The equilibrist

In the elementary school I was very good in the exercise to practice equilibrium over a thin wooden beam to jump to a ring, once I was selected to practice it in public but I was so afraid that I didn’t do anything. Last weekend in the building I designed I had to walk a thin wooden board to set the formwork of a concrete beam, in one side there was five meters of a fall to concrete stairs and to the other side was a fall of ten meters to the neighbour roof. Everything withouth safety equipment…

I felt what I feel when I am lost in the cold of the nature; or climbing also without nothing more than a pair of shoes a jean a shirt and a backpack with water and a camera; or fighting to don’t die in the dangerous blocks. The life suddenly seems a wooden beam so thin and light, so fragile…

Orange shores of a turquoise ocean

Arrangement in orange

I had already left the part where the Ilo river meets the ocean. I wanted to walk a bit more before the lunch, just because I prefer to use my legs to know the world. This is the chronicle of that walking.

Orange land

wave slap!

Ilo city has the most beautiful sandy beaches of the Peruvian south, but they are here and there; mostly the shoreline is rocky, mostly a kind of orange, they resemble prehistoric animals coming back to the sea.

Last days of winter

in the bottom

Dinosaur egg

Solidness

Green and black

Fracture in the landscape

I hear all of you

Machines to hear the sea…

Say me blue

Four against the waves

The sea in Ilo is strange. It has turquoise mainly, but also sometimes it’s a milky silver, a pure blue, the sunset gives to it other palettes. It’s usually pacific.

enduring

Those days of winter, the water seemed made of ice, you could think in an iceberg melting.

Prepare for impact!

Waiting the sun of the west

Park of rocks

Little head seeing the bit of open sky

Time runs so I walked till this park, it’s designed with emphasis in preserve the natural rocks.

Glimpse to the ships

The artisanal ships of the fishermen crown the line of the sea. They can come so far as 1700 kilometers (one thousand miles) from the North of Peru.

Line of ships

Inside the kingdom of rocks

End

So it was time to lunch. I went to the fishermen terminal where the fish is fished the same day.  Even more if you are a fisherman or fisherwoman you can bring your own fish to be cooked there.

From the sea

“Andromeda is not there,” said the blue waves…

 

This is a image based in a photography I took in Ilo city. Usually when I edit a photograph my goal is to mirror what I think I saw, sometimes a kind of red, or a silhouette, so although some are blurred, others dark, some others saturated or desaturated in the end they are what I saw in my mind. Instead this image is a modification of the colors I saw, because the ocean there is turquoise and the rocks are darker, but my intention was to create a composition using a photograph as a start point. So to me this is a digital composition based in a photograph and not a photograph in the proper sense of the term.

I know photographers would disagree, regularly I read some of them ranting “I hate to be called ‘digital artist’!,” (what makes me think that they don’t have much love for digital artists, lol) but, hey, I’m not photographer ;-)

Malecón Costero – Wild nature in the heart of Ilo city

millions of years ago a warmer sea and a peaceful land

Malecón Costero is a place in the shores of Pacific Ocean in Ilo city, a southern city in the Peruvian coast. Actually this wild place is in the heart of the city and it’s an urban miracle. Usually in Peru every beautiful place is ruined by mayors with beasts of concrete destroying its natural beauty. Ilo’s economy relies in artisanal fishing and the refinery of a billionaire copper mine (Peru is one of the world’s first exporters of minerals, what says that we’re also dumb because after sell the resources we buy them again in the shape of electronic devices). The mine, Southern Peru, financed an urban project and one of my masters at university designed it. Thanks to him, Arch. Edgardo Ramírez Chirinos (RIP), the heart of the city is still a place quite beautiful and at the same time a testament that we can build without destroying.

This happened one month ago in the last days of summer.

Sunset

victory of the sun

I was there barely before the twilight. I used a reverse graduated filter to get the colors of sunset but at the same time get the ground illuminated as seen by my eyes.

Ilo’s magic sun

Gulliver ship caught by Lilliputian ones

But it happened so fast. The sunset was more like a sun falling. So there was just a soft light and a last ship.

in search of a safe port

A primal world

the noise of waves crashing with sharp rocks in a primitive world

Did you know that the ocean was much warmer millions of years ago? I had that impression, that the sea was hot like a soup, and the rocks of the shores seemed like expecting in any time the rise of walking primitive fishes. Even more it looks like I imagine our planet billions of years ago, life dancing in waves and in every song its movements becoming more and more complex.

explorers of the sea

six heads awaiting the return of their gods

conquest

Conquest

Old rocks between the city and the old sea

giants closing their eyes

In other city the mayor had exploded the rocks and put another statue of one of our military heroes, harming the memory of those heroes with that barbarian act. I think that’s a tradition of the old Spaniards that came and used the rivers as sewers and built giving the back of the houses to lakes and the ocean. Of course they are not related to the modern Spaniards that built marvels in the distant Spain in this age. Fortunately the architect followed our native traditions to build harmonizing with the nature, without destroying it but using it as a friend. What you see in these pictures is a kind of main plaza but with traditional pre-hispanic concepts.

Stone dragons dreaming wooden ships

I couldn’t avoid to think in Norwegian fjords with Vikings preparing to dominate the sea. Of course I know the reality is quite different, my evocation comes from child fantasies.

a star above the stone circle of elders

A watcher, employed by the city hall, came in his bicycle and warned me that the place was dangerous at night because the junkies and they could steal my camera. I thanked him and while he was explaining me the danger I stole his wallet, lol. That last is a joke of course. I packed my camera and went to take a bus to Tacna city.

fortress awaiting

When the night came I already was travelling to another place.