‘The more you knew of South America, the more you would understand that anything was possible – anything.’

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World

I love travel photography and sometimes I see someone’s work that just amazes and humbles me.

Here’s a selection of work from South American photographers that have recently caught my eye:

Claudio Edinger

São Paolo based Brazilian photographer Claudio Edinger has a stunning series of black and white photos of Rio de Janiero. The look of the photos is quite special because they were taken on a 4×5 camera. This unwieldy beast is difficult and time-consuming to use, especially compared to 35mm cameras. The pay off is that the extra-large negatives produce beautiful prints and that the shift and tilt movements of the lens can create some extraordinary selective focussing effects, which can be seen in Edinger’s photos.

I also like his colour photos of Bahia and Old Havana/India.

Martín Chambi

Born in 1891 in Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Peru, Martín Chambi moved to Cusco as a young man and became a photographer. His subjects range from the Cusco’s social and political elite to the lives of the local peasants and the landscapes and ruins of the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

The eyes of the people he photographed stare out of his hauntingly beautiful black and white photos like ghosts from the past. You can see them here, here and here.

Pablo Corral Vega

Ecuadorian photojournalist Pablo Corral Vega presents his photos on his website in slideshows accompanied by music. I especially like his portfolios The Andes and Tango.

Sebastian Belaustegui

Born in Argentina, now based in Mexico, Sebastian Belaustegui photographs the indigenous peoples of Latin America. In 2003 he published a book called ‘Guardienes del Tiempo’ (Gaurdians of Time) for which he travelled through 10 countries and lived with 25 indigenous communities. Now he’s working on a new project documenting the influence of African culture in the Americas.

You can see his work at his website.

I’ll be exploring the theme of travel photography a little more over the next few weeks. I’ll be writing a little about the story behind the Travel Photographer of the Year Competition and will be interviewing some of the past winners. I’ll also be reviewing some travel books that I’ve recently read including Tim Butcher’s ‘Blood River’ and Hugh Thomson’s ‘The White Rock’.

In August 2004 I spent a few days in a charming, remote village called Iruya in northwest Argentina. Imagine my surprise when I recognised the town in Guiness’ latest TV ad. A quick search on google confirmed that the location was indeed Iruya, that the ad is Guiness’ most expensive to date, and that the entire campaign cost a colossal ten million pounds (approximately 20 million US dollars).

The ‘making of’ video (see below) reveals that the makers of the ad spent a month in Iruya, 150 crew were there for two weeks and that they bought in 130 extras from 5 neigbouring villages. This is in a town with a population of only 1000 people.

The ad agency (AMV/BBDO) that made the video are from the UK. They used a Dutch company called Domino Domain to create the domino tipping sequence. Iruya’s a long way from Europe, fairly obviously, and to get to there you first need to fly to the Andean city of Salta (approx. 14 hours) , then take a bus to the town of Humahuaca (approx. 5 hours) then finally another bus to Iruya, which is 48km away on a narrow dirt track (approx. 3 hours - it’s hard going).

Then there’s the altitude. Humahuaca is 3000 metres above sea level, Iruya is a little lower at 2780 metres, and the road in between at one point reaches 4000 metres. That means that the people in Iruya are nearly three kilometres or two miles up in the air. There’s planes that don’t go that high, I’m sure, and trust me, until you acclimatise, it’s hard to breathe.

Not only did they have to get all the people involved in the project to Iruya, but all the equipment too. This included all the camera and filming equipment, 10 000 books, 7000 dominoes, 400 tyres, 50 fridges, 70 wardrobes and six cars. For this they needed 26 trucks.

So, after spending 10 million pounds and making all that effort, was it worth it? Take a look at the video and decide for yourself:

And this is the ‘making of’ video:

Now, in one way I’m kind of sad to see the ad because one of the wonderful things about visiting Iruya for me is that it’s such a remote and magical place. I hope it stays that way.

Here are some of the black and white photos that I took when I stayed in the village. Incidentally, the room that I stayed in cost me only 7 argentine pesos a night. That’s a little over one pound or two dollars.

And someone spent 10 million pounds making an ad for Guiness there? I don’t know about you but I think that’s a little crazy.

Photo Essay: Iruya, Provincia de Salta, northwest Argentina

This is how Iruya looks when you approach it along the dirt road from Humahuaca.

This print can be purchased from Imagekind.

The village’s main plaza.

Photos from the village.

I took these photos on a the edge of the village in the late evening. The dirt track leads to the next village, San Isidro, some 5 kilometres away. It’s only accessible by 4WD or by walking. In the summer, which is the wet season here, the road is impassable for vehicles and supplies are taken to the village by donkey.

I met these children while walking outside the village.

Kids playing football on a dusty field. No grass here.

The village’s cemetery.

The day I arrived in Iruya coincided with a local festival. I’m not sure exactly what the purpose of it all was but I know that the fiestas in this region date back to before European settlement. The people in these villages are descended from the indigenous peoples that lived here before the Spanish came. Their festivals typically are a combination of pre-colombian and catholic elements.

All these photos are Copyright © Andrew Gibson and are available for use under Rights Managed licenses. Please contact me for further information.

Book Review: In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

At the beginning of 2007 I was working on a cruise ship sailing between Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, and Valparaiso in Chile. In between, stretching from Rio Negro province in Argentina more than 2000 kilometres (1600 miles) to Cape Horn, and spread out over the southern territories of the two countries, lies the vast land of Patagonia.

Some 33 years before an Englishman zig-zagged his way south from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego, and north again into Chile, in search of a cave from where his great uncle Charley Milward sent to England a scrap of reddish skin from the remains of a prehistoric Mylodon. His name was Bruce Chatwin, and the book that he wrote about the journey, ‘In Patagonia‘, became a classic.

I read it with some interest, because I’ve been to a lot of the places that Chatwin visited.

Chatwin’s book reads like a travelogue, yet in reality is a mixture of fact and fiction, and the author referred to it as a novel. There’s a lot of meticulously researched history in the book, which goes much further than just simple observations of what the author saw.

Chatwin had a great talent for talking to people, and a knack of uncovering interesting and rather odd stories in unlikely and out of the way places. His anecdotes are populated by an eccentric cast of characters. He explored some of the places where these things happened, often finding people that knew the characters in the stories, providing a link from past events to the present.

This historic parade includes characters such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Charles Darwin, Jeremy Button, and of course his great uncle Charley Milward.

A scene from Punta Arenas, Chile, one of the towns that Chatwin passed through

I like to imagine Chatwin as a slightly scruffy and eccentric Englishman, with a camera, a notebook, a sleeping bag and a few possessions in a small backpack. Dirty from the road, and not bothered about sleeping rough out in the open or on a straw mattress in a barn, and willing to walk for miles to follow up a story or meet someone interesting.

Chatwin’s novel has a deep air of sadness. The cast of his book typically are European emigrants that made their way to South America decades before, and cling to their traditions and way of life, wistfully asking about life in the old country. There’s a deep sense of melancholy, wasted lives and lost opportunities.

He contrasts this with stories of the regions’ indigenous people, subjugated by European colonisation and often living in abject poverty.

The towns in the region have changed a lot since Chatwin’s visit. This is the Ushuaia of his novel:

‘The blue-faced inhabitants of this apparently childless town glared at strangers unkindly. The men worked in a crab-cannery or in the navy yards, kept busy by a niggling cold war with Chile. The last house before the barracks was a brothel.’

How times have changed. Ushuaia is still a small but growing town, catering for tourists that come during summer to see Tierra del Fuego National Park or for boat trips to nearby Antarctica (only 1100 kilometres away). It’s a welcoming, friendly place despite the eternally cold climate.

Now, from a photographer’s point of view, Patagonia is an amazing destination. Tierra del Fuego National Park for example, close to Ushuaia, is stunningly beautiful. I certainly intend to return one day and explore more of this wild and lonely region.

Perhaps the most stunning scenery in these parts is the mountains near Torres del Paine National Park. Photographer Bruce Percy has travelled there many times. He has stunning photos and a very interesting blog, which I recommend you read.

To sum up, ‘In Patagonia’ is a captivating blend of travelogue, personal fiction and history, written in a laconic style that faithfully expresses the oddness of Patagonia’s vast and often bleak landscapes, and even odder people and history. Recommended.

I came across Adam Blenford’s blog StampCollector and I was immediately intrigued by his posts about Argentina, especially this one and this one. They’re interesting, well researched and intelligently written. It’s no surprise then that he turns out to be a journalist on a six month trip around South America. I was curious to learn about how a journalist with a camera approaches photography. I asked, and here’s the interview:

Coming here has been an ambition of mine for several years now, ever since I first realised that because I studied Spanish at school I would be able to get by and hopefully communicate with people in their language. My passion for photography has grown since I first thought of coming here, so it’s a perfect opportunity to travel with my girlfriend for six months, improve my Spanish and improve my photography.

Photographically the aim of the trip is to come back with a bunch of sellable images.

What’s your most memorable photographic experience so far in South America?

There have been lots, not all of them memorable because they were great. Overall, the sheer difficulty of dealing with changing or unfavourable weather conditions has been a real education for me. I’ll never forget trying to fix filters to the front of the camera in gale-force Patagonian winds, or lugging my tripod up to the summit of the Torres del Paine before sunrise, only to be forced down again by a vicious hailstorm at 5.45am.

As a one-off event, though, running through the Good Friday parade in Quito, Ecuador, snapping the thousands of marchers wearing purple hoods ranked pretty highly for me.

How would you describe your photographic vision? What kind of look/atmosphere/feel do you try and create in your photos?

I blanch a bit a questions like that - I’m still happy if the shot is well-exposed and in focus, but of course I know what you mean. I shoot a lot of different type of subjects, so the specific aim changes, but in general I take a photojournalistic approach to the world, even if the subject isn’t journalism. I want to portray the world as it really is, not staged, not artificial, not Photoshopped.

When did you start taking photos and why? What attracted you to photography?

I’ve always travelled with a camera, ever since I was a teenager, but I didn’t start getting serious about my pictures until I tried a stint as a freelance reporter in the Middle East in 2003 and it seemed sensible to be able to provide images as well. Since then I’ve steadily taught myself the basics and gradually worked my way up through different types of consumer digital cameras to the Nikon DSLR and the bag of lenses I’m currently heaving around South America. It’s addictive, and because I still love to travel there is always more motivation to take better pictures.

How does your journalism experience affect your photography? I see a definite story-telling approach on your blog.

To me it’s almost impossible to separate the two. Although I began life as a words man, I now see exactly how easy - or important - it is to tell a story through the right pictures. And while some of my pictures are “just” landscape images, which should stand or fall on their own, to me each day out taking pictures or each town you visit has it’s own story. I still love to use words so if I’m competent with both it’s a great combination for storytelling.

Tell us a little about your lomo photos? What attracted you to this style of photography?

This one I can’t claim to be my own fetish. Several of my close friends have shot Lomo for years now, and I saw enough very cool pictures to put one of their cameras in my bag for this trip. There’s a lot good about Lomo pictures - using film, for one, gives a totally different feel, and the fact it is so small makes it easy to take candid street shots. Plus it’s the colours and the whole look and feel of the images - everything looks different when you use a Lomo, and it almost feels more honest than the digital image.

What’s your favourite place for photography that you’ve been to so far in South America?

I went crazy just the other day when we found a square in the centre of Guayaquil, Ecuador, which is overrun with free-roaming iguanas. It was like being in the Galapagos Islands (something we passed on) in the middle of a city. They were crazy, ugly, ancient looking things, and they had no problem with a zoom lens shoved right at them!

How do you approach people to ask to take their photos? It’s my experience that local people can be hostile or suspicious to westerners with cameras. How do you overcome this?

It’s tough, and it varies from country to country. In India, for example, people rarely refuse a photo, and a little smile usually wins them over. Here, though, people can be touchy, especially indigenous or native people. I’m not keen on offering money, but I’m prepared to do it if I think the picture will be outstanding. Otherwise I like to ask, in Spanish, try and build up a little rapport with them or their friends, and get their permission. I don’t take pictures of people who say no, although I do occasionally use the long lens or shoot from the hip if I don’t think they know I’m looking. Trying to catch people acting natural is one of the hardest skills. I probably don’t have as many good portrait or people shots as I want, to be honest.

What advice would you give anyone planning a six month trip in terms of planning and photographic equipment? How does one make the best of the opportunities?

Don’t neglect all the “other bits” - I have a computer to process and store the images, a backup hard disk, an iPod as extra backup, sensor cleaning equipment, rocket blower, tripod, filters, the whole lot. And that’s before you count the camera, the lenses, and the bag. Work out what you want out of the trip, look at what you can afford - one all-purpose lens, or several specialised lenses? - and do your research properly.

It can get tiring on the road constantly seeing new photo opportunities, but I’ve got used to not carrying my DSLR all the time. Sometimes it’s just not photo time, although that’s when the Lomo comes in useful…

Who are your three favourite photographers and why?

I love Robert Frank’s black and white street photography and I admire the photography of people like AP’s Vietnam veteran Horst Fass, who I interviewed last year for the BBC. Of course there are others, but I’ll skimp on choosing one and say the online community at Flickr, many of whom are supremely talented and inventive and who either work simply for fun or for very little reward. Just having access to that body of work for free online makes us all better photographers.

How has your trip so far changed you? What have you learnt and how do you see the world differently after your experiences so far?

I’ve learned a lot about my photography, especially that things aren’t always going badly when I think they are, and I’ve improved my technique and honed my eye a bit, I hope. I don’t know about seeing the world differently but I’m not too keen to live out of a backpack for six months for a while!

And finally…your dream journalistic/photographic assignment. What would it be?

I’m on it at the moment - I’m editor, journalist and photographer all rolled into one!

 Adam’s blog:  StampCollector

Sunset at Punta Sal, Peru - one of my latest pictures

Good Friday parade in Quito, Ecuador

Colombian soldier in Popayan - I had previously taken his portrait with permission and then took this shot as well.

Macro shot from the forest near Banos, Ecuador

Lomo shot taken while at lunch on a dive trip in Colombia - cross-processed film

All photos Copyright © Adam Blenford. Please contact the photographer for permission to use in any way.

A quick guide to creating diptyches and triptyches in Photoshop CS 3 and a nifty tip for visually tying the images together.

Browsing on Flickr a few weeks ago I came across a beautiful set of diptyches. Why do I like them so much? I think it’s because there’s a visual resonance between two wonderful photos that share a mood. Together, they become an object of beauty, a work of art that is greater than it’s parts.

Or perhaps it’s just because I’m not used to seeing photos juxtaposed in this way. Take a look at one of my favourites and see what you think.

These photos inspired me to try my hand at making some diptyches (and triptyches) of my own. The first thing was to choose images that not only go went together but enhanced each other. This is a very personal decision, and I looked for photos whose colours and tones complemented each other well.

This is what I came up with:

I took these photos in Colonia del Sacramento, a beautiful colonial town in the south of Uruguay.  I wanted to convey something of the dreamlike, mysterious atmosphere I found there.

These photos were taken in Chascomus, a small colonial town in the country some 120km from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. I took a lot of close-ups of flowers and architectural details.

Make Your Own Diptych or Triptych

Combining photos to make your own diptych or triptych is pretty easy with photoshop:

• Make all the photos exactly the same height.
• Choose one of the photos.
• Set the background colour to white.
• Image -> Canvas Size
• Set the width to the combined width of both (or all three) photos. Click the middle arrow on the left hand side of the anchor and press OK.
• Copy one of the other photos and paste it on top of the first photo.
• Do the same with the third photo if you’re making a triptych.
• Line the photos up with the move tool until no white spaces are showing, then flatten the image to save space and save the photo under a new name.

I found it took some juggling of different combinations before I found the arrangements I liked best.

Now, one last tip to draw the photos together:

• Draw an oval with the elliptical marquee tool (see the diagram below).  
• Select -> Refine Edge
• Set feather to 250 pixels and adjust the contract/expand slider until you have a selection that looks something like the red area in the diagram below. Press OK.
• Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Levels
• Move the middle slider to the right to gently darken the edges of the triptych (or diptych). This technique is based on the darkroom technique of darkening the edges of a print to draw the eye towards the centre.
• When you’re happy, flatten the image and save.

What do you think of this technique? Send me the links to your diptyches and triptyches and I’ll post them here. Share your comments below.

Links to Triptyches

Andrew McConnochie

 
All photos Copyright © Andrew Gibson. All the photos are availabe for use under Rights Managed Licenses.. Please contact me to ask for permission to use in any way.

It seemed simple enough to get to San Antonio de Areco from La Plata, a relatively easy journey of 150 kilometres or so by bus in 2-3 hours from La Plata. In a country with so many cities a 20-40 hour bus trip from the capital, this is short.  What we didn’t realise, until it was too late, is that our bus wasn’t going directly but instead made lots of stops not only between La Plata and Buenos Aires but in the south and west of the capital, in dead end places that I’d never heard of and that no-one in their right mind would go to. It was like a never ending excursion through the drabbest and dreariest that Buenos Aires has to offer.

But when, nearly five and a half hours later, we arrived in San Antonio de Areco, the destination was worth it.  After suffering through a mini heatwave in La Plata, it was wonderful to feel the fresher air of the country (the arrival of a cold front had helped too).  I don’t like towns and cities much (the only city I’ve visited that I think I could live in for any length of time is New York City), I like open spaces, trees, mountains, nature and fresh air. I like the slower pace of life, and to slip into the rhythm of the days from morning until evening. I like the smell of rain in the summer. I like to hear the birds singing, to walk in streets without traffic, and to eat my breakfast outside where I can smell the grass and trees.

We walked from the bus terminal to the centre of the town and soon found a hotel to stay in. San Antonio de Areco is known for it’s colonial buildings, and has a large central plaza lined with trees. A pretty little church faces one side of the plaza and there is an inviting bar on the corner with tables and chairs outside in the shade of the trees.

I think the plazas that nearly every Argentinian town, city and village seems to have are an excellent idea. During the day they are peaceful and shady, and in the evening they become a focal point where people can walk, relax and socialise.

San Antonio de Areco is also known for it’s pulperías and boliches, picturesque bars maintained in a colonial style by the owners. The pulperías and boliches in the town are genuinely old, not modern creations nostalgicly imitating times past. There’s a subtle difference between the two. Pulperías are where people go to have a drink, are found only in the country and attract an older clientele. In boliches it’s also possible to eat and to dance and they attract younger people.

The town is also famous for it’s gauchos – the Argentinian cowboys famed for their horsemanship, hard work and love of the countryside. It’s a powerful, romantic image, attractive I think because of their strong sense of identity and purpose in a celebrity obsessed and possession orientated culture.

Every Friday afternoon, a group of gauchos attend a fogón by the river that runs through the north end of the town.  A fogón is a meeting, a time and a place where the gauchos can relax and chat with each other, have lunch and a drink and play taba (a traditional game). San Antonio de Areco is a popular tourist destination in Argentina, and this particular fogón is organised for the benefit of the tourists that come here. A local restaurant supplies the meat for the asado (Argentinian barbecue), and the gauchos are happy to chat with and be photographed by anyone that comes along. They were a very friendly bunch of people and most of them belonged to the same family.

In the evenings we wandered around the town, ate in colonial style restaurants, and I enjoyed myself taking photos of the old buildings illuminated by artificial light as night fell. In the mornings we woke late and ate breakfast outside, in the fresh air, near the river where we could smell the grass and the trees, just how I like it.

A gaucho in traditional dress, eating at the fogón.

A gaucho stirs the fire for the asado (barbecue) while his companions play taba in the background.

Close up of a gaucho, showing elements of his traditional dress including leather boots, the riestra  (a belt covered with coins) and bombachas (loose fitting trousers). 

A stirrup on one of the horses.

Another portrait of a gaucho showing the traditional dress. This photo is available to purchase as a Fine Art Print (or greetings cards) exclusively through Imagekind.

Los Principios - an almacen (grocery store) and bar. One of the oldest in San Antonio de Areco, it has been in this building since 1920.

 Los Principios Almacen and Bar - this time showing the bar area.

The Boliche de Bessonart at night. I mounted the camera on a tripod and used a slow shutter speed to create this photo. The lights of passing cars are recorded as red trails in the photo.

The photos are copyright © Andrew Gibson. Please contact me for permission to use in any way. The photos are available for licensing under a Rights Managed license.

Last Sunday we took the bus from La Plata to Buenos Aires to visit the neighbourhoods of La Boca and San Telmo. La Boca (Spanish for ‘The Mouth’) is a working class barrio (‘neighbourhood’) on the mouth of the Río Riachuelo known for it’s colourful wooden houses, it’s football team (Boca Juniors) and for being the birthplace of the tango and of Lunfardo, the colourful slang spoken by Porteños (residents of Buenos Aires).

It’s a place where the observant visitor can look beyond the attractions and see some of  the reality of the poverty that many residents of Buenos Aires live in. The barrio is known for it’s ‘conventillos’,  houses with several families living together inside.

It’s also a popular tourist attraction, especially ‘El Caminito’, a street with colourful houses, cafes, restaurants, art galleries and tango dancers. On this hot summer Sunday afternoon, it was very busy, with a mixture of Argentine and foreign visitors.

The home of  Benito Quinquela Martín, the barrio’s most famous artist, has been converted into a fascinating museum displaying some of his large, atmospheric paintings of the neighbourhood. This is well worth a visit.

The last time I visited La Boca was on a cold winter’s day nearly 6 years ago, and I have to say I preferred that experience , with far less people around it was possible to absorb the atmosphere and appreciate the place more.

Then we caught the bus to nearby San Telmo, another of Buenos Aires famous barrios. The Feria de San Telmo is held every Sunday in the Plaza Dorrego, the stalls selling souvenirs and antiques. I like the Plaza Dorrego, it’s very atmospheric and a good place to come for a drink or a coffee in one of the old bars that line the square. 

We arrived as the stall holders were closing down for the day, and there were so many people around it was nearly impossible to see anything easily or take photos. We walked around a little, had a coffee in one of the bars then watched a couple dancing tango in the square.

We looked at apartments advertised for sale in San Telmo in an estate agent’s window. They started from $US50,000 and we saw one beautiful apartment advertised at an incredible $US660,000. San Telmo is marketed to foreigners as an up and coming, bohemian neighbourhood; the markerteers conveniently forgetting to mention the quite obvious poverty in the area.

We’ve just come back from a few days in San Antonio de Areco,  a small, picturesque town in the country near Buenos Aires, famous for it’s colonial buildings and guachos . The photos will be online soon.

Standby for a special announcement tomorrow…A project I’m quite excited about.

Tango Dancers posing for the tourists in La Boca. 

The Historical Wax Museum, La Boca.

The colourful houses of La Boca. The tradition dates back to the Genoese heritage of the barrio’s early inhabitants. They were poor and worked mostly in the nearby port, and used paint left over from painting boats to paint their houses. There was never enough paint to paint one house in all one colour so they became multi-coloured.

Statue ‘La Madre’ by Juan B Leone in La Boca.

Lili with over sized figure, La Boca.

More oversized figures, La Boca.

Dancing the tango for tourists in La Boca.

These four photos show goods for sale in the Galeria de la Defensa, San Telmo.

Dancing the tango in the Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo.

The photos are copyright © Andrew Gibson. Please contact me for permission to use in any way. The photos are available for licensing under a Rights Managed license.

I fly a lot but it still seems strange to me that it’s possible to board a plane and a few hours later land in a different country, where everything from the weather to the living conditions and even the season are different.Travelling by car or by ship the changes in landscape, climate and culture are gradual. Arriving by plane throws you suddenly into a new environment.

My first day in Argentina was spent getting used to the abrupt change in season (from winter to summer) and taking some photos in La Plata. The prettiest part of the La Plata is the Plaza Moreno, the large square in front of the Cathedral. Here are a couple of photos:

The photos are copyright © Andrew Gibson. Please contact me for permission to use in any way. The photos are available for licensing under a Rights Managed license.

Here are some of my favourite travel photos from the last few months or so, and the stories behind them.

I saw these angel ornaments for sale in a church (La Iglesia y Convento de la Merced - I think) in Antigua, Guatemala. Guatemala is a very colourful country. I liked the colours of the angels and the texture of the wall behind them.

Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is one of my favourite places to take photos. Every time I go I see something new. It looks especially magical in black and white.

I was walking around San Juan del Sur, a small coastal village on the Pacific Ocean in southwest Nicaragua. I walked past this house and the girl with the purple top pulled faces at me when she saw my camera. I asked if I could take their photo.

The Salinas Grandes in northwest Argentina are enormous salt flats high in the Andes. The salt is excavated by Quechua workers, local indigenous people descended from the Incas.

I like the bright colours of tropical places. I saw these blue, red and gray tiles on a doorstep in the town of Rivas in southwest Nicaragua.

Central Park in autumn is a wonderful place to take photos. There’s a famous black and white photo of this ice rink and I wanted to see the location for myself. I love the way the skyscrapers are so brilliantly clear in the cold autumn air.

I came across this old car in the village of Puerto Chivica in Bolivia. The village is very remote and located on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats. I don’t know why the tyre is covered, perhaps to protect it from the harsh weather.

My girlfriend Lili trying on traditional clothing in Antigua, Guatemala.

A table and chair in a coffe shop in Santa Rosa de Tastil, Provincia de Salta in Argentina. We stopped in the village on our way to the Salinas Grandes, on an organised excursion from the city of Salta. Life in these remote Andean villages can be simple and basic, but peaceful.

Sports day for schoolchildren in Tupiza, Bolivia. The day was part of a series of sports events organised by the country’s president, Evo Morales, to protest at the FIFA ban against world cup qualifying matches at high altitude. He wanted to prove that sports like football can be played at high altitude. Tupiza is nearly 3000 metres above sea level.

These photos are available for licensing from Alamy and PhotoShelter.

 All photos Copyright © 2008 Andrew Gibson 

Everywhere Mag is the latest creation from the publishes of JPG Mag. The basic idea is the same, the site’s registered users can upload photos and articles, other users vote for them and the best make it into the printed edition. But where JPG Mag covers all types of photography, Everywhere Mag is about travel.

It’s a cool concept that I like. Here’s my Photo Essay on Everywhere Mag:

La Fiesta de Casabindo, Argentina: Man Vs Bull

And here’s the article:

La Fiesta De Casabindo, Argentina: Man Versus Bull

So, my journey began. I gathered information when I took a day-trip on the Tren a las Nubes. One of the guides had been there. “Listen,” he said. “I went two years ago. I had a great time, but the only way to get to Casabindo, if you don’t have a car, is to hitch a lift on a truck from Abra Pampa. The trucks provide transit for people who have things to sell.”

Casabindo, I was learning, is a difficult trek. It’s breathless - 3500 metres or so high in the Argentinean Andes, in the remote province of Jujuy. The only access is by dirt track.

I made my way to Humahuaca, the nearest town on the tourist trail, and was fortunate to not only find a room, but a tour company taking a car to Casabindo. We arrived Sunday morning, after a bumpy three hour drive, in a small village of primitive mud-brick huts and a large crowd that included market vendors, photographers and even a TV camera crew.

Following a morning of ceremonies, the bullfighting commenced. Picture the scene: a lone torero (bullfighter) in the middle of a dusty plaza, a ragged piece of cloth in his hands, surrounded by people sitting jammed together on a low stone wall that surrounds the square. A large, black angry bull stares at the torero, dust billowing as it scrapes its front hoof on the hard ground.

The object is not, like in Spain, to kill the bull, but for the torero to prove his bravery by snatching a red headband sewn with silver coins (the vincha) from between its horns. The vincha is later given as an offering to the Virgin.

As the torero crouched, cloth in hand, he moved closer to the bull. Dressed in plain blue jeans and an old jumper, the bullfighter wasn’t a trained and sequin-suited showman like the Spanish bullfighters, but an ordinary villager.

Head lowered until its horns nearly scraped the ground, eyes glistening, the bull charged the torero. The first two bulls had been quite tame, almost disinterested, and the toreros had easily taken the vinchas. But this one was big and angry! The torero had a problem and I couldn’t see how he could get close enough to grab the vincha without being hurt or even killed. We watched awestruck as the torero approached the bull again and again, each time narrowly avoiding slashing horns or flaying hoofs by spinning away or fooling the bull with a wave of his cloth. Then, perhaps frustrated at not catching his prey, the bull turned towards the stone wall on the other side of the plaza, and charged, jumping it with a single powerful leap. He went straight through the spectators atop the wall, sending them flying backwards in a tangle of limbs, where they crashed to a landing on the other side, out of our sight.

We couldn’t see what was happening, but we heard screams and saw panicked movement. After about ten minutes all grew calm. Evidently no one was seriously hurt, because another bull was driven into the plaza for the torero. None of the other bulls were as angry or dangerous as the one we’d just witnessed and the bullfighting and vincha grabbing continued relatively peacefully until dusk.

This is a journey that will always remain etched in my mind.

Scenes from the Toreo de La Vincha, Casabindo