Thursday, June 21, 2012

"early blooms" and 'updated' Peruvian scenes

...always a fun surprise to see a photo published in the morning paper:

(taken with my iPhone after a run in Sabino Canyon;
used snapseed to 'brighten' the flowers a bit,
and then slight 'tilt-shifting' to blur the top of the cactus)

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A couple of weeks ago, I 'rehabilitated' some old snapshots of Switzerland;
 this week I did the same for some photos from a trip to Perú.

On the flight down to South America, our camera got left on the plane! Of all places to be--Perú!--with NO camera!? So we had to buy a camera down there--I still wasn't ready yet to make the switch to digital, which would have been prohibitively expensive anyway, given our travel budget...So we got a point-and-shoot film camera and made do.

Thinking back, it was like having a 'toy camera' of sorts...and so I went for the 'toy camera' effect when editing these 'transplanted' shots with snapseed--using plenty of vignetting and tilt/shifting or 'center-focusing.'



The 'campiña' (countryside) outside of Arequipa,
(Perú's second-largest city, about 8000 feet up on an Andean plateau
in the south of the country)
with the El Misti volcano looming above
pre-Inca terraces still being farmed:
 One of the baroque 'sillar' (white volcanic stone) courtyards
built during the colonial era in Arequipa:

The next four photos are also from Arequipa. In 1580, just four decades after the Spanish founded the city, the Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena was established. Wealthy families paid lavish dowries in order for their daughters to become nuns here. (The existence of servants' and slaves' quarters, along with the nuns' lodging, testifies to the curious luxury that accompanied the isolation here.) A veritable city-within-a-city, this complex has been open to the public since the 1970's.










Now, down to the arid coast around Lima. The capital itself is dotted with excavations of pre-columbian cultures, but in Pachacámac, about 18 miles/30 km SE of the city, the ruins literally spill out of the sandy hills above the ocean. I visited mid-week--there seemed to be more archaeologists than tourists. Temples and tombs cause archaeologists to continually push back the date for the origins of civilization in this part of South America.  Pachacámac is one of the easiest-to-get-to pre-Inca locations to visit and learn more about these societies. On a quiet mid-week visit, it's sobering to wander the ruins of was once a vibrant complex...


 ...and below is the 'pre-Snapseed' snapshot; using a 'gentle touch' with one of the 'drama' filters brings out the texture of the sand, and then vignetting draws your eye toward the zig-zagging passageway...

a girl and her sheep,
on the Altiplano on the way to the Cañon del Colca:

mid-morning in
Machu Picchú:



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