Category:Solo South America
Sony A7RII : f/7.1@500th : ISO 100 : EV -0.7 : FE 90mm f/2.8 You’d think that when you visit a place of natural beauty such as the spectacular Colca canyon in southern Peru that you would not need to paint a sign on the side of a rock telling visitors not to pee on said rock. Then again, what is obvious to some is not necessarily obvious to others. And, if you have to deal with over 120,000 visitors annually, […]
Sony A7RII : f/7.1@2000th : ISO 200 : EV -0.7 : FE 90mm f/2.8 The tour bus from Arequipa to Colca canyon left at 3am and somehow I ended up on it. I hadn’t been on a guided tour since the first week of my journey when it was the only way to make it onto the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia. That had turned out to be an excellent tour and, even though I had actively avoided going to […]
Sony A7RII : f/5@80th : ISO 3200 : EV -1.0 : FE 35mm f/1.4 One of several smoke-stained kitchens in the the monastery of Santa Catalina in Arequipa, one that can be described as the opposite of a modern kitchen, but certainly built to last. The light in this image dropped off very quickly from right to left and the result I was able to achieve in Capture One gives you an idea of the dynamic range of the sensor in […]
Sony A7RII : f/9@250th : ISO 400 : EV -1.0 : FE 35mm f/1.4 It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to live in a cloistered community but walking round the streets and buildings that make up the monastery of Santa Catalina give you some idea of the lives led there. Originally built in the 16th century for wealthy Spanish families to place a daughter for a life of service to the church, the community reached about 450 members until the […]
Sony A7RII : f/4.5@800th : ISO 250 : EV +0.7 : FE 35mm f/1.4 I took the bus from Cusco to Arequipa and spent just a couple of days here. The town is definitely on the traveller’s trail, which helps to explain the presence of several police similar to these two Arequipa cops. I think they are a separate arm of the local police force and they are there to make people from out of town feel safe and may even have been officially […]
I arrived in Cusco before sunrise aboard the Bolivia Hop bus, having left La Paz almost 24hrs earlier. The journey had been broken up by spending half a day checking out Lake Titicaca so I wasn’t feeling too spaced out when my feet touched the ground in Cusco. Bolivia Hop, the same people who run Peru Hop, organise taxis to get everyone to their arranged accommodation when you arrive in town and I was amused when my taxi whisked me off up the […]
Sony A7RII : f/4@640th : ISO 125 : EV -0.3 : FE 55mm f/1.8 It’s difficult to fully convey the texture and the detail visible in the hires version of this image of an adobe wall in a Cusco side street. The ‘roots’ have been made by the effect of rainwater trickling down the wall, with the mud from the wall leaving a brown trail as the rain stops and the water begins to dry. I can’t tell you how […]
Sony A7RII : f/10@640th : ISO 500 : EV -0.3 : FE 55mm f/1.8 From this one spot on a typical Cusco side street, there are four different wall types – the large angular stones of an Inca wall to the left, an adobe wall to the right, a more basic stone wall in the centre, and an ugly brick wall in the background. Photographically, this is the only reason I stopped to take this picture and, although I cannot claim to […]
Sony A7RII : f/4@80th : ISO 500 : EV -0.3 : FE 90mm f/2.8 The San Pedro market in Cusco had a lot of stuff on sale that I wasn’t particularly used to but I’d have to say that the wizened granny sitting next to a bucket of live frogs had one of the more unusual setups. She didn’t really have a stall, just her stool next to the bucket and a flat surface by her side for the freshly peeled […]
Sony A7RII : f/4@80th : ISO 400 : EV -0.3 : FE 90mm f/2.8 There’s nothing quite like a macro lens to get a different perspective on things. This close-up shot of dried beans is from an inspiring day I had wandering round San Pedro market in Cusco. The Sony FE 90mm f2.8 Macro G is turning out to be a stellar lens and well worth its weight in my ‘travelling’ camera bag. As with most indoor markets, the light was […]
