Last week I had a cancellation for my Skye workshop, which was filled straight away, so the Skye trip is now sold out, for those of you who were considering it.

Lago Pehoe, Torres del Paine, Chile

As is the nature of having bookings taken so far in advance, things change in people’s lives and suddenly, they can’t make a trip any more. One of my participants for the Patagonia workshop can’t make it now due to a family member’s graduation, so there is now a freed up space on the Patagonia workshop.

Fox at Lago Grey, Torres del Paine, Chile

If you’d missed booking the trip when it sold out, then now is your chance to come along. It’s been a very popular trip so far, so if you want to come, have a look at the details here. It has all the information on the trip, and also the booking form should you decide to come.

First come, first served.

Anyway, today I’m writing about some very tragic news about Torres del Paine national park in Chilean Patagonia. It is one of my most favourite places in the world. But as of a few days ago, 85 sq kilometres of the park has been ravaged by a fire, which the authorities are speculating may have been caused by human intervention.

Fox at Lago Grey, Torres del Paine, Chile

Because of the nature of the park’s weather systems, it is often extremely windy there, and if the place has been dry for an extended period of time, then any camp fire (fires are not permitted in the park) can wreak havoc in the area.

It’s just such a real shame about Torres del Paine. It’s such an amazingly beautiful park.

Now, of course, the fire could have been a completely natural event. The problem is though, that if we have beautiful parks, they should be shared and visited by people. But mistakes happen, people feel they’re in control and know what they’re doing, and then a mistake happens and a fire like this rages out of control. I don’t know what the answer is for park conservation, but I certainly hope that it does not mean that some day, I can only enjoy some place like Torres from behind the glass of a tour vehicle, because legislation has gotten so tough, or we’re being so ‘nannied’, that we can’t possibly be responsible for our own actions.

I’ll be visiting Torres del Paine this June, as part of a Winter photographic trip. It will be interesting to see the amount of damage in the park when I get there, but until then, I hope that the fires in Torres del Paine will be extinguished soon.

I read his article with interest but I had a few issues with it.

Firstly, on all the travels I have made over the past 10 years, one thing has been a constant: nothing stays the same and most countries have periods of instability.

Secondly, the rest of the world is not like the west. As a westerner, we live in relatively stable environments where most of the time, things happen when we expect them to happen.

Lago Pehoe, Torres del Paine, Chile

I was aware by reading Thom’s posting that he and his group had a very tough time in Chile and that certainly, some aspects of how the country dealt with the strike could have been much better.

But the fact is, that I feel Thom’s article has done nothing but damage his own possible business of returning to Chile some day to to a future workshop, has tarnished the tourism industry in that region (from reading Thom’s posting, he feels they’ve done it to themselves, but we’re talking about a time of unrest when things happen that don’t make sense) and he’s put photographers off a region of the world for a much longer time than the strike or future strikes may occur.

Certainly, it is worth being aware of issues in a part of the world if you are planning on visiting, and making your plans being fully informed is no bad thing. But his article came over as overly-sensationalist, particularly his use of the word ‘hostage’ and by also recommending people boycott the region.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been there over seven times now and on each occasion I’ve had nothing but good experiences. The Chilean people are very warm and friendly.

If I were considering traveling there over the next few months, I would certainly take into account that there is a continuing issue with fuel prices in the region and make my plans accordingly, but it wouldn’t put me off going there in future.

If I were to boycott any region of the world where there was instability, I would be severely restricted to where I went. Just one look at the British Consulate web site is enough to make you feel you shouldn’t step foot outside of the UK, but it is this over-dramatic representation that puts people off for good. The world is in constant change, prices go up, places have a strike, the strike is off. It’s unfortunate that these things happen, but I wouldn’t try to persuade others not to go to a country or a region because you were unlucky to get caught up in some issue whilst there.

In the e-mail he sent me, there was a picture of the fox we had the great excitement of photographing while at the edge of Lago Grey one morning.

Image © Roger Pool, Torres del Paine Workshop 2009

Yep, that’s me on the right side, with my ear-wind-shields up on my hat, crouched over my tripod.

I love this image because it shows how close we were to the fox. The image I created from this shoot is here. I was struggling because I had the entirely wrong kind of lens on my camera… a wide angle when the fox appeared. It would have been very tempting for me to zoom right in, but I’m pleased I was restricted to what I had.

foxatgrey400

This is the nub for me. What I love about film is the different characteristics that each type produces. Velvia is supersaturated, unrealistic in colour providing vibrant landscapes, Portra has great skin tones and then of course there are a myraid of black and white films to choose from… each with their own look and feel.

gaucho, Torres del Paine, Chile

While I was on my workshop in Torres del Paine national park, Chile, I like to take the participants along to see some real working Gauchos in the park. There are a few locations where it’s possible to do this.

Anyway, I shot many images on Portra but also tried out Tri-X. You might argue that I could have shot this on colour film and then desaturated it in Photoshop to make it into a Black and White. You’d be correct, but desaturated colour films don’t have the same grain properties that Tri-X has. For me, grain is part of the artistic look and feel of a picture. I’ve tried all those software emulators with digital, but have to say that it still looks digital. If you want the film look, go shoot some film.

On my recent trip to Patagonia, a member of the trip told me he tends to try to ‘get it all in’. We were standing on a little bridge over to a small island in Lago Pehoe at the time.

What I recall about this little discussion was that I thought we had both ’seen’ the same thing. I took my shot and then went over to see what he was doing, only to find out that he was trying to get the lake, the mountains and the hotel, situated on the small island into the shot. I showed him what I had composed (see below), and his comment was ‘you go for very simple compositions’. It was a concise point. He was concise with his words, whereas I tend to be quite verbose. But in terms of picture composition, he was pretty verbose while I was concise.

Lago Pehoe Curve

I think the strength of an image lies many times in what we exclude from it. Putting more things into a scene can often dilute the strength of the message. Keeping it simple is key.

With the image in question, what I was grabbed by was the sweeping curve in the dark sand in the foreground. I’m a sucker for composing landscape shots in portrait mode. I’m convinced this is because of how I actually interpret scenes, but also, because the 6×7 aspect ratio lends to this. I tried to compose the same shot using a 5DII while I was there and it simple didn’t work. Too much height – too much sky and too much forground. I find 35mm aspect ratio of 3:2 not conducive to how I think about objects and place them within the frame. But that’s just me.

Focus and isolating down to the barest components of a scene is the way forward to making a strong image. When looking at a scene next time, try to think about what it is you are actually drawn to, and whether everything in there actually needs to be there. Remove items and reduce. Isolate and improve impact.

Here is one example. We were at the edge of Lago Grey, shooting the surrounding, all-encompasing Paine massif one morning, and I really wasn’t sure if Velvia film was really going to cut it. The light was still relatively soft, but I kept thinking ‘digital would cut this no problem’ whereas I only ever shoot Velvia in the very early mornings and late evenings when the light is very, very soft. So I felt frustrated…. damn, being using a digital SLR for too long and I’ve started to rely on the histogram too much. Plus, the Mamiya 7 sucks at telephoto support and fast lenses. I felt weighed down, I felt I wasn’t going to get my shot

And then out of the blue a fuegan fox appeared on the scene and litterally walked in from the right and departed from the left of my scene. My temptation was to have a telephoto there and then to get in close to the fox, but I’m so glad I was constrained. As much as the fox is tiny, the resulting photo I feel, works well. The mountains are commanding, they are certainly a major point of interest, and perhaps without the fox, the landscape image wasn’t really strong enough. Putting the fox in there, as small as he is, doesn’t demand too much attention – there’s no conflict between the fox and the mountains for attention. The fox is complimentary to the mountains by adding some foreground interest at the right proportions and from the foxes point of view, it’s good to have a background that can be used to convey a sense of scale. Sometimes, isolation, reducing down a photo to the most interesting element (fox) is too drastic. Sometimes you need to step back and let the entire landscape in. For that reason, I’m glad I was stuck with my Mamiya 7. I had to make use of what I had, and hopefully use it well.

In this podcast, I explain why sometimes, I go too far in the pursuit of an image.

Please click on the image to play the podcast

You can work hard and come home with nothing, and then sometimes, just to show you that it has its own mind, Patagonia will give you a gem or two.

Once in a while.

But every photographer I speak to who has been there, says they want to go back. I guess it’s because each time you visit, you see a different face to the landscape and when you do get a good shot, you can’t help feeling you’ve been rewarded.

Sometimes, no matter how prepared you are, you come home empty handed. I’ve been to Los Glaciares three times now, each time hoping to get good shots of the mountains Cerro Torre and Fitzroy, only to return home empty handed.

I’ve had many e-mails from other photographers saying that all they saw when they got there was low cloud and the edge of a lagoon. This, is no surprise to me as I’m fully aware of how the odds are stacked against you if you want to get great photos in this region of the world. But that’s part of its charm too.

I’m much happier about these shots compared to my first few attempts. I think its really helped to have a good selection of lenses this time – from extreme wide angle to 400mm. But its also helped greatly, being familiar with the terrain and how unpredictable the weather is. I came home exhausted. Trekking isn’t easy with a pile of camera gear, bad weather and a short timescale. But I also came home satisfied that I’d got my shot of Cerro Torre.