Getting The Shot

The first time I saw a picture of this place I wondered if it was some kind of combination of photo and painting fantasy. An artist’s rendition of a fantastic place.

When I learned it was real, I wanted to go there, but doubted that I ever would. Getting there was an adventure. I took a 5 hour flight straight south from Orlando to Medellin where I spent two days just because I was very curious about the place called the city of eternal spring. It did not disappoint.

Then I spent two days in Bogota and really, one day might have been enough. Then I flew 6 hours straight south to one of my very favorite cities, Buenos Aires. I was able to arrange a 5 hour layover in the downtown airport so I grabbed a taxi and spent a Sunday afternoon in the famous San Telmo market. From there it’s another 3 hour flight straight south to El Calafate and from El Calafate it’s a four hour bus drive to Los Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. So yeah, you really have to want to get there. But after 14 hours of airplanes and multiple taxi and bus rides I was there and it was even better than the photos. In other words, not quite believable.
It was April, which is autumn in the southern hemisphere and in Patagonia the sun comes up late. This photo was taken at sunrise.

You can’t actually see the Torres del Paine. Those are three granite towers that soar behind the formations you see here. They are obscured by both the clouds and the mountains in front. Those magnificent formations are the Cuernos. The horns. And the Torres del Paine means Towers of the Sky. For a week I photographed El Torres and Los Cuernos from every angle I could find at sunset and sunrise and sometimes in between. At different times I fall in love with different photos from those days. Right now I’m in love with this one. The mountains here catch the clouds coming in off the Pacific. So there is almost always some interesting interplay of clouds and light. And it changes fast. Every few moments the winds blow the clouds and a different look appears. So it’s the same mountains and yet now quite the same.

Patagonia is a wonderful wild part of the world and this is one of its crown jewels. My heart sings to me because I was privileged to travel there and take this photo.