Solo Rosado

As I said in my last post, today I have three new images from the same day. Normally I select the one I like the most and put it first, but today I had a hard time choosing one.

With no particular order, here is one.

Solo Rosado

Cerro Solo, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

This one was taken 20 minutes before sunrise (the sun would rise behind the camera). The day before I had already been in that place, and I had found the canyon on the bottom creating a nice line in the picture, the snow covered trees and the mountain (Cerro Solo) in the background.

The original plan was to shoot just as the sun started to cover the mountain, but with a clear sky, the sunrise was pretty flat. I was lucky however, because just before sunrise, the sky turned a beautiful pink and violet color.

Tres y Uno

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The next one, is a much simpler image. It was done an hour later, very close to my place, in a small hill overlooking the town.

Just when I was about to return, I found this small plant sticking out of the snow in the shadow, with only the top illuminated by the morning sun. I captured a few different compositions, and I finally selected this one.

Finally, this one was done a few meters away from the last image, and it will probably be part of a new series of pictures I plan to do, involving snow and wind. I still have to see where I will take it from there.

Esculpido

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

As always I would like to know what you think about them, so use the comments!

See you around!
Santiago

Bosque Blanco

This last weeks the weather has been pretty bad, with lots of clouds, heavy snow storms and worse, strong winds. I have been able to go out only a few times, and even then it has been pretty hard.

Snow in the trails is ankle deep, or worse, and when the sun shines, the top melts only to freeze during the night, creating the longest slide in the world. I am looking to get crampons, but so far I have gone with out them.

So! Today I am uploading a little experiment. It was taken a few weeks ago after a very strong snowfall. As a result, the trees in that particular place were completely covered, and since it was an old burned forest, the branches were already bare.

Bosque Blanco

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

Since they are in the shadow, there is not much separation between the different trees, so maybe I will be back on another day to try again. Still, I like the result.

Carpintero Gigante

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

There is also another image from a woodpecker. Its very impressive to see them working on a tree only to have the snow from the branches fall on them. They don't seem to mind though, they just shook it off and continue like nothing!

Tomorrow I will upload a few more images from a different day, with two that I really like.

See you around!
Santiago

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

Valle de la Luz

Today I leave to Buenos Aires for two weeks so I won't have any more pictures to post for some time. I do have a couple of shots saved but I don't know when I will be able to upload them.

Yesterday I went out and made some good shoots, but the red and oranges I had been seeing this past weeks are already faded and only brown and dark yellow remain. It is sad, but it also means that winter is almost here, and with it snow!

Those pictures will have to wait, but I do have a picture to upload.

A few days ago, I was showing the trails to someone I met trough couchsurfing.org and we decided to go out even though the weather forecast said it was going to be very rainy and very windy. It was both, and even though we walked 20 km I wasn't able to take my camera out of y backpack for fear of destroying completely. There wasn't a lot to show either.

On our way up I showed here a place were I had been couple of times before at sunrise, but I never got what I wanted, and the light at the moment was pretty flat.

Valle de la Luz

Valle del Rio de las Vueltas, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

On our way back, almost in the town, she pointed to the north part of the valley where the light passing though the clouds left only a small part of it illuminated, and the rest in shadows. Since the rain at that time was very light, I started running down hill to the spot I had selected the days before just in time to take a couple of shots. After that the clouds closed again, and the show was over.

I waited with her for 15 minutes more, but but that time I was soaking wet and without movement I was getting cold, so we decided to leave.

This is the result.

See you around!
Santiago

Hielo y Roca

Today I have four pictures from El Calafate.

The weather was very strange that day, sometimes cloudy and rainy, sometimes completely clear, but always very windy and very cold.

Light was very mixed on the glacier. The front wall was almost always clear, but the back of the glacier and the mountains that surround it were covered most of the time. With those conditions, I always tried to have the glacier in direct sunlight to keep the shadows and textures of the ice, and the background in the shadow. That way I had a nice contrast between the foreground and the background, and the ice wouldn't look flat.

The first one is from the face of the glacier, with the mountains on the back, already covered in snow.

Hielo y Roca

Glaciar Perito Moreno, El Calafate, Patagonia Argentina

The next couple of pictures go together, as both show the glacier with a solid background. In the first case its the cloudy sky and in the second its a forest in the shadow (pushed a little in post-production to turn it almost black).

Recortes I

Glaciar Perito Moreno, El Calafate, Patagonia Argentina

Recortes II

Glaciar Perito Moreno, El Calafate, Patagonia Argentina

And finally, some ducks in Bahia Redonda, just in front of El Calafate. I stayed there as long as I could, but I could never have all four ducks facing forward. There was always at least one turning his head, but three out of four is not bad!

Barcino (Pato Barcino)

Bahia Redonda, El Calafate, Patagonia Argentina

In the next few days I travel to Buenos Aires for two weeks so there won't be any new pictures. However I have three more pictures to upload and I plan to go out tomorrow to camp for a night in camp Poincenot so I might have something more.

See you around!
Santiago

Cascada de Estrellas

I am finally back from my trip to Chile, only with mixed results. I was able to get all the equipment I planned to get which was necessary if I wanted to go out in the winter around here, so that is good.

Unfortunately we weren't able to get to Torres del Paine because the weather was awful. Very strong wind, rain and snow, freezing temperatures, and worst of all, very low clouds meant that going in was pointless (we were going to camp for 4 days and not see a single mountain). In the end we decided to go back to El Calafate early and do some time in the Perito Moreno Glacier, so I will be posting some pictures from there tomorrow.

As for today, I have only a single image from a few weeks ago. Its from Chorrillo del Salto, a 20 m waterfall located 4 km from El Chalten.

Getting there is pretty easy, even at night, so when I saw the clear sky at midnight I picked my backpack and went there. I had been there several time before, and on the last one (a failed sunrise shot) I had found a nice composition I wanted to try.

Once I got there, I placed the camera on the tripod, and with the little light the moon gave (right behind the camera) and my headlamp, I decided on this composition.

Cascada de Estrellas

Chorrillo del Salto, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

After the first test shot I discovered that the town lights were reaching the right wall of the waterfall. Its the orange glow you can see on the right of the frame. The shutter stayed open for 16 minutes (a single exposure this time), the aperture was f4 and the iso was 1600 (the highest I dare to go with my camera) to create the startrails. After that it was time to wait for the camera to do its job while I slowly froze.

The lights from the city were something I hadn't planned, but they do add some color to the image, and in the end I liked the result.

See you around!
Santiago

Calor y Frio

I have two pictures to upload today.

Two weeks ago I went to Laguna Toro, a beautiful lake surrounded with mountains and a glacier. To get there you have to walk 19 km from where I live, so I had to camp there the night. In total, I walked 52 km in two days (including some exploring I did around the place).

It is definitely one of the best places around here, but it is hard to go there. The trails is very long, with plenty of ups and downs, and to make it worse I had to wade a small river (5 m wide!) that I didn't know was there. Since I didn't have anything to put on my feet, I had to cross it barefoot, but with  the temperature the first day it was actually nice. Unfortunately, the next day I was in a hurry to get back (I had to work) and the temperature was very low, so putting your feet in freezing water is not my idea of a nice morning.

Aside from that, the place is beautiful. From camp you are only 1 km from the lake and 3 km from a glacier. I highly recommend it.

Sunset was very disappointing. The cloud were to thick to get any color on the sky, and they stayed there all night long so I couldn't do any strartrails. In the morning the sky looked equally gray but I decided to give it a try and went to a place I had found the day before.

Morena

Laguna Toro, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

This image was taken 15 minutes before sunrise, and like one of the last images I took, it is a blend of two exposures (one for the sky, one for the foreground). Its not what I had in mind, but since the sky never showed any color, it the best I could get.

Calor y Frio

Laguna Toro, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

This one was more accidental than the first. While I was returning to camp I was sunlight hitting some rocks and decided to take a simple shoot (to show once I returned) and saw the different color of the rocks. The ones in the foreground are being hit by the sun, but the ones in the back are in the shadow. and that gives them their different color. I led how the texture of the rocks turned out.

Its not much for such a long trip, but I had a good time and it was my first time there.

Now that the season is ending and I will have 6 month free, I certainly have to go back again, with better weather and more time there. In a few days I leave to Torrers del Paine in Chile, to get some equipment and try my luck in the "W" trail. After that, I have a few weeks here and then I am off to Buenos Aires to see my family. And once I am back, I will have plenty of time to go out.

See you around!
Santiago

Cordon Adela

Side note: I got a Daily Deviation for my picture "Arcoiris" in deviantART! Thanks!

Okay, after a (very) small delay I can upload the shots from the last time I went to Laguna Torre.

This time I slept in the town and made the 12 km hike before sunrise because I had to work the night before. The weather was very nice but on the way there I couldn't avoid thinking that it was going to be a very disappointing day as the sky was completely clear and not a single cloud was visible. Glad I was wrong!

Cordon Adela

Laguna Torre, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

Just before sunrise a line of clouds appear behind Cerro Torre and started "spilling" over the top like an overflowing pool. A beautiful show to see and even better to photograph! Cerro Torre is always a beautiful mountain to see and photograph, but that morning it had the most beautiful color I had seen so far!

A few minutes before I had been trying to make something with the lake and the rocks on the shore, and found something interesting, but with the sunrise light the color didn't turn out so nice. If there had been some clouds above me, they would have given some light and color to the foreground, but there were none.

This one is 15 minutes before sunrise. Its a composite from two images (one exposure for the mountains and another for the foreground) and i used my headlamp to put some light on the rocks, just to give them another color and some texture.

Punta de Flecha

Laguna Torre, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

I plan to get back there on a clear night. I really like the composition, but I need better light for it! With the light from the moon the foreground will show the texture of the rocks much better and the stars will look very nice on the sky. Maybe next time!

On the way back I also took some time to shoot some birds and managed to get some nice shoot of two new species to me. The first one is a Duicon looking into the rising sun.

Duicon

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The next one is an Owl called Cabure Grande. I would have preferred to have a nicer background, with out so many branches, but she was very comfortable and didn't want to move, no matter how may times I asked. The good news is that they usually stay during the winter so I might be able to get some shots of them on the snow!

Cabure

El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

The last one is a more simple image. It is a small piece of ice trapped in a river. I liked the shape of the water behind it, but it is to turbulent for me. I will have to try another time.

Deriva

Laguna Torre, El Chalten, Patagonia Argentina

See you soon!
Santiago