...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)
=======================================
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...
a girl and her sheep,
on the Altiplano on the way to the Cañon del Colca:
mid-morning in
Machu Picchú:
