On the second evening we stayed on the edge of the Salar in a quiet little village where, José told us, the young people had left to seek more advanced education. I walked through the empty lanes at dusk to the edge of town where ribbons of tattered plastic hung from a single strand of loosely strung barbed wire — the boundary of a roughly ploughed, dusty field. A breeze fluttered the plastic and tugged at my hair; the sky darkened; a bird sang.
Eventually I turned and walked back to the salt hotel where the window of the dining room burned yellow in the dusk.
[24 October 2011, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 100–300 mm at 193 mm, ISO 400, 1/125 at f8]
All content © 2011 Pete McGregor
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5 comments:
The interesting thing about your photos and posts is that there is this sense of continuity and sameness wherever you go in the world. I guess this can be attributed to their having been seen through your eyes and words, so your character will come out in them, but there is also the sense that the world is a continuous place, without demarkations and prejudice. This photo for some reason captured that sense of continuity. And I guess that comes across more powerfully because of your proclivity to capture the details in the landscape, rather than the grand picture.
Still trying to figure out what that wire is leading down the slope... could the bird be hooked up to it, and it is singing via CD?
Such moments that you describe here tend to get me feeling melancholy... oft times homesick when far away from home. The ugliness of the world homes in particularly strongly then.
A bird sang, the window burned yellow in the dusk.... beautiful imagery. We paused among the penguins and listened to a bird... here is a link to a little video I took: http://youtu.be/Vm86_hWwVuM Hasta Pronto!
Miguel, ha! Given the state of the wiring in most places, including our 'hotel', I doubt the wire would have worked well enough to run a CD player ;^)
Regarding your observation about noticing details, I'm fascinated by the way they can deliver such a strong feel for a place — sometimes more so than the grand picture. Perhaps partly, details can reinforce similarities between places (something I have to be careful of; the temptation to compare places, particularly here in Patagonia where so much reminds me of Aotearoa, can be as much a trap as a way of understanding or interpreting), and also accentuate differences.
Yes, the world can be ugly, but as I pointed out in the most recent Pohanginapete post, "...even if collectively and sometimes individually, we screw up beautiful things, the world is still full of beautiful people". I've had that brought home to me so often on this journey, and that, I think, is one of the great gifts of travelling.
Maureen, thanks for the video URL. I love those little birds — I first saw them in Quito and I'm still seeing them right down here in Patagonia, most recently on the Laguna Torre trail.
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