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Favourites

Santiago

Aiming high in Santiago

My first visit to Santiago was when I was fifteen years old, on a family ski trip to the resorts of La Parva and then Portillo. Good skiing, great après-ski, amazing views, incredibly strong sun at that altitude that I remember burnt my exposed neck worse than I’ve ever been burnt before (imagine an oozing turtle-neck skin!), it was a good time to be an irresponsible teen. My visit this time was a little less exclusive, arriving bleary eyed on the […]

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Puerto Varas and the Burn-out

The Boat and the Border From Bariloche, I hopped on a boat and crossed the border into Chile, heading for Puerto Varas. Having read a few reviews before undertaking this leg of the journey, I would like to point out that the boat rides themselves, with the necessary bus intermissions to join up the lakes, are not that particularly impressive or luxurious – they do the job, nothing special. It is what nature throws up in front of you that takes the […]

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Argentina

Bariloche, a slice of paradise

After the spectacular scenery of Patagonia, I took a bus back from El Chaltén to the airport at El Calafate and flew up to Bariloche, or San Carlos de Bariloche, to give it its full title. This was going to be my last flight for a while, until I reached Peru in fact, but I had decided when back in Helsinki that it would take too much of my time to bus that far down into Patagonia and then back […]

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Laughing Poster

Photo of the Day: The Laugh Lasts

Sony A7RII : f/5@250th : ISO 2000 : EV +0.7 : FE 55mm f/1.8 An image cut from the same cloth as an earlier post, a detail of the remains of a poster on a wall, but this time without the extreme colour or the B&W elements. I love the textured tone of the wall, the lo-fi print quality of the poster, the iconic sentiment of the laugh… This is another image that I think would look great as a large […]

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Flower with fence

Photo of the Day: The Bougainvillea Shoot

I took this shot walking around the streets of Mendoza in Argentina. I like this picture a lot. A hard black fence, to keep things either in or out, and a single vibrant young bougainvillea shoot popping through, just catching the sun. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to give it some sort of existential twist, about life, boundaries, reaching out, beauty in the small details… It puts a smile on my face just looking at the photo again […]

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Bench portrait

Photo of the Day: Man on a Bench

Sony A7RII : f2.8@400th : ISO 200 : EV +0.7 : FE 55mm f/1.8 I was wandering around one of the parks in Mendoza, Argentina, and saw this gentleman sitting on a bench watching the world go by. I approached politely and he had no problem me taking his portrait. A lovely guy, from Chile originally but he had left there just over 40 years ago. We didn’t talk politics, so I don’t know why, but my maths is good enough to work […]

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Beachscape

Photo of the Day: Existential Angst

Sony A7RII : f11@800th : ISO 640 : EV +0.7 : FE 55mm f/1.8 I took this photo on the day of my 50th Birthday. I suppose I could have gone for a more joyous shot to celebrate the big day, but I felt that this conveyed rather well the existential angst that surrounds reaching a new decade. My way of dealing with the beyond-midlife crisis was to take a 60 day sabbatical, one day for each year, plus 10 extra […]

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Buenos Aires

Wandering Lost in Buenos Aires

I enjoy wandering round cities with very vague plans, setting out early in the mornings, my camera in hand, and seeing how far my aching feet will take me. Even though I was born in Buenos Aires, I had no take on what the city had to offer. I had given myself three days here, just to have a little bit of time to re-orientate myself before heading down south to El Calafate. One thing I had learnt on my way in from the airport chatting […]

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