Book of my Peru images.

I just made this epic tome of my images from Peru.  I built it as a book dummy and portfolio piece.  Its about 160 pages and is being printed on high quality, Ilford Pearl Lustre paper with archival end pages, an oatmeal colored linen cover with this cool, wrap around cover sheet.  You can view it here and even order one though its damn expensive.  My concept for the book was to show different vignettes and photo stories from my 9 months of travel in Peru in 2009 and have fun, colorful chapter breaks with grids of various cultural items.  Some examples below.

The Altiplano of Peru

Mamiya C330 from the bus in the South Eastern high desert plains of Peru.

Coke and Babies

Indoctrination comes quick for Limeno newborns in a hospital in Lima, Peru.

Blessing of the Car ceremony in the Southern Andes.

Proud owner of a newly blessed car.

In my last trip to Peru I stumbled upon a ceremony where people came to have their vehicles blessed by a priest in the parking lot of a 200 year old church.  The priest from the church was going car to car and showering cars, people, engines, tires and grandmas alike with holy water as well as blessings to ensure the people safe travel.  The church, located up a mountain from San Salvador in a tiny enclave named Huanca, hosts the ceremony every year and the 200 or so people had driven from all around Southern Peru.

 

The 200 year old church which hosts the ceremony is an hour East of Cusco, the city in the South of Peru that one goes to before venturing on to Machu Picchu.

Elder Andean women celebrating the ceremony by passing cups of beer.

Firecrackers were ubiquitous in the church parking lot.

The priest of the church bestowed blessings and holy water on the cars, its parts in entirety (engine, interior, tires, etc..) and as well as all of the family members.

In a side building off of the parking lot where candles are lite for prayers or in memorium.  (Note the car icons formed in wax in the lower center.)

A couple with their blessed car.

The priest blesses the photographer.

Taxis, personal vehicles and giant trucks were all part of the ceremony.  (Note the womans hair tie)

Confetti, holy water and beer were poured onto the engine of this typical taxi of Southern Peru.

Entire families attended the ceremonies.  (Note the man in the background at right pouring a beer onto the engine.)

The typical dress of Andean women mixes Andean and Spanish influences.

More recent images from Peru.

Here is some film images from my recent three week trip to Peru.  These are all from Peru’s capital city of Lima.  Pizarro founded the city in 1535 in the valleys of three conjoined rivers, hence the overcast and smoggy air quality as the surrounding desert mountains don’t let the air circulate out to the ocean.  Its said to be a dangerous place but I really dig it.  Its medieval, depressed, gritty and alive…much more then the more up-scale suburbs that most tourists and Limenos prefer.

New images from recent trip to Peru.

Just returned the other day from my second jaunt to the land of my girlfriend.  Spent 3 weeks, a couple in Lima then a week in the south where my moms and I tackled a day on the famed Inca Trail and then took in Machu Picchu.  Twice in 9 months..never thought that would happen..so don’t need to go there for about 5 years but lots more to see in Peru. I would like to visit a more recently discovered ruin in the north named “Kuelap” that is said to rival Machu Picchu and gets just a handful of tourists.  Also, the deserts of Ica are amazing for paleontology.  Take a walk back in there and u will literally stumble on exposed whale skeletons.

All the images here are from my G9 Point and Shoot.  I shot 20 rolls of film but haven’t gotten them souped yet.  The images are actually in the chronological order I shot them starting on Dec 21 to Jan 11th.  Lots more to come…

Step out of the seclusion of the up-scale areas of Lima (a city of 11 million) and this is a typical street corner with fairly typical people in Peru, excluding the highlands (the Andean regions) or in the Amazon.

Unintentional art installation from third world telephone wiring

Sunset at the beach two hours south of Lima. Colors have not been tweaked.

Clowns are all the rage at parties in Lima these days. They come in mid-party and pass out balloons and shit. We made a crazy hat which we were obsessed with doing for at least an hour...New Years night, from about 2-3am.

Flash lighting up water in the air at the beach during a quick New Years ceremony on the beach before sunrise.

These ghosts haunted us on our way back to the crib.

Paracas, a chain of islands off the Southern coast of Peru. Labeled the "poor mans galapagos" by Lonely Planet, its populated by tons of birds and fat little penguins. 100 years ago the tens of thousands of tons of bird guano was harvested there every year was Peru's richest exportable resource. It still is 5o meters deep on the islands and groups of men live on the islands for periods of four months at a time harvesting it every year.

A gorgeous lake in the desert isn't impervious to the spoils of Coke.

Controlled(?) burn off the Pan-American Sur on way back to Lima. Would of pulled over if I was driving..love the arrangement of people

Had Chicharron for breakfast. Super tasty/super greasy ham sandwiches.

Pigeons at the San Fransisco Church in Central Lima. The catacombs below it house 100's of mid-evil skeletons.

On our way up to a giant jesus statue on the top of mountain in Central Lima.

Lima.

Street scene in outer neighborhood of Lima.

Tico taxi's, a Korean mini, are ubiquitous in the south of Peru. This was in Cusco, the mid-evil city which one departs from to Machu Picchu

3 Andean girls descending from their mountain village south of Cusco.

It rained on my dear mum and I for about 5 hours on our hike on the Inca Trail. This was an amazing blossom off of a yucca plant, probably 15 ft high.

Even on our one day hike of the normally 4 day hike of the Inca trail, we still witnessed changes in Eco-systems. Here, we rounded the corner into a cloud forest valley with waterfalls just down the way. Was one of the most stunning natural settings I have ever laid my fairly well traveled feet.

Cloud Forest

Winay-Wayna ruin. Only accessible from the Inca Trail. Pre-Colombian Inca ruin with a huge amphitheater of terraced farming, 3 hours from Machu Picchu.

A bromeliad growing on a moss covered tree in the cloud forest.

The feet of an Andean porter on the Inca trail. His sandals are made from car tires.

Machu Picchu.

Llama at Machu Picchu. The flashy earrings are so the owners can tell them apart in a herd as they roam.

Survey of beef heads in market in Cusco.

Gordo nino en la mercado en Cusco.

Andean women of different regions wear different style of hats. This woman had such serious business concerning the man in the picture she is holding that I could freely shoot this usually camera shy culture.

This was a hilarious attempt of Chicken Cordon Bleu. The restaurant was called "Gordon Blue" and it was the house specialty so I gave it a try. 15/soles which was $5.00. The ham was baloney and the cheese was a white farmers fresh cheese so didn't really work but chicken was fried deliciously but jesus, they were nuts! That's a ton of food!!. Clockwise from Chicken at bottom: Choclo, the giant corn of Peru. Fresh cut french fries. Salad with strips of the fresh cheese, white rice with a poached egg, fried plantain.

View of mountains across from Machu Picchu.

The Urubamba river flows by Machu Picchu on its way north 450 miles to meet up with the Amazon river and then flows east to the Atlantic. This is the same river that the community I worked with in the amazon lived next to. At this point, the river is still near its headwaters in the high Andean mountains but its making its way down into the rain forest.

Pentecostal church in Cusco, Peru

On the way back thru Cusco (the city in Southern Peru which is where u go to see Machu Picchu) from a day trip to the “Sacred Valley” and ruins around the area I noticed a run down theatre type building that was really packed at 10pm. It was part of the city I was not familiar with but walked back where I thought it was and found myself at a Pentecostal church that had just let out.  I came back the next night to photograph after being invited by the priest.  An issue that troubles me is the spreading of christianity to indigenous peoples around the world.  I feel strongly that fragile cultures are and have been (as its been going on for ever) destroyed by the onslaught of the powerful foreign dogma pushed on them from the “saved”.  10,000 year old cultures being poisoned by evangelical freak faith pushers.  I hope to explore this topic in the near future.

(notice the llama on this young guys sweater)

(Andean women wear different hats according to their cultural sect.. This one, which had been placed on the floor, is one of the infamous, white, super hard top-hats).

Shots from the bus on way to Lake Titicaca.

Lake Titicaca, one of the worlds highest lakes (12,500ft.) sits on the border of Bolivia and Peru.  It was quite beautiful.   And the 9 hour drive on the bus from Cusco was equally as beautious….rolling hills, snow-capped peaks, villages, valleys, etc…

Centro Lima with the hulking Mamiya C330

Centro Lima is a pretty cool place as long as you can ignore the multitude of warnings almost everybody gives you about how dangerous it is.  Even people on the street stop you to tell you not to walk with a camera out.  Never had an issue in the 8 months I walked its streets.  This is black and white 120 Kodak T-Max 100 ISO.

Cayman in the market…

This little hog-tied pre-historic reptile was in the Belen market in Iquitos.  It was nice to get with-in inches from an animal you would never really get to see let alone study but it was bitter-sweet, as it sucks seeing a beautiful animal waiting to die in such a manner.