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| Santiago's Cooly Wealthy & Sparkly |
Chilé's capital marks the Pacific-top of Patagonia, which forms the bottom 20% tip of South America that Chilé shares with Argentina. Starkly modern: crystal fingers erupt from Santiago's earth like glittery blue nails of a haughty latin diva. She's home to about two thirds of her country's population and fueled by Latin America's hottest economy. The city reflects its searing summer sun glaringly as a mirrored radio telescope faceted with glass and precious latin passions. Neither New York, London, nor Brussels wears a richer cloak of ambitious success.
Geek Stuff: Santiago demands a wide angle lens... It's almost impossible to step back far enough to frame any of her parts. So I screwed my EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5) onto its Canon 7D Mark II to make sense of her pieces. Then, pulling out a digital pen I sketched out the Square, a multi-tiered neighborhood restaurant, and poked between the shoulders of twin heaven-scrapers to scribble in another tower popping from the ground behind. Everywhere the throb of contractors, taxis, and people-throngs cranked up Santiago's latin pulse.
If you can make it there... you can make it anywhere.
4 comments:
I hope there is going to be a few more posts of your trip. I am enjoying this immensely.
I'm liking the sketching too.
We were astonished by the wealth of Santiago. Of course I'd researched it to learn that since Milton Friedman and his University of Chicago gang were invited to re-construct the Chilean economy that it was the soundest mechanism in America Del Sur. And it has produced a magnet for capital flows. Still the crystal tendons of the city's muscles glittered like a. diamond pile with cranes hovering over everything like hands that are seemingly pulling these massive things right out of the ground. There was no one picture that captured that impression...hence the tryptic. I'm increasingly drawn to customized tools that allow me to ignite a pile of pix into feelings. Plus the post processing is increasingly a nurturing sort of therapy.
I'm imagining a stark contrast between old and new. But maybe there isn't that much. I did find some examples using street view on Google maps but not many. In any case I am liking your work as always. It's refreshing to see a new place in a way that isn't a direct photograph. No matter how good that photograph may be.
I believe that an enormous earthquake did a job on much of the "old" of Santiago encouraging decades of "nowness" to fill in the scars, gashes, and wreckage. As I hope to demonstrate when we come to the trip's end in Buenos Aires... A massively stunning America Del Sur city can also develop around the wealthy leavings of its history in places where nature does not capriciously shudder that past into so much rubble. I'm feeling that Santiago is a magnificent do-over to a significant extent..
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