BOLIVIA PHOTO REVIEW - (7 Themes | 40 Pictures)

MY EXPERIENCE WITH BOLIVIA

In 2012 I went with a couple of photographer friends on a Photo trip to Bolivia. I lived in Bolivia from 1998-2000 but back then I didn't have a camera. Now that I'm headed back in October I thought I'd do a review of the pictures.

I've put them into a few sections that I found the most compelling.

THE QUESTIONS

The question for you after reading and going through the pictures:

• What's your interest level in going to visit Bolivia Now?
• Which of these themes interests you the most?

THE PEOPLE

The people are full of character and are wonderful for images.
I went with a more candid style on most of these people shots though there were a few posed ones... I can't remember if those shots they asked for a few coins when they posed in their traditional garb. It's been a lot of years. I don't remember it all very well.

I do kinda remember that in the market there were a ton more pictures I didn't take because some of them weren't into it. But it's been 6 years one wonders how their interaction with cameras on a daily basis has changed their opinions on pictures being taken.

What you'll notice alot is that the women wear hats A LOT. And they're pretty awesome!

This is not an endorsement for eating at these little food stands... but back when I first lived there I did pretty often. Usually it's fried foods like maybe their version of hamburger and some fries. So you should be pretty ok with fried stuff. But when I lived there we stayed away from stuff like lettuce or that you were requiring to be washed with water. Usually our stomachs aren't prepared for Bolivian Water.

Sometimes it's just easier to go to a touristy location for pictures because it's kind of expected and people are even dressed up on normal days in garb they would normally wear more on holidays and festivals. For example this is probably his every day clothes but the hat/helmet is not an everyday wear.

THE ALTIPLANO (THE HIGH COUNTRY)

Alto = High
Plano = Flat

It's the High Flat country. Where you're driving around on flat terrain at about 13-15k feet of elevation sometimes even higher. So when you see a mountain jut out you realize that it's crazy high up there if the valley floor is already at 15k. You also are impressed with birds that are at home in the freezing thin air.

As you'll probably see I'm pretty facinated with flamingos living at 13-15k feet elevation.

Also lakes that are RED are cooler than you'd even think they are!

Being able to stay on the island in the middle of the salt flats and go exploring late at night was pretty epic experience for me... I didn't get a ton of Salt Flats shots as I would have liked to but the ones from the islands are uniquely awesome.

Like I said more flamingos

I'm looking to going back with my 150-600mm lens

In case you're wondering getting shots of some of these places early in the morning is no easy task. You're pretty far out there and usually pretty far from lodging and getting up that early is not a typical thing for the tour guides. I felt kinda bad making them get up as early as photographers like to get up.

I'm looking forward to going back to this lake and perhaps getting it when it's showing up as more green and less windy.

LA PAZ

Pretty epic unplanned experience having the moon rise behind the mountain at a popular lookout.

Another cool random experience with the moon... i guess just got kinda lucky with the full moon that trip.

I really think that next time I want to get to know places around La Paz a bit better.
We didn't really have good transportation when we got there so we just hit some inside the city stuff but there's so much cool stuff just outside the city.

SAJAMA MOUNTAINS

This was one of our unique decisions to go and photograph this huge mountain in the middle of no where. We added it on to our trip down to the Altiplano.

Certainly glad we went as it was a pretty unique experience that not many people put on their list of places to visit in bolivia.

You get a pretty good idea for the starkness of the Altiplano and this area.
There are no big cities and a few small towns like this and a hole lot of empty land.

BUILDINGS

One of my favorite shots happens to be kind of a random story of our driver getting lost and asking for directions and some pretty late nights of course.

The city of sucre certainly gives you a pretty different style of bolivia with it's more colonial style buildings.

Again another shot overlooking Sucre which is one of Bolivia's TWO CAPITOL CITIES.

LLAMAS & ALPACAS

Funny story: I don't think I saw one Llama or Alpaca when I lived in Bolivia from 1998-2000 but when I was there taking pictures there were lots of them up in the altiplano in the middle of nowhere.

As you can see i was pretty obsessed with cool Llama shots to go along with those flamingo pictures.

OFFROADING & OTHERS

If you go to the Lagunas and the altiplano area then you're pretty much going by land cruiser on a multi day excursion.

Now that I have a truck and do tons of offroading I wonder what that experience would be like. I think it may be hard to not be the one driving... i need to find a way to change that.

Potosi is a facinating place with some crazy interesting history from the 1500s
Certainly a place I need to visit and photograph some more. I think some of our stays were pretty qucik.

And here's a song to go with your viewing experience