Saltos

New Pictures!

With my last post I finished uploading all the pictures I had from before my trip. Unfortunately it also means that I wont be uploading as frequently as before. The weather here is pretty bad. A lot of wind, snow and worst of all, ice. The trails are very slippery and you have to watch were you step all the time.

But! Aside from the ice and the freezing cold, everything is covered in snow and the landscape has transformed completely, so there are a lot of places to shoot!

Saltos

Arroyo del Salto, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The first picture is from a very cold morning, on the same spot I tried the last time. This time the sunrise was much better, and the clouds didn't cover the mountains completely. Even so, the color was pretty flat, so I decided to try a new editing technique.

This pictures is a combination of two shots, one for the river and another for the mountains. They were developed in Silver Efex PRO, blended in Photoshop, and later edited as a single image to get the final result.

The rest were made on the way back. It was the first time I got both a Cachaña and a Picolezna Patagonica, so I was very lucky. And no, the head on the Picolezna is not that big, it looks like that because of the feathers.

Picolezna (Picolezna Patagonica)

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

Cachaña

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

Rayadito VIII

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

In a few days I should finish sorting a editing the last images I took, so it shouldn't be to long until my next update.

See you around!
Santiago

Otoño

Okay, here we are again!

Today I have the last pictures from before my trip to Buenos Aires. At that time, the mountains were covered in orange, red, yellow and gold from the trees. The weather was not too good, but once in a while the sun could be seen behind the clouds.

I went camping the day I took this pictures, hoping to photograph a place I had found a few days earlier, but the sunrise proved a bit of a disappointment. However, the day before and during the night I was able to do a few good images, and here they are.

Otoño

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The idea was to keep things small and simple. The first picture shows the side of a mountain, right to the left of the trail that goes up to Laguna de los Tres. I decided to play with the shadows made by the sun, and used a big rock to break the trees. To give you and idea of size, what you see of the rock must be around 8 meters tall.

Manchado

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The next one was taken from inside the forest, a few hundred meter from the camp. The sun was shining trough the trees illuminating some yellow leaves, and creating a nice contrast.

Silueta

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

And finally, this one is more a of a test to blend two different exposures during the night. Having no moon, you couldn't really see anything, much less details in the mountains, but with such a long exposure for the stars, I had to blend a second exposure for the foreground. If everything is right, you should see them almost black, but with a few dark gray patches here and there (snow from a recent storm).

Hope you like them.

See you around!
Santiago

Colgada

Okay, I am back from Buenos Aires and ready to start again!

This pictures is actually from before I left, but I never got around to uploading them before, so here they are.

Colgada

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The first one is from Fitz Roy. Instead of going all the way to Campamento Poincenot or Laguna de los Tres (the closest you can get) I went south and a little to the west to capture a different angle. In the foreground you can see Loma de las Pizarras already with some snow.

The light was nice that day, with some clouds to the east that blocked part of the light leaving the top and bottom of the mountain in the shadows, and only the middle illuminated.

The only thing I would have wished for would be more clouds above the mountains, but since it is not to far from here I can go again and try for a better (or worst actually...) weather!

Loica I (Loica Comun, male)

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

Loica II (Loica Comun, male)

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

I took the other two pictures a few minutes after that on my way back. The clouds that blocked the light earlier were a very bright yellow bathing the area with a very soft and warm light. On the first one, I wish the grass on the lower left corner wasn't blocking the bird, but I still like how this looks. And in the first one I would have preferred for the bird to look a little more to the right, but the sound from the shutter got his attention and he never looked away until he left.

Let me know what you think.

See you around!
Santiago