Studio Thomas – Iquitos, Peru

I lucked out. I managed to rent the exact same apartment I had last year in Iquitos. It’s nothing special, but I like the light from the window. Here’s a shot of my very basic “studio”:

My living room in Iquitos

Some of my favorite images from last year were taken in this very spot. I remember at the time feeling guilty for not getting out more (although I did a lot of that too). It seemed impossible that I could make great photos just within the confines of my apartment, especially in such a fascinating city. However, after nine months of ruminating on my work from last year, I decided these portraits are really the core of the project and I could stand to have a few more.

Here’s one from last year, to give you an idea:

Roger

Iquitos, again

On Wednesday I’m off to Iquitos, Peru, again. I spent a month there last year and now I’m going back. Not only is Iquitos inaccessible by road, the whole city seems to share a single dial-up internet connection. I can check email but that’s about it. So this blog will be a bit quiet for the next couple of months. Meanwhile, here are a few images from last year.

Dawn, Iquitos, Peru

Museo Amazonico, Iquitos, Peru

Discoteca in Iquitos, Peru

Path, near Iquitos, Peru

2011 in Review

I spent a lot of 2011 traveling, being a bit of a vagabond in different places.

During January, February and half of March I was in Colombia. I discovered fantastic artists and took a ton of pictures, none of which have been properly scanned. The negatives have been sitting with a friend in New York since late March. Eventually, I’ll get to them.

3 guys in Bosa, Bogotá, February 2011

After Colombia, I went to the Peruvian Amazonian city of Iquitos. I spent just over a month there photographing people and places. I’m pretty happy with the work I did so far there and, in fact, I’m planning on going back there in just a few weeks. I’ve been sitting on the photos because I’m not sure what direction the work will ultimately take. Here’s a few pictures that I’ve uploaded to flickr so far:

Iquitos, Peru

Iquitos, Peru

Diego in Iquitos, Peru

I returned to Buenos Aires in late May, mostly to finish my Ochava Solstice project. I was a lot more methodical this year (see post), and set myself a goal of 50 street corners for the whole series.

Preparing to photograph a corner for my Ochava Solstice project

In the end I think I got about 60-something corners, which I then edited down to 49. I even published a little dummy book on blurb, which is really cool to have and to hold.

Ochava Solstice dummy book

Meanwhile I continued to work on another series, Riverbank | Barranca, which I started in 2010 and published on my site this year. It was just featured on the blog, New Landscape Photography.

Riverbank | Barranca

I also continued to add slowly to my collection of Chalets and Contrafrente views.

Since last year I’ve been thinking about pursuing an MFA. While the classes and workshops I have been doing in Argentina have been great, I’ve been feeling that I’d be well-served by spending a couple of years of intense study in North America. To that end, I was just on a six week road trip in the US visiting schools. I covered 8000 miles in just under a month, driving from LA to Boston and back again. I’d like to say it was epic but traveling in the US is kinda easy. There were days when I woke up at dawn and drove for 12 or 13 hours straight, subsisting on junk food, podcasts and 5-hour energy drinks. Those days were my favorites.

West Texas

I’m super-excited about 2012; the travels that I have coming up and the mystery about where I will end-up come August.

Ochava Solstice – The Book

I made a little prototype of a book on Blurb of my Ochava Solstice project. It’s cool to put into physical form some of the ideas I’ve been having about the work. It makes a nice gift too.  After all, nobody doesn’t love a book.

The book itself is really basic. I chose the black & white, trade paper back option, which is the cheapest and roughest option available. The only luxury I splurged for was paying extra to remove Blurb’s logo.

Cover

The cover is all 49 images imposed on one another, Idris Kahn-style, but then inverted. The title’s typeface is Gil Sans, in homage to Richard Long. I’m not a designer so this probably won’t survive further iterations.

Ochava Solstice #1

The pages just show each corner from the series, in the same order as on my website, ordered by shadow height.

Ochava Solstice #9

Ochava Solstice #9, detail

On the page facing each image are two numbers; the time the photo was taken and a number in brackets. The bracketed number is meant to be a little cryptic. I’ve been thinking of this book as kind of like an archeological artifact with clues needing to be decoded.

Ochava Solstice #49

Careful observers will have noted that the first and last buildings in the series are the same but photographed on different dates.

Index

The final page is an index of the building locations. The street names evoke Buenos Aires but only if you know the city already, since most of these buildings are in far-out neighborhoods [e.g. Romulo Naon, Hernandarias, Fraga, Aranguren, etc.]. Otherwise, the location of this body of work is, I think/hope, a bit mysterious.

I also didn’t include my name anywhere in the book. I wanted to add a bit of mystery as to what exactly this object is, again thinking of it as something archeological. I also imagine it as a sacred text of a secret society of sun worshiping apartment brokers—or something like that.

Since this is just a prototype, I haven’t made it public on Blurb or anything but if you want a copy, let me know and I’ll add you to my list the next time I order a batch.

Also my thanks to my friend Zeke, who kindly lent his services as hand-model for this shoot.

Riverbank | Barranca

These are captions for Riverbank | Barranca. The photos in the series are ordered geographically, from north to south, beginning at the northern city limits of Buenos Aires [Capital Federal] and ending in Parque Lezama in the southern part of the city.

Avenida General Paz

Police randomly stop cars as they cross the city limits. The city and suburbs of Buenos Aires are two different administrative entities, with different police forces. Unlike cities in North America, South American cities tend to have poverty and crime concentrated on the periphery of the city. The checkpoints are a mostly theatrical effort to calm the the city’s wealthier residents.

—

Monobloc on Calle Grecia

A large apartment complex built in the 1970s. Such buildings are often referred to as ‘monoblocs.’

—

Botanical Garden

French-born landscape designer Carlos Thays designed Buenos Aires’ botanical gardens as well as many other parks during the boom years of the late 19th century. Today the garden is home to a large feral cat population.

—

National Library

Argentina’s national library is constructed on the grounds of a former 19th century mansion that was used as the residence of Juan Perón while he was president and which was then demolished following his ouster by the military in 1955. Designed in 1961 in a brutalist style by one of the country’s most prominent architects, the library wasn’t completed until 1992, due to construction delays exacerbated by changes in government and economic crisis.

—

Red Balloons

Production assistants attach red balloons to a tree for the filming of a commercial.

—

Student's Day

September 21st, the first day of spring in the southern hemisphere, is Student’s Day. Adolescents from across the metropolitan region flock to the city’s parks.

—

Arts & Crafts fair in Recoleta

On weekends the walkways of Plaza Francia in Recoleta are taken over by arts & crafts vendors. While a long standing tradition, the size of the fair increased greatly following the economic crisis of 2001. Many of the vendors use the sales to supplement income from their day jobs.

—

Trapito

Organized syndicates monetize public parking spaces in busy areas by setting up protection rackets. The lowest members of these syndicates work the street, charging drivers a fee for looking after their cars. Such men are know as “trapitos” or “little rags” for the rags they wave in their hands to attract the attention of drivers to an open spot.

—

Shell station below Autopista Arturo Illia

Argentina hosted the World Cup in 1978. It was accompanied by a massive public works effort by the then-military government that saw the construction of elevated highways across the city. Such works were often funded with loans from the World Bank as well as New York financial institutions flush with petro-dollars.

—

Plaza San Martin

Plaza San Martin is one of several parks that uses the topography of the riverbank to create a grassy knoll. The gentle slope makes a lovely spot for an afternoon nap between shifts.

—

War Monument

Plaza San Martin is also the site of a monument honoring Argentine soldiers killed in the 1982 conflict over the Falkland [Malvinas] Islands. The war killed about 650 Argentine soldiers and about 250 British. Argentina was unsuccessful in asserting its territorial claim over the islands.

—

The Kavanagh Building

Edificio Kavanagh, seen in a fragment on the right, is the finest art deco skyscraper in Buenos Aires and, perhaps, the world.

—

IBM Tower

Sitting at the foot of Marcelo T. de Alvear and Leandro Alem, the IBM Tower houses the local operations of said company. IBM was embroiled in a bribery scandal involving government contracts in the 1990s during the presidency of Carlos Menem.

—

Edificio Alas

Dating from the 1950s, the Alas building, seen in the background, contains an anti-nuclear bunker built to the specifications of the then president, Juan Domingo Perón.

—

Jousten Hotel, Avenida Corrientes

Though less important than soy bean exports, tourism has become one of Argentina’s principal sources of foreign currency.

—

Casa Rosada

The seat of government, the Casa Rosada is said to have originally taken its pink color from cow’s blood mixed in with the paint.

—

Economy Ministry

In 1955, Argentina’s air force dropped bombs on the Plaza de Mayo, the country’s principal square and home to the seat of government, in an effort to unseat the elected president, Juan Perón. About 300 people were killed and the façade of the Economy ministry still bears the scars from the bombardment.

—

Paseo Colon & Alsina

The graffiti which reads “Nestor Vive” refers to the deceased ex-president, Nestor Kirchner, who was president from 2003 to 2007, a time in which Argentina was recovering from a severe economic crisis in 2001. His wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is the current president, having been reelected in 2011 to a second term.

The other graffiti, “Macri = Facho” refers to Mauricio Macri, who is the mayor of Buenos Aires and a member of the opposition. ‘Facho’ is a local slang word meaning ‘fascist.’

—

Paseo Colon, pintada política

Public buildings and walls are often covered in white wash upon which are written names or slogans of political candidates and parties. Known as pintada política, it is a street-based, graphical tradition in Argentina, with each party and faction having its own, unique style.

—

Club Atlético

The military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 murdered about 30,000 of its own citizens. Various buildings were used as interrogation and torture centers prior to shooting the victims or tossing them out of airplanes. This area, at the intersection of Avenida San Juan and Paseo Colón, was one such center. It was known as Club Atlético although it was subsequently demolished to make way for one of the aforementioned elevated highways.

—

McDonald's

There are nearly 200 McDonald’s locations in Argentina, including this one just south of Parque Lezama in the neighborhood of Barracas.

—

Parque Lezama

Located in the southern part of the city, Parque Lezama is believed to be the site of the original founding of the city in 1536. The first settlement, however, was abandoned after 5 years due to attacks from the indigenous population.

New Work: Riverbank | Barranca

I’ve posted a new series on my website. It’s called Riverbank or Barranca, in Spanish.

Buenos Aires is situated along the Rio de la Plata. A small river embankment is the only topographical feature in an otherwise very flat city. I started photographing there because I wanted to make photos with vistas and elevation changes and there was no where else to go. Ironically, you can’t actually see the river from any point on the riverbank. Too much land has been reclaimed.

The photos in the work are ordered geographically, proceeding from north to south, essentially giving a tour of the city. As I started photographing the project, often at dawn or dusk, I began to notice traces of the Argentina’s history present in the cityscape. At a certain point I realized that the work is as much about politics [and economics] as it is about landscape.

Avenida General Paz

In the first photo, for instance, police randomly search cars as they cross the city limits. The city and suburbs are two different administrative entities, with different police forces. In an inversion of the typical North American urban model, in South America, poverty and crime are often concentrated on the periphery of the city. The checkpoints are a theatrical effort to calm the the city’s relatively wealthier residents.

—

National Library

Argentina’s national library is constructed on the grounds of a former 19th century mansion that was used as the residence of Juan Perón and which was then demolished following his ouster by the military in 1955. Designed in 1961 in a brutalist style by one of the country’s most prominent architects, it wasn’t completed until 1992, due to drastic changes in government and shortages in funding, particularly during the 1980s debt crisis.

—

Shell station below Autopista Arturo Illia

Argentina hosted the World Cup in 1978. It was accompanied by a massive public works effort by the then-military government that saw the construction of elevated highways across the city. Such works were often funded with loans from the World Bank as well as New York financial institutions flush with petro-dollars.

—

Malvinas/Falklands war monument

Plaza San Martin is the site of a monument honoring Argentine soldiers killed in the 1982 conflict over the Falkland [Malvinas] Islands. The war killed about 650 Argentine soldiers and about 250 British. Argentina was unsuccessful in asserting its territorial claim over the islands.

—

Economy Ministry with bullet holes

In 1955, Argentina’s air force dropped bombs on the Plaza de Mayo, the country’s principal square and home to the seat of government, in an effort to unseat the elected president, Juan Perón. About 300 people were killed and the façade of the Economy ministry still bears the scars from the bombardment.

—

Paseo Colon & Alsina

The graffiti which reads “Nestor Vive” refers to the deceased ex-president, Nestor Kirchner, who was president from 2003 to 2007, a time in which Argentina was recovering from a severe economic crisis in 2001. His wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is the current president, having been recently reelected to a second term.

The other graffiti, “Macri = Facho” refers to Mauricio Macri, who is the mayor of Buenos Aires and a member of the opposition. ‘Facho’ is a local slang word meaning ‘fascist.’

—

Club Atlético

The military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 murdered about 30,000 of its own citizens. Various buildings were used as interrogation and torture centers prior to shooting the victims or tossing them out of airplanes. This area, at the intersection of Avenida San Juan and Paseo Colón, was one such center. It was known as Club Atlético although it was subsequently demolished to make way for one of the aforementioned elevated highways.

—

At first, it wasn’t my intention to take photos with so much politics and history in them. The thing is, these traces are present in an area that has had so much history pass through it, or happen upon it.

Granted, I’m cherry-picking the photos from the series with heavier subtexts. At this point I’m still wondering how to incorporate all this context into the work itself. I’m not a huge fan of long captions but I think that this background information is important to understanding the photos.

49 Ochava Solstices

I’ve recently updated my series, Ochava Solstice, to include a lot more corners. I took these pictures last summer [December] and this past winter [May - August]. For awhile now, I’ve wanted to have a large number of these “events.” I feel like it underscores obsessive quality and ultimate uselessness of this project plus it will look better when exhibited. I had been saying my goal was 50. I’m stopping at 49… I’ll explain…

But first, here’s a few new ones:

Ochava Solstice #9 - Concordia & Mariscal Francisco Solano Lopez

The majority of the photographs were shot in winter and so the trees usually don’t have any foliage. This corner, shot on December 3rd, was an exuberant exception.

—

Ochava Solstice #12 - Jufre & Acevedo

I had this building on my list for over a year before working up the courage to go photograph it. Located in Villa Crespo, the building was first abandoned mid-construction and then claimed by squatters who have finished the construction with rough, hollow brick. These types of buildings are known as Edificios Tomados or Ocupas, and there are a fair number scattered around the city. They are often perceived by their neighbors as centers of crime and drugs and usually there is a long history of the neighbors or the city trying to get the squatters evicted [Argentina has strong pro-squatter laws]. My fear was that I would be seen as an employee from the city, photographing the building, as part of some renewed effort to get the residents evicted. I was a little more hurried than usual but in the end nothing happened.

—

Ochava Solstice #19 - Lavalle & Billinghurst

This was one of the more challenging intersections because it’s such a busy area, near the Abasto shopping mall. There was a constant stream of cars and pedestrians. I took two photos; this one and one without the dog walker. I like this one better because it underscores the reality that I can only control the situation so much.

—

Speaking of situations I can’t control, the 2nd to last Ochava in the series is this one, which I’ve written about before.

Ochava Solstice #48 - Zapiola & Aviles

To summarize, a private security guard hired by the neighborhood didn’t want me taking pictures and so he stood in front of my camera. I waited until the moment when the shadow was in the middle, and took the picture anyway.

—

Also, in case you didn’t notice, the first and last ochavas are the same building, but shot on different days.

Ochava Solstice #1 - Caracas & Paez II

Ochava Solstice #49 - Caracas & Paez I

The height of the sun and hence the height of the shadow varies across the seasons. I wanted to include the same building twice but photographed on different dates to get across a sense of changing seasons. I then decided to order the shadows by their height and it just so happened that the first and last ochavas were the same building.

So why 49 buildings?

It’s got to end somewhere and it’s always a bit arbitrary as to when and why. Stopping at a square number [49] instead of a round one [50] seems as good a reason as any. This work is kind of about simple, universal shapes; the circle of the sun and its arc across the sky, the triangle, the most basic of shapes and symbol of human shelter. So why not a square?

Fifty is a round number only in a base-ten numerical system. A square number, on the other hand, is square no matter how its expressed. It’s a reflection of a physical shape in the real world and not a fluke of the particulars of Arabic numerals. I’d like to think this work has a mystical or archeological quality. I often relate it to the Aztec sundial or the Mayan pyramid of Chichen-Itza which shows a shadow in the form of a serpent on the spring equinox. Mystical is maybe the wrong word since I don’t believe in god or religion. It’s really about a fascination with the physical world and the order of the solar system. I’m not in the jungles of the Yucatan. These are ugly, boring buildings in quiet neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and yet, that quality, whatever you call it, is still there, if one is willing to stop and see it.

Chalet 2011

I’ve updated my series Chalet Porteño with work from this year and last. I’ve been meaning to do this for almost a year, ever since my Chalet 2010 post last December. Taking new pictures for the series has been haphazard this year and, indeed, there’s only one house that I shot this year that I’m including in the edit. It’s one of my favorites, though, and the only one with a person.

Chalet Porteño in the neighborhood of Boedo

Here’s another one that didn’t make the edit. It’s from the unfortunately named suburb of Morón. I’ve been more interested in Chalets in an urban setting but, perhaps, this photo could be the start of a further exploration of the Chalet-style form in Argentina.

Suburban Chalet Hybrid in Buenos Aires suburbs

Recoleta Cemetery Vista

Recoleta Cemetery at dusk (click for larger image)

I’ve been very slowly advancing in my Pulmones | Lungs project this year. It has been complicated finding new vistas. Coordinating to go over to someone’s apartment is tricky, especially when things are often decided at the last minute. I also decided that I like the light best on heavily cloudy days, which only complicates things more.

The above shot doesn’t even go with the series but I’m a sucker for vistas and couldn’t turn down the chance to photograph one of Buenos Aires’ iconic sites, the Recoleta Cemetery.

A little bit about my process for Ochava Solstice

On sunny days, I’ve been busy working on my project Ochava Solstice. I thought I’d write a little bit about how I’ve been going about it recently. Here’s a picture of me shortly before taking a picture for the series.

Me about to shoot an Ochava

The building in question is on the north-facing corner of Marcos Paz and Asunción in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Devoto. Here’s a gratuitous close-up of the image on the ground glass. Since I’m standing in the shade and the building is in the sun, I don’t need to use a darkcloth.

Image on the ground glass of the building with the ochava shadow

For all the camera geeks out there, I’m shooting this series on a Busch Pressman Model D. It’s a press camera from the 1950s similar to a Speed Graphic. The main difference is that the back rotates, letting me shoot vertically, which I do a lot. I’m using a 210mm lens which is slightly telephoto for the 4×5 format.

I had already scouted out this building online. When I first started this project I’d look for these buildings on foot. At first these triangular shadows were just something I noticed in my walks around the city and I’d snap them with my digital camera. Once I got serious about the project, I returned to those same buildings with my 4×5 and a tripod, and waited for the moment when the shadow is exactly in the middle.

The buildings in the series are functional apartment buildings from the 1960s that just happen to cast a triangular shadow. It’s not intentional. It’s the result of a law requiring corner buildings to have a diagonal cut on the ground floor [known as the "ochava"] combined with real estate developers’ desire to maximize square footage [or meterage, I suppose].

Apartment buildings from this era are everywhere in Buenos Aires but ones suitable for my project can be hard to find. They have to face the sun and not be in another building’s shadow. There’s almost always a kiosko on the ground floor or something else “wrong” with the building. In finding the ones I’ve taken so far, I’ve scoured a number of neighborhoods, on foot, in great detail. Recently, in the name of efficiency, I’ve taken to using the Mapa Interactivo run by the city government. It’s less efficient than Google Street View [which doesn't exist here yet], but still faster than walking around. In the map, you zoom in on a block, click on a plot of land, and it shows you a photo from several years ago. Here’s the photo of this particular building I found on the site.

Marcos Paz & Asuncion

As I’m navigating the site, I confine my search to neighborhoods where I think I’m likely to find buildings like the one above [not too urban, not too suburban]. I only click on the street corners that face north, towards the sun [remember we're in the southern hemisphere]. To keep track of my progress, I’ve been marking up a map with little dots:

Map I'm using to check off street corners (the black dots)

Of all those little dots on the map above only two were buildings suitable for my project. It’s a bit like panning for gold.

Meanwhile in my apartment I’ve taped up the contact prints of Ochavas I’ve already shot in order to track my progress. Here are the ones I did last year:

2010 Ochavas

And here are the Ochavas I’ve done so far in 2011

2011 Ochavas (so far)

My goal is to reach 50. It’s a bit arbitrary but I want to show a large number of these shadows and 50 seems like a good number. I’ve got around 40 so far. There are a number of good buildings I’ve already scouted out but I need to wait a few months for the sun to get higher in the sky.

Buenos Aires is totally flat and built on a grid, although it’s actually several different grids. The grids don’t all face the same way. The time of a particular corner’s “solstice” is determined by its cardinal orientation. The height of the shadow is determined by the time of year, with summer casting longer shadows. [Curious tidbit: maps in Buenos Aires don't all face north. There's at least three different orientations commonly used when depicting the city.]

Most of the street corners in my project so far are north-facing corners taken in winter [June & July]. A few are east or west-facing corners taken in the summer morning or afternoon, respectively. The arc of the sun is much higher in summer so the window of time when the sun is at the right position to cast an appropriately sized shadow is shorter. I drew this diagram below to explain this to a friend, although I’m not sure it makes the concept any clearer.

Porteño Calendar

I’ve previously compared these triangular shadows to the serpent-like shadow that appears on Chichen Itza at the equinox. It seems that I’ve now drawn up a sort of Aztec-like calendar for Buenos Aires. There are no geographical references in Buenos Aires. The river is distant and cut-off from the main part of the city and there are no mountains to provide a reference point. Walking around the grid of the city can sometimes feel like being lost in a kind of labyrinth. If I’m beginning to lose that sense of being lost it’s only because I’ve now memorized good chunks of that grid, recreating it mentally in my head to orient myself. These street corner photographs are like totems of my wonderings around Buenos Aires.

I’m now scouring [online] the very edges of the city, places I’ve yet to reach during my 3+ years of walking around the city. Obviously I only shoot this series on sunny days. If it’s cloudy I work on other stuff. Partially cloudy days are a real source of frustration because I never know if I should risk spending an 90 minutes on a bus to reach the neighborhood only to have a cloud erase the shadow at the critical time. There’s only about a two minute window when the triangle appears visually to be in the middle.

For this building the day was in fact partially cloudy but they were very low and moving fast in the stiff wind. Arriving at the corner early I sat in the sun as the day was very cold. I shot this video below which shows the shadow disappearing as a quick cloud passes by:

I was fortunate that day in that by the time the shadow reached its midpoint the clouds had departed. Here’s a snapshot of the contact sheet I just got back from the lab. One more corner to cross off the list.

Contact sheet of Marcos Paz & Asuncion Ochava

I’ve also written more about this project in these two blog posts; Ochava Solstice and Ochava Solstice – Things that Go Wrong.