I've never really been one for taking photos of buildings. I think they are beautiful, but the beautiful kind are rather in short supply in the Pilbara. (I'm sorry but it's true! Modern architecture does nothing for me, I find it depressingly dull).
Now, I know absolutely nothing about architecture. Or building, or in fact, design of buildings. But I know when I see one that's beautiful. It doesn't even have to be functional! Just beautiful.
I also know that they are kind of hard to take photos of, especially at close range. In my own typical fashion I did no research on composition before going to South America and decided instead to just wing it, as you do. Some were good, some not so good, some were OK once they had been through the editing process.
See, when looking through a lens on a building at close range, the straight lines become skewed out of proportion. I have read tutorials on how to correct this in Photoshop (making parallel lines actually appear parallel and so on) but it's quite difficult to apply to your own photos. I've found myself thinking back to 'did it actually look like that?' several times. The horizon straitening tool in Adobe RAW came in very handy for these images.
Another thing I didn't notice until I was going through my photos post-trip is that I took an extraordinarily large number of photos in the portrait orientation. For some reason, I found this easier to compose than landscape. When taking photos of buildings it is good to have parallel lines and seeing as buildings go up, the photo goes up as well. I also found it was good to incorporate a building corner and try to have something in the foreground.
I should write down composition as a goal for 2014 - it has never really been my strong point, I've always just sort of pointed and shot what I thought looked good and hoped for the best.
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| Museum in Cusco. Classic Spanish inspiration. Love the plants as well. Canon EOS 50D f/8, 1/640 ISO 320 |
We were surprised at the level of Spanish influence throughout South America. As we have never been to Europe, we felt like we were in Europe. Beautiful oil paintings, old buildings, cathedrals. In Cusco it was interesting because Cusco being the ancient Inca capital, was torn down by the Spanish who then proceeded to build the city on the same site with Spanish architecture and local rock and labour. Classic example is below.
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| Quikancha (Temple of the Sun) and the Church of Santo Domingo. Canon EOS 50D f/8, 1/250, ISO 320, 18mm. |
This church actually made me feel funny. I know that's not a very eloquent sentence but it was true. Peru in general made me a little uncomfortable, particularly Cusco. Let me explain - a warning, this is going to get a little less light-hearted and a little more serious. The dark rocks in the above photograph are what remains of the Inca site
Inti Kancha or the Inca Temple of the Sun. It was demolished by the Spaniards and replaced with a Cathedral dedicated to Santo Domingo. Inside the Cathedral are beautiful carvings covered with gold filigree, statues of Christ, intricate alters, paintings and other beautiful works of art. Our tour guide told us a story of one of the statues of Christ, who had been blackened by the candles (apparently) and how the Peruvian people worshiped him as Lord of the Earthquakes because of an incident when an earthquake stopped once the statue was brought outside. I couldn't help but think, 'this isn't the Christ I know.' This was the only recognition I saw in that country of any kind of belief in Christ, the rest of the church was dead. Spiritually dead. And so much money just sitting there in the gold with people begging on the streets. All for what? A God that the local people didn't believe in? Wouldn't God want that money to be used to build up those people, to bring healing? It was then that I realised that Christianity truly is a grassroots movement and cannot, CANNOT be implemented by any Government decree, by force, or by invasion. It doesn't work. On top of this, the cathedral was built on the foundations of the most sacred site to the Incas, the Temple of the Sun. A site considered more sacred to the local people than the church itself, a site that is better constructed than the church itself (the church fell down in the above mentioned earthquake, the temple of the sun did not). It made me sad, that the builders on this church would even associate Christ with any Inca beliefs, and would appear to try and just replace their beliefs and secondly, it was so empty! It was a museum, not used except at Easter time. It was very saddening and had a very profound impact on me as I walked through that place, it made my heart cry out for these people.
Moving on from Cusco, we visited Arequipa. Arequipa is the economic hub of Peru, it is shadowed by volcanoes and is built with white volcanic stone. It is rather an impressive city. While we were there there was some kind of rally going on at the town centre (the Spanish loved their central plazas!) so I didn't take my SLR out much. We did visit St Catalina Monastery. This was incredibly interesting. It was one of the richest monasteries in the world and has now been opened up as a tourist site. Nuns still live there, only not in the tourist section, in another section. They are not allowed to live in luxury anymore and hence, the number of nuns has dwindled. Still it was a fascinating place to visit! It is probably the place I had the most fun snapping away at the buildings as they were really interesting colours.
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| Canon EOS 50D f/5, 1/250, ISO 500, 18mm |
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| Canon EOS 50D 1/640, ISO 500, 18mm |
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| Canon EOS 50D f/4.5 1/125 ISO 500, 24 mm |
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| Canon EOS 50D f/6.3, 1/1000, ISO 500, 18mm |
