference of scale so when the composition ask it I introduce people in public spaces in the photograph. For example in this first photograph… Could you have a sense of the size of the door without the couple?

Caress of afternoon light

In Peru, Chile and Bolivia there is no problem in shooting in the public space of the street. It’s the space for everybody so the same way I take photographs of others I discovered others shot photographs of me. I never could forbid nobody in the street to have photographs about me, the same way I couldn’t forbid nobody to shot the façade of the buildings I designed because I designed them precisely as a contribution to the public and shared space of the city. Of course there are limits and I try that the person is not totally clear, because I’m not focused in persons but the happenings of the city.

In search of the unknown

The life in the highlands, the coast and the jungle is quite different. Usually population in touristic cities are used to photographs, commercial cities instead are the less welcome to photographs. In any case I can say that in Peru, Bolivia and Chile is allowed to take photographs in any public space.

Doves

But I understand it’s not a universal way to see things. I know in continental Europe and in Quebec laws forbid photography of people, even in public space. If I would visit those places certainly I would respect the law and save my camera, but I don’t understand why the citizens of those countries have not the same problem when they visit my country and are happy to shot, as it’s nothing wrong really, every person, especially the ones with more typical costumes. Also I see their albums and they are proud to shot people in Japan or India…

contemplating

So this is my thought. In my way to think, to feel, to express, (and according to the law of the countries I have visited and the one where I live) I know I’m doing well. I considered to delete, modify or don’t post street photography for the readers of the sensible countries but this is not a magazine. This is a personal diary, and I need to be faithful and true to myself.

I hope you can appreciate in my photographs and words how is a world different to yours, in the same way I learn from the yours. But if it’s against what your heart and mind consider correct and you are not going to change your mind then my best suggestion is to leave my space, as always honored for your time towards what I write and show. Nothing more.

Color in the white world

If there is an idea I try to express is my feeling that in cities we tend to be actually alone. The crowds and the cities make us living around several interactions, but in the end they reinforce our will to be ourselves. Certainly cities reinforce that will on me. In the highlands I try to live close to hills or mountains, in the coast close to the sea…

Mural painted with reflections

There is an almost funny feeling of solitude contrasting with the idea that we walk regularly with the same people in the way to work or studies. What is more accentuated in this time where we cannot get a word with the passenger next to us without being seen as perverts but we wake up passions with the stranger that we “knew” in internet. But although sometimes it’s real mostly that’s an illusion: here we are just chains of letters. The person next to you in the street is more real.

About shadows and thoughts

When I take these photographs I think in Hopper’s oeuvre. The reflexive loneliness of the persons. They way they never get to make eye contact closing their souls around themselves.

We sell colors

In Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino I also feel that strange life that is the life in the city. A carnival where people of every kind is mixed and the traditions and routines make us forget that perhaps some of the things we do aren’t healthy or logical. For example one of the reasons I don’t see my University former mates is because the meetings have to be done drinking several bottles of beer… but it’s the life in cities.

Is it truth?

And I like to think in cities as living animals, giant and living according to their own rhythm. Indifferent to the little and ephemeral people moving around their bodies.

Time to go.

nice day for a walk

Views of Chachani

Once in the eternity

Chachani in Aymara language means valiant, brave… It’s an active volcano near Arequipa city in the Peruvian south. It’s located at 1,963 m (6,440 ft) above the sea level and its height (measuring from base to top)  is 6,057 m (19,872 ft) But those six kilometers are  easy to climb, I would make it but I prefer rocky mountains. It’s not the tallest volcano in the region but it’s nice to see, specially at afternoon.

Closer to him

distant giant

This is what you would see from the desert in the morning, if you’re coming from Lima city.

path to the white peaks

When you see the ichu (the yellow grass) is signal that you are quite close to Arequipa city.

there is no road, just a will

 

And if you distant traveler come from  the highlands this is your view of the Chachani, it has a dry beauty and a cold hug.

Colors

sacred

a piece of nature

soft intensity

Penacho

the hour of the colored clouds

velo de misterio

Cloud I

soft, cold… (published before)

 

 

Panoramics

These photographs are longer pictures.

 

Chachani at dawn

a cloud crossing the morning

gelid

Pure sky after the afternoon

till to touch the firmament

And that’s all. If I have so many photographs is because the Chachani is always there so close to the city and the roads, it says you where you are and how much it takes to go to your destiny.

a red world behind them

Passenger: recommendations to photograph in the highway

Lonely vertical

I travel by bus; planes are expensive and I’m not in a hurry. I know the highlands, the valleys, deserts, the coast, and a bit of the jungle. I like to take snapshots of the landscape and I’ve a method that could be useful to you.

Ready to go

Caution

In first place you need to see. To observe requires you enjoying the view from the window. Otherwise is the camera the one travelling and not you. Of course this suggestion is valid if you are like me, a guy that enjoys to travel, if you are a photographer then you can skip them. This is because there are two kind of persons, the ones that take photographs of the travels they enjoy and the other a person that travels to get photographs in a portfolio to show/sell. Rarely you can be both at the same time.

You can use any camera, just try to turn off any flash in your camera so you are not going to take photos of its reflection against the window. The problems you are going to find and their solutions are the following:

• Reflections in the window: Reduce them with a polarizer filter

Rocky castle

If you see the photograph in the blue sky and the top of the rock you can see reflections of the opposite windows of the bus. They could have been even worse but the polarizer helped to reduce to the maximum any reflection.

Little cloud

In this photograph instead the polarizer got rid of any reflection.

• Color casts from the window: use software to correct it

Towers Hill

The colors across the windows are going to be a bit twisted and sometimes funny. To correct them you can use editing software with white balance correction, there are both free and paid programs. Usually you can pick an object known to be white (a painted wall, a sign, a cloud) and it automatically correct it. Nevertheless still the colors can end different because windows aren’t made to be optical elements but protection and source of light. A raw file is easier to correct than the common jpeg file.

One thing you can do is accept that fact and take advantage of the differences in colors.

• Poles and obstacles: take quickly a second photograph

A scream in the sky

When you are traveling the car can be on the road at high speeds. So there is no way to carefully design a composition. Some like to use bracketing, I don’t like to do that, I prefer to preview in my mind how is going to change the perspective, wait until it and shot like a Jabusame (a Japanese archer on a running horse) but it’s possible that the mind reacts by instinct when there is something in the landscape. I take a photograph to discover a pole or a sign, so quickly I shot it again.

• Blown highlights: use a graduated filter

Summoning clouds

You can take a photograph and suddenly you see that this happened: the land is according to your eyes but the sky is almost white and without detail. In these cases a graduated filter is mandatory, of course you can recover in software (specially with the last cameras) but the less time you live in front of a computer the better.

• Discover stories: observe the highway

Waiting with loyalty

Along the highway there are evidences of stories. The most of them have not an obvious explanation because people in the countryside is always different. What happened to that car? Is the dog a watcher or is just resting? the scars of sun and rain in the textiles give a sense of time too. A story for a detective.

• Dirty windows give flares: take advantage of them!

Beyond the ground a luminous place

I love flares! If you don’t like them then a lens hood could help you. In my case I like how the dirty windows (they’re always dirty) transform the light and get a diffuse and low contrast image.

• Difficulty in taking photographs at twilight and night: get the most of those hours

Glazing eye

It doesn’t matter if you have a cell phone or a giant camera: in broad day they can get nice pictures. The problem is with low light, the most basic the camera the blinder it is to low light scenaries. In those circunstances a tripod and a long exposure would be the option but in a car in movement that is just impossible. In this moment technology matters and the best camera is going to give you more useable photographs. To this first photograph I used a Fujifilm X-E1 camera and a fast 1.4 fujinon lens.

If you can get a camera with a big sensor then the night is going to be open to you. Quality films have usually low sensivity to light so they aren’t suitable for these dark hours.

Somebody else in the highway

In this photograph I used my Sony R1, it has a big sensor but it’s quite old so it’s a bit blind to the night. So I used a long exposure to get the lights of the passing cars. I knew I couldn’t get a sharp photograph but I could get photographs with movement.

Four neighbors

End of the travel

Follow the line

So the travel ends, usually when the night is closer. Time to rest and be ready for the next trip…

Last bus to the city