I am grateful to be here and I never forget it. But with over six months here, on top of three previously, I rarely experience the same awe I felt when I first came here. I look around and know it's beautiful and appreciate every second of it. But it's never the same as seeing it for the first time.
Before traveling somewhere, you think, dream and imagine about what it will look like. You see photos and you try to visualize yourself there. Then when you are there it is almost always better. Beyond better. The smell in the air fills your nostrils and attaches themselves to your memories. The mood and feeling of the place takes you over. You experience the weather, the feeling of the sun on your face. Or the rain, depending on how you catch it. Seeing it in person allows it all to come together. To make sense and become a memory and experience, and not just a thought or day dream.
On my trip to Mendoza last weekend I was surprised at how much more colorful the landscape was compared to my trip three months earlier during summer. There were red fields with golden yellow trees reaching up to rich blue skies all amongst seas of vibrant green. The colors made everything seem so alive even though the fast approaching winter temperatures were slowly killing everything (quite beautifully, I might add).
It took returning home and viewing all the photos a couple days later that it hit me how beautiful it was and how Chile continues to surprise and impress me (very often really). My photos weren't anything that special. Shot through a dirty window (I've made a habit of trying to clean off the inside and outside of the window before leaving, but it only helps so much), out of a van going 70mph the focus may be a little off, the framing not ideal and there is absolutely no time to think while it all zooms by. But nonetheless the landscape itself is just so striking you can't help but mentally stop and enjoy it for a moment.
Having done four cross country US road trips in the previous two years, I was well accustomed to photographing out of a moving vehicle. This time was just easier because I wasn't also driving. But the sharpness of the images and time to make thought out compositions wasn't really there. You can just get a couple ideas in your head that you try to execute if, and when, they pass by.
Below are some images during the bus ride from Santiago to Mendoza. If you don't know anything about this bus ride, you should definitely do it if you ever stumble upon the opportunity in your life. It is six hours of stunning, constantly changing landscapes. From Santiago the road winds past rolling hills laced with vineyards and vistas of far off mountain peaks. The far off peaks become closer and closer and gradually you are surrounded by the jagged Andes at their most impressive (even passing the highest peak outside of The Himalayas, Aconcagau (22,841 ft)) Then you head back down in elevation to a more arid, high desert type environment, still surrounded by towering mountains.
Anyway, my photographic editing style constantly changes and goes through phases. On trips like this I don't get to think about what I'm shooting. I just shoot it as it goes by. So I never know what I'm going to do with an image until I'm looking at it on the computer and an idea comes from somewhere. Sometimes I see things in panoramas, sometimes 4:5 format, and today, squares. So a majority of these are in squares, because that's how I'm seeing things these days.
