Patagonia Estancia- Chile

We drove all day from Argentina into Chile. The border crossing was pretty crazy since they made us unload all bags including all camera equipment to search every bag.

The landscape is amazing and as we entered the Torres Del Paine National Park something amazing happened. We stopped to photograph the mountain range, when a herd of wild horses just walked into our photos with the mountains as a backdrop. It was surreal.

We photographed the Torres National Park landscape and wildlife for 2.5 days.  We saw wild foxes, a flock of condors, and dozens of guanacos.

We stayed 2 nights at a true Patagonia estancia in Chile. The place was amazing and very remote. We photographed gauchos herding sheep on the working ranch and the colors and backdrops were amazing for photographs. I felt like I was on the set of a Vogue magazine shoot with the perfect background of wheat fields and blue skies.

One of the highlights of my trip was riding off into the sunset across the whole ranch with the gaucho on horses. It had been so long since I had rode a horse and it was surreal to ride across the river with the mountains and glaciers as the backdrop to the ranch.

Patagonia Gauchos

Before leaving El Chaten, we were able to photograph some local gauchos (cowboys). The gauchos were the perfect models for our shoot, even doing tricks on their horses at the end of the day. The mountains and their ranch provided the perfect backdrop to capture the essence of the people in this rugged landscape.

Patagonia-Unpredictable Weather

Three days of rain really put a damper on our attempts to see the famous Fitz Roy at sunrise and sunset, but I was happy to have the rest for a few days while we stayed at the El Chalten Hotel Los Cerros. I truly felt disconnected from the world with no blackberry access and relaxed with margaritas.

Sunday, we braved the rain storm and headed out on a boat excursion to photograph Viedma Glacier. Conditions were tough in a rocking boat and driving rain, but the blue colors of the glacier were really brilliant with the cloud cover.

La Boca- Colorful Buenos Aires

Wednesday we went to La Boca to see a colorful part of Buenos Aires history. Multi-colored houses and tango dancers line the streets of La Boca. It was amazing to just sit and people watch and have some of the best chirizo and honey croissants of my life!

We photographed the colorful architecture and tango dancers in street scenes with off camera flash and soft boxes. One of my favorite photos of the trip was taken while everyone else was photographing the dancers. A young girl watched from a window above all the action and I was able to photograph her against the background of brightly colored windows as she gazed upon us.

La Boca was one of the highlights of the entire trip for me and will definitely ensure that I will return to beautiful, warm Argentina.

Tango in Buenos Aires

Bryan and I arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday for our two week photo trek with Photo Quest Adevntures (www.photoquestadventures.com) with mentor Tom Bol (www.tombolphoto.com) and our leader Mirjam Evers (www.mirjamevers.com). It is an amazing city and we started our photo trek by finding tango dancers in a local square.

We hired the dancers, Mirabai Deranja and Julio Marino, to model for a shoot in an alley at sunset and practiced lighting techniques using off camera flash. It was an amazing experience that captured the feel of the city with the cobblestone streets and dancers of Buenos Aires.