Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts from the ‘South America’ category

Pisco Elqui, Rio Claro, Estero Derecho, Rio Elqui, Elqui river, Region de Coquimbo, La Serena, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in La Serena: Pisco Elqui

I’m highlighting the La Serena-Coquimbo area in north-central Chile, where I lived from 2006 to 2011 after many visits to the area between mid-1990s and the early aughts.

On the paved two-lane road (D-485) next to the Claro river, this view of the Paihuano area by the side of the road faces south and upstream towards the town of Pisco Elqui. The colours provide reminders that (1) the Andes aren’t very far, and (2) this region is at the southern edge of the Atacama desert. Red-wine grapes don’t do well here, but unique soil chemistry allows pisco grapes to thrive from which pisco brandy and the very familiar “pisco sour” cocktail are made.

I made the photo above on 9 Aug 2008 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/400-sec, f/8, ISO200, 55mm focus (88mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-jLp.

Embalse Puclaro, Puclaro, Rio Elqui, Elqui river, Region de Coquimbo, La Serena, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in La Serena: Puclaro dam & reservoir

I’m highlighting the La Serena-Coquimbo area in north-central Chile, where I lived from 2006 to 2011 after many visits to the area between mid-1990s and the early aughts.

In 1999, the Elqui river was dammed to control water flow into agricultural lands downstream and beyond to the twin cities of La Serena and Coquimbo. The reservoir behind the dam drowned a number of villages. The view above from the dam faces east to the Andes, the continent’s raised mountain spine.

I made the photo above on 13 Sep 2009 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/80-sec, f/13, ISO200, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-jLl.

Coquimbo, Cruz del tercer milenio, La Serena, Region de Coquimbo, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in La Serena: the Coquimbo Cross

I’m highlighting the La Serena-Coquimbo area in north-central Chile, where I lived from 2006 to 2011 after many visits to the area between mid-1990s and the early aughts.

On previous visits to La Serena, I’d always been curious but never thought to ask. As new resident of the area in 2006, I finally make my way to the imposing cement structure. I’m up at the elevated platform where additional viewing areas provide a complete panorama of the area. At the foot of the cross there’s a chapel and a museum of religious art.

Inaugurated in 2001 on top of the hill Cerro El Vigía in the town of Coquimbo, the cross stands 93 meters high and 40 meters wide as one of the largest religious monuments to Catholicism in South America, and marks the calendar’s transition into a new millennium. That’s why the Coquimbo Cross is formally called la Cruz del Tercer Milenio (the Cross of the Third Millennium). In clear transparent conditions, the cross is visible to the naked eye from mountain observatories 60 kilometres to the east.

Avenida del Mar, Playa del Mar, La Serena, Coquimbo, Chile, fotoeins.com

Standard view of Coquimbo from the beach in late-afternoon light – 15 Sep 2006.

I made both photos above with a Canon PowerShot A510 on 15 Sep 2006 and 1 Apr 2007. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-jLd.

Playa del Mar, Coquimbo, Cruz del tercer milenio, La Serena, Region de Coquimbo, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in La Serena: February summer sunset

I highlight the La Serena-Coquimbo area in north-central Chile, where I lived from 2006 to 2011 after many visits to the area between mid-1990s and the early aughts.

5 Mar – Playa de 4 Esquinas (Beach at the 4 Corners).
12 Mar – Cruz del tercer milenio (Cross of the Third Millennium).
19 Mar – Embalse Puclaro (Puclaro dam and reservoir).
26 Mar – Pisco Elqui.

The shallow J-shaped bay and the 10-km long narrow strip of sand facing the Pacific Ocean is very popular in summer with visitors streaming into town from Argentina, Brazil, and other parts of Chile, ballooning both people- and vehicle-numbers. Always worth spending is time on the beach on a calm sunny morning or on a windy cloudy afternoon. The image here is late-afternoon on a beautiful warm late-summer day in February with the sun setting over the Coquimbo peninsula across the bay.

I made the photo above on 22 February 2006 with a Canon PowerShot A510. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-jtG.

Ruta 5, Carretera Panamericana, Panamerican Highway, Region de Antofagasta, Chile, fotoeins.com

Under the desert sun

Above/featured: Ruta 5 (highway 5), a ribbon-like cut through the desert in Región de Atacama, Chile – 24 Nov 2009 (450D).

It’s an interesting question: how does one consider, view, or photograph what’s under the sun? There’s a lot of room for interpretation. Modifying the theme for the desert sun, I examine the “quality of sunlight” within the Atacama Desert in northern and north-central Chile, and within the Sonoran Desert in southwest United States.

( Click here for images and more )

Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, Cerro Tololo, Region de Coquimbo, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Andes in winter, a June day in Chile

23 June 2007.

A few days past the June winter solstice, the view to the Andes is illuminated by the afternoon sun to the northwest. It’s almost one year since I’ve moved to Chile to work at the Gemini South astronomical observatory, and part of my job includes shifts observing at the telescope for a duration between two and six nights at a stretch. For the time being, we’re sleeping in the dormitories at the neighbouring Cerro Tololo Observatory, and driving to and from Cerro Pachón where Gemini South resides. With less oxygen at altitude between 2500 and 2800 metres, it can be a little rough to sleep and work, but the views are always worth the temporary discomfort.

More about my past life

•   What it was like to be “up top”
•   What it meant to leave, both astronomy and Chile
•   My past research

I made the above photo 10 years ago today on 23 June 2007. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-9To.

Avenida Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins, Morande, Region Metropolitana, Santiago, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Dungarees vs. Suits (Santiago de Chile)

20 October 2006.

Shortly after moving to La Serena, Chile, I headed back to the capital city of Santiago for a few days. After visiting the Cultural Centre at La Moneda, I stepped out to the streets and turned the corner to witness the afternoon traffic on its primary east-west axis, Avenida Libertador Bernardo O’ Higgins. I saw a skateboarder heading towards me and not far was a man in a black suit standing to the side. My intuition leapt, and I quickly lifted my point-and-shoot camera. The gap in economic class continues not only in Chile but throughout South America.

I made the photo with the Canon Powershot A510 on 20 October 2006. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-95n. The following excerpt from “WKRP in Cincinnati” parodies the struggle between “suits” and “non-suits”.

UN FAO International Mountain Day. International Mountain Day celebration 2015 in Chile/Brazil: photo by College João Paulo of Brazil and the University of Magallanes (UMAG).

11 December: International Mountain Day

Since 2003, December 11 is International Mountain Day as designated by the United Nations General Assembly. Annually, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) observes the day:

… to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.

•   Mountains cover almost one-quarter (22 percent) of the Earth’s surface.
•   Mountains host about 50 percent of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
•   Up to 80 percent of the world’s freshwater supply comes from mountains.
•   One in eight people (13 percent) around the world lives in the mountains.
•   Mountain tourism accounts for almost 20 percent of the worldwide tourism industry.

The following provides a glimpse to the mountain environments around the world and to the challenging conditions our ancestors would have faced and endured.

( Click here for images and more )

Avenida del Mar, Playa del Mar, La Serena, Coquimbo, Chile, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “Live your dreams” (La Serena)

“Vive tus sueños” (Live your dreams)

2pm Chile Standard Time, 15 September 2006.

I’ve just switched hemispheres. Until recently, I never thought I’d move here.

One time five years ago, I moved from the western hemisphere (Canada) to the eastern hemisphere (Germany), at least where measures of longitude are concerned. And now, I’ve gone from summer in the northern hemisphere to the final week of winter in the southern hemisphere; Minneapolis to La Serena only seems far in the mind. The Pacific is an ocean with which I’m familiar, but what’s unfamiliar is the time difference. I’m hugging the Americas’ continental western coastline, and yet I’m in the same time zone as the American Atlantic coast. The difference in time zones will take some adjustment.

I’ll have the next five years to adjust.

The scene above is on the beach next to Avenida del Mar, southwest across the bay to Coquimbo and the Cross of the Third Millennium.

Then again, this piece from Banksy is an alternative response.

I made the photo above on 15 September 2006 with a Canon PowerShot A510 camera. Ten years later (plus two weeks to the day I made the photo), this post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-7Mt.

Fraser River, Port Mann Bridge, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

World Rivers Day: 50+ rivers from around the world

Above: Fraser River, east from Port Mann Bridge, between Coquitlam and Surrey, BC (HL).

The fourth Sunday in September is World Rivers Day. The University of Oxford’s Dictionaries defines ‘river‘ as:

“a large natural stream of water flowing in a channel to the sea, a lake, or another river.”

A river has always been water supply and demand: daily use and consumption; farming and agriculture; and where the waste goes, often back into the same supply. A river has always been about transport: trade and delivery of goods; shuttling people between places; and with people travelling, the exchange of language and culture. Throughout history, the establishment of towns and cities and the subsequent development of rivers have been about a mix of urban and rural elements, and about the relationship and interactions between people and their waterways.

( Click here for images and more )

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