Author Archives: Andrew

After a very blustery night the forecast seemed to have been correct and the day dawned very wet and windy. We travelled to the first stop without much hope, and it appeared to be justified. As I said to Richard "to photograph the light on the mountains you first have to be able to see the mountains"!

We gave up the sunrise location and instead travelled to another waterfall, the very dramatic Cascada Paine. Even in poor light this would be a decent subject, but we were blessed, with good foreground light but also with the most amazing full arch rainbow, which persisted for as long as we were willing to photograph it.

Back at the hotel it initially looked like that might be the end of the day’s proceedings, and we settled in for a day of processing, and critiquing work we had already done. However just before lunch suddenly the sun emerged, even though the winds were still challenging, and we set out for an afternoon shoot.

The first stop was Grey Lake, of geographical interest because it’s one of the parts of the park’s lake system fed directly from a glacier, albeit one which is rapidly retreating and now a 16km boat ride from the lake proper. Indeed there was a small iceberg recently calved in the lake. However there were only limited photographic options.

On the way to dinner, however, we had a treat: a group of guanaco who were happily grazing alongside the road and who seemed content to pose for us against the mountain background.

After dinner the first stop was an overlook near the restaurant but looking back over the central plain of the park towards the mountains. Unusually there was very little cloud on the latter, and we were free to build graphic compositions based on bands of water, pampas, rock and sky. However there was a downside – the outlook is an animal rather than a human haunt, and we were dive-bombed by insects from the moment we arrived, the first time that’s been an issue on the whole trip. JoAnne had some repellent which she was happy to share, but I suspect it was for sharks not insects, at least judging by its relative ineffectiveness.

The last stop was the Weber Bridge. We all took the obligatory shot of the mountains with very little cloud, but then turned to watch a very dramatic lenticular cloud swirling, but not moving laterally, right above us, catching the sun in dramatic style.

The final day again dawned cloudy and very windy and I sat out the “sunrise” (with no sun) huddled up with a couple of others behind a rock in the lee of the wind. However on the way back to the hotel another amazing  rainbow developed above our hotel and embracing the mountains.

After breakfast we set off on the drive back to El Calafate as the first leg of various long journeys back home. The park had one final surprise for us: yet another rainbow over the Laguna Amarga, where we had photographed angry swirling clouds on the way in. It was so windy I was almost blown off my feet, but it was worth it for the final shoot.

The drive back to the border didn’t seem as bad as on the way in – I suspect they had already opened a few more miles of the new road. However whereas the usual experience is that it takes a couple of hours to get into Chile, we had the reverse – Chilean customs had been efficient in both directions, but we arrived at the Argentinian border control point with a long line of buses in both directions, and it took over 2 hours to get through. It took another hour and a half to the stop at Esperanza, by which time they were out of empanadas and down to a few uninspiring sandwiches. I had received a lot of stick for having an “elevenses” empanada with my coffee at the Chilean border, but I emerged victorious!

After the final leg back to El Calafate we got together for the “last supper” and a good time was has by all. Tomorrow I have to start on stitching together “The World’s Worst Panorama 2023”.

Today was slightly harder work. We had tricky start to the day. At the sunrise location the sunrise largely failed to materialise, but we did get light just on the peaks for a few minutes, and I got some good close-ups.

We had then been promised a location where a female puma and her cubs were working their way through a recent kill within easy sight of the road. The score: dead guanacos 1, pumas nil!

The post-breakfast shoot was productive, walking up past a dramatic waterfall to a large space filled with trees which died in the major forest fire of 2011. These make great compositional elements, either as frames for the mountains, or as primary subjects in their own right, with mountains behind.

Another lazy afternoon allowed me to catch up with my images and blog, although posting the latter was a painful process. The internet connection in Torres del Paine is not only slow, but also drops out every few minutes, causing anything which was part-way through to have to restart. When I’m back I’ll have to review my blog posting software and see if I can make it more resilient, although how I’ll test this I’m not quite sure.

I must have accidentally offended El Gauchito Gil (the Argentinian "Robin Hood" and protector of travellers), but I’m not quite sure how. However first my sandwich for lunch took almost an hour to arrive, then when we went for dinner I was served last, at which point the restaurant realised they’d got the order wrong and prepared one too many vegetarian risottos, one too few salmons. Fortunately it didn’t take them long to fix it, but I was then a bit peeved when despite their many "mea culpa"s, they insisted I break an additional large note when my available cash came up about 50p short. Not impressed.

The plan was to get back to the hotel, then go to the other side of the island to shoot sunset. However as it was by then cloudy and blowing at about 50mph I took an executive decision and decamped to the bar. Much better!

Today was a lighter day, partly to allow everyone to recover from the long drive, and specifically to make sure Gustavo stays within his driving hour limits. We went up the road about 1 mile for sunrise, with a similar view to that from the hotel, but with our hotel and a couple of interesting land spits also in view. The light was great, pink "fire" on the clouds and the mountain tops.

After breakfast (unfortunately as accurately described by Richard) we went on a guanaco hunt, looking for these charming Patagonian llamas in interesting situations, ideally with a mountain behind them or similar. They are relaxed, curious creatures, so as long as you are non-threatening you can approach moderately close without any problem. Between about four locations we all found several promising images.

Over lunch we got thinking about the ideal guanaco image, and I came up with the idea of a guanaco on a paddle board on the lake in front of the mountains. I did mention beer was being taken, didn’t i? While none of us had such an image, Dall-E was very obliging: see This is Really Scary

After a couple of relatively lazy hours lunch was followed rather quickly by an early tea. One challenge with the Osteria Pehoe is their very fixed dining hours, which are not compatible with a sunset shoot at this time of year. As a result we had to drive 3/4 hour in each direction to another restaurant outside the park, eat, and then take photos at three locations on the way back. As this is likely to be the pattern for the next couple of days we’ll have to eat more lightly at lunch so we don’t explode.

The first stop on the way back furnished views of the mountains with amazing lenticular clouds above them.

The last stop was a short distance from the hotel, showing it on its island in context with the lake and mountains. The accommodation and dining may be a challenge, but they do have their compensations!