Cotahuasi

Let me in

let me in

To fill every corner of you…

La Union Province: few vistas from a bus in an unpaved road

unending

If you have a feeling of déjà vu don’t worry: you are right. I posted this one image before, the rest I didn’t post before but more or less this is my modus operandi. Before to publish a long post I put a images as a preview, but in this case I almost didn’t publish this last part. Is just that I didn’t find another to use as a introduction, I just find the composition very attractive, and I say it without arrogance because the composition was in the nature and I just was there to point the camera.

This photographs are from the road that connect La Union’s province capital city, Cotahuasi, with Huaynacotas. The main attractive is the Cotahuasi Canyon, so if you go there someday I hope these photographs can help you ;-) They were composed within a bus in movement in an unpaved road with the soft light of the dawn, light that usually needs high isos and/or tripods.

distant sleepers

fearful

kamisaraki Cotahuasi

landscape birthing

giants at dawn

terraces

menacing

centre

one tree

And this one is when I came back in the afternoon:

safari

Line inside

line inside

This is from the bus window in the unasphalted road between Cotahuasi and Huaynacotas.

Cotahuasi: night and afternoon moments

nocturnal landscape

Cotahuasi (pronounced more or less “ko-tah-wa-see”) is La Union Province’s Capital city in Arequipa region in the Perú southwest, the name probably means “Gathering of houses” in quechua, when Spanish came several names were modified, I m not sure if it could be the gathering of houses, not in a country with cities since at least five thousand years old, and I don’t think it refers to Houses as royal houses, if not the neighbourhood would be populated by Atreides, Harkonnens, Bourbons, Starks, Targaryens, etcetera, LOL. Actually there is no much wealthy for a lack of communication I think, the highway is tough and to come from Arequipa City takes several hours in a road without asphalt in great part of the route. But Cotahuasi wasn’t my goal, I’d to travel to Huaynacotas but if you want to go to any to the cities near the Cotahuasi Canyon the main or one entrances is across Cotahuasi City.

I was just a few moments before dawn and before the sunset to take cars, but I took anyway photographs. I don’t believe so much in the rules that say you that you cannot photograph in certain moments because one have to just search blue and golden hours. I’m not a photographer so I guess I can permit me some licenses ;-)

Greek Cotahuasi

house in a corner

blue window blue door

forgotten street

I had to wait a bus to Huaynacotas, my last photo was in broad dawn:

cross the door

And that was the night kingdom upon Cotahuasi. I had to see a project in Huaynacotas, and after that present a report in Arequipa City, to do that I needed to go back to Cotahuasi City to take the bus. I was there in the afternoon. Bought a bus ticket and I had time to walk a bit before the bus were in the Terminal.

I don’t like street photographers

little world

lone horse

Lone horse

king tree

give me your hand

my old corner

tañe la campana en el solitario solar

big landscape

Yellow Rocket to the Moon

car collector

bell

In Cotahuasi Canyon all roads lead to Cotahuasi City.

Yellow Rocket to the Moon

DSC01786v1-XL

Let’s build a yellow rocket, darling; and let’s go to a perfect blue moon; let’s do a country seen just in dreams; let’s forget everyday to come back to love again.
(Just thinking in grandfather and grandmother)

Calm, brother

DSC01672v1-XL

I like soft skies. For that reason I try to not use polarizers or, as I did in the photograph, get a better representation of the leaves but at the same time digitally reduce the strong tone the sky had with the polarizer and recover the low and soft contrast I saw with these my blue eyes (just kidding, my grandfather has gray/green eyes but all the rest of us have black/brown ones)

Passenger: Cotahuasi

time-space compression

Passenger is a series of photographs I do; taken behind the window of a car or plane in movement. I don’t believe in such thing as a perfect photography (sharpness, dynamic range, accurate color reproduction, clean noise, etcetera) but in perfect ideas. My idea is to use the movement to change the image taken, I could use a higher ISO or use shutter priority and after that recover shadows in raw; but as I said I’m not searching the perfect photo but to represent an idea. This is a simple idea, the technic is pretty simple. Just relax the mind and take the landscape taking in account the velocity of the car and the moment just to shoot. Similar to a Japanese archer when is going to shot an arrow while galloping in a horse.

Ideally to notice some shapes before they look completely blurred the time should be less than a second. If it’s more you should move the camera to follow the subject (panning). 1/100 of second the distant objects could look static what usually looks not good because it seems a half idea, neither it’s not blurred nor it’s static. As always the rules are to be broken (when you know them perfectly)