While I was in Bolivia, I was taken to a remote village where no tourists go.

jose007

The ‘road’ to the village was a test of nerves, even though we were in a 4WD vehicle. What surprised me the most was that when we got there, I couldn’t help but notice a bus that had managed to travel the same impassible road.

I stayed for a long weekend, under the stars, in my tent, very, very cold for the first night. The family I was staying with offered me a Llama skin to put over my sleeping bag. It was rather heavy but a welcome reprieve from the high altitude cold.

Anyway, I’m digressing a wee bit here as I attempt to set the scene for this shot.

This is a picture of José. He’s a farmer of Alpaca and Llama. His sister and brother all live in the same farm and he has never been to La Paz or to any other town outside of his small village. I woke up on the first morning there to find him standing in his doorway watching everyone, like he’d never seen people before. I introduced myself and asked him for his picture. What I loved about the whole exchange was that he had no preconceptions of how to stand, how to look and didn’t go into that terrible ‘cheese’ mode that most people go into when presented with a camera. He simply didn’t change one bit, so this is a shot of him, with me standing perhaps about a foot away from him.

I love the shallow DOF when using the Contax 645 f2 lens up close. I think this was shot at f4 to make sure that most of his face was in focus, while at the same time, render his bomber jacket with a creamy out of focus bokeh.