To Speak of Warmth in Green

And despite times when the contrary would seem to be so, time does occasionally take it upon itself to pass quickly… and in many ways has done so over the past three days.

i suppose that i shall merely speak chronologically, addressing what has passed in a reasonably concise manner without speaking at great length… my reasons being that i am tired tonight and that i do not feel that i have very much of any particular insight or interest to offer tonight.

So if this update reads rather crisply and pointedly… perhaps that is why.

i am, these days, feeling a little bit less of an urge to force myself to go do things and to try to force things to happen. And so Friday morning, for example, i spent five or six hours sitting in the Powlison’s house reading.

At lunch on Friday i was invited by one of the local missionaries to travel to a nearby Quechua settlement for a showing of the Jesus film. Seeing the opportunity as a chance to take some pictures in a fresh locale, i leapt at the opportunity.

The settlement was at 12,000 feet, and we arrived at about 5:15, just as the light was beginning to fade… making my photography a test of the limits of my equipment.

My first picture from this settlement is probably going to seem to many to be one of the least impressive shots that i have posted… however i am much more pleased with it than most others that i have posted.

The focus is abysmally off, but it contains some of the complexity and depth that i have desired for my pictures. The first people to come were, of course, the children… and these particular children, as is the case with most children the world over, were rather thrilled at the appearance of a camera.

“Toca foto de mi!” they would yell… Spanish their second language, as evidenced by a phrase that would be ridiculed in most Spanish classes and by most native Spanish speakers.

Their faces would be inches from my camera. Tough working conditions, i suppose.

And all of the sudden there was an opening. Girls running in circles with arms locked. A boy looking back as he ascended the small hill on which i stood. A little bit of chaos below. Auto-focus went all the wrong places… but at least i saw something when i took this picture. It is better than can be said of most of the pictures that i have taken this trip.

And as a technical note for readers who are photographers: i am not very happy with my RAW processing of this picture… i feel like the tint is too much toward red and the temperature is a touch warm. Also, as the lighting conditions were pretty intense for pictures taken this evening, i will include some EXIF data: This was at ISO 400, 50mm, f/. 1.8, underexposed -0.7, and 1/80 second.



And… this is almost certainly my favorite portrait of the trip so far.

His name is Anderson, and he is eight years old. i do not know more of his story… but on this evening he sat alone off to the side, his stick—a walking stick?—in hand, occasionally taking a bite of his bread. He seemed much older than his mere eight years.

i approached him and asked if i could take some pictures. He assented… and immediately assumed the rigid and self-conscious posture that makes me cringe. i fired off a few (18, to be exact) shots and hoped for a distraction. i do not know what it was, but something suddenly attracted his attention, and his guard fell as he glanced to his right. Which left me with this picture.

ISO 800, 50mm, f/. 1.8, underexposed -1.3, and 1/60 second.



Gradually a few more people arrived. As they took their seats on a bench, i tried to frame a simple image providing a broad overview of the people.

ISO 800, 50mm, f/. 1.8, underexposed -1.3, and 1/13 second.



“Toca foto de mi abuela!”

i was reluctant… i didn’t want this lady to feel pressured into having her picture taken… Quechua women tend to be shy and modest, and i wanted to respect that… yet as i asked if she was sure that it was ok to take her picture, she nodded her approval with the quiet pride that is so characteristic of Quechuas that i have known throughout Peru. Her name is Sebastiana Velazquez Chocce. She maintained a quiet dignity as i tried to wring every last drop out of the long gone light. It was dark out. i could hardly see her. Autofocus couldn’t see her. i auto-focused as best as i could, and tried to manually finesse the focus from there. Not that it mattered a whole lot with as slow as my shutter speed was. Then it was an issue of holding my breath, putting on my best surgeon hands, and clicking away in hopes of something reasonably sharp.

This was the closest that i came.

ISO 1600, 50mm, f/. 1.8, underexposed -1.7, and 1/8 second.



And as a side note… it gets kind of cold at night at 12,000 feet.

On Saturday i ventured back into the hills.

It was a fairly straightforward day… my intention was to get a reasonably early start, climb Cerro Pintas, a hill just over 13,700 feet tall, and then to climb a nearby unnamed hill that is around 13,930 feet tall.

Friday night had been a fairly late night, and so after breakfast and gear-assembling at the Powlison’s i didn’t start hiking until around 8.

My aim was to find my way to what appeared to be a trail in the valley between the two main ridge systems leading to the mountain from the west. i found what seemed to be a road leading in that direction… but it stalled out in a steep-walled valley very early on. Walking in this area is unreal… there is so much history that is by now merely part of the landscape. Trekking through this valley… i quickly stumbled upon seemingly endless ancient terrace works… abandoned for unknown hundreds of years, but very evidently of human origin. There is, in my opinion, nothing to equal the scale and the pervasiveness of evident ancient artifice that has proven to exist in this area.

Eventually, however, i found my trail… and it took me surprisingly close to my target. By 11 i was standing on the summit of Cerro Pintas. Climbing makes for tough photography, because i usually don’t get to places from which i desire to take pictures until the light is utterly deplorable… and since i am alone, i don’t have a victim to shoot portraits or action shots of. So… i am left with little but myself to add interest to shots.

i tried a few summit self-portraits… and this is one of them, more or less. i set my tripod up on the summit, scrambled down to a ledge surrounded by vast dropoffs (which sadly aren’t very evident in this picture… it is hard to know how things will look when i can’t look at them as i take the picture) and tried the tired old trick of the jumping self-portrait… it has worked better for me… but i thought that i would go ahead and post this one. One thing that i learned is that i am not very good at jumping at 13,700 feet after having hiked a pretty solid distance. And my hair is doing some pretty awesome stuff, if i may say so myself.



Finally… i descended Cerro Pintas and set off for the other mountain. i summited shortly after noon, and once more was left to think of summit picture ideas. i decided essentially to frame a decent landscape selection on a tripod and then walk through the frame with a remote and snap off a bunch of pictures in hope that one or two of them would be not horrible. Most of them were very horrible… but i kind of liked this one. Cerro Pintas is right behind my left elbow.



And that is all for now, i suppose… and a celebration of two months, for sure.