ANDES

Not only are the Andes the longest mountain chain in the world, they house such a variety of different landscapes that it would take a photographer several lifetimes to document them all. This portfolio is the result of a trip to the heart of the Andes in Northern Argentina and Chile, and Southern Bolivia. In these regions the mountains are not dramatic, sharp and angled, but rather with soft curves, forms rounded by wind and water. And full of color. An explosion of color. The landscapes are live impressionist and abstract paintings. It’s as if I was visiting the petrified entrails of the Earth, exposed by a primordial cataclysm.

The other distinguishing characteristic of these regions is their vastness - emphasised by their dryness, by the scarcity of life and the almost absence of human presence. But when you do see life, it is gracious and elegant without losing the rusticity that is essential to survival in such an extreme environment. And human presence, though rarefied like the air of the altiplano, is hard not to notice, be it through a rock corral (that can have 1, 10 ,100 or 1000 years) or a road or trail that one can see from far away, cutting through the desert.

The photographs in this gallery are an artistic vision - not documental - of this part of the Andes. I used my camera as a paintbrush, and the resulting images use a color palette that nature impressed on the scenery. These are impressionist, sometimes surreal images, but they reflect the sublime that inhabits the Andes.