I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Street minus reflections
Another look at the street from Saturday's picture, this time from outside so no window reflections. Valparaiso is a major Pacific port, and many of the buildings in the hills are repurposed shipping containers. The shipping containers became houses and shops, the old houses became hotels and cafes and galleries, and everything is crayon bright in the summer sun.
Labels:
buildings,
Chile,
street art,
urban poetry,
Valparaiso
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Astronomy Tuesday
Do you see the horse? Neither do I.
This is the Blue Horsehead Nebula in Scorpius (not to be confused with the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, which is the star of many Hubble images.) It's been photographed in infrared, so it's no longer blue, or anything resembling a horse's head. But it's a fair tradeoff to get to see those colors.
Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing and Copyright : Francesco Antonucci
Monday, April 23, 2018
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Public transportation, Valparaiso-style
A few of the many funiculars that crawl the steep hills of Valparaiso and connect the lower and upper town. I rode several of them, including one that seemed to be a mom-and-pop operation -- a woman came out of an adjoining room where she seemed to be eating lunch to sell tickets and operate the cars.
Labels:
Chile,
funiculars,
public transportation,
transportation,
Valparaiso
Valparaiso
It's a pleasant drive from Santiago to Valparaiso, a couple of hours through valleys full of vineyards underneath wrinkled brown hills that reminded me of California -- if not for the signs all being in Spanish and the occasional llama, I might have been in the Napa Valley.
The city itself is unique though -- a gritty port town near the water, surrounded by steep hills full of bright colors, with art everywhere.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Saturday reflections
A street up in the hills of Valparaiso, Chile, taken from a cafe window.
The reflections are subtle, a patterned overlay reflecting the street art on the walls behind me. It's been fun going through the Valparaiso pictures, because I haven't looked at most of them since they were first taken more than three months ago and I'd forgotten a lot of what I saw.
More to follow, maybe even this weekend.
Labels:
Chile,
reflections,
street art,
street photography,
Valparaiso,
windows
Friday, April 20, 2018
Random things I saw in Santiago
A building in Santa Lucia Park, one of the buildings of the Universidad de Chile, the ornate roof of the National Museum of Fine Arts seen from Santa Lucia Park, and statues inside the museum (which had a much more interesting collection of modern art, textiles and photography than the exterior led me to expect.)
Labels:
Chile,
museums,
parks,
random things,
Santiago,
universities
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Astronomy Tuesday
I find this image jaw-dropping: a high-resolution photo of Mars, taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2014.
These are sand dunes, edged with frost. The sun was low in the Martian sky, so only the top of the dunes are lit up, with deep shadows in the valleys.
But the image is so unexpected, so abstract. Who would ever have guessed this was Mars?
Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Geometries
I posted a picture of this building in Santiago a few weeks ago; here's another view, without reflections.
I really love those balconies.
Labels:
architecture,
balconies,
buildings,
Chile,
geometries,
Santiago
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Urban poetry
The top of Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago is a Catholic shrine. The large statue of Mary is visible for miles, and the path up to it has the Stations of the Cross.
I don't know why these racks were empty. The waxy ghosts of the hundreds of candles they used to contain were a little eerie, even in the bright sunshine of a summer day.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Monday, April 9, 2018
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Sunday bird blogging
Okay, not great bird pictures. I took these my during my first, jet-lagged, walk around Santiago, and though I have no idea what kind of birds these are -- one is probably a dove and the other looks like a small parrot, but I can't get more specific than that -- I think the photos are kind of cool. So here they are.
I've had a mad, bad week -- mucho stressful as I'm confident they don't say in Santiago -- and could not focus on anything more intellectually challenging than old episodes of The Great British Baking Show in the evenings. Then I thought I had to stay up and do system testing after midnight last night, which was grueling because I was already so tired. At midnight, I logged in to find that I hadn't read to the end of the email -- the work began at midnight; the system was available for testing starting at 3 am. (See comment about mad, bad, mucho stressful week above.)
So I did not finish Santiago. I'll probably be sharing pictures of Chile well into the Northern Hemisphere summer, and may not finish Antarctica before I leave for Africa at the end of August.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Urban poetry
Two men sleeping outside the church of San Francisco in Santiago.
I admit I walked past them the first time because it seemed so rude and intrusive to take a picture of them -- you need a certain ruthlessness to do street photography and whatever ruth is, I apparently have way too much of it. (In the US, it's actually legal to take a picture of anyone you want on the street as long as it's not for commercial purposes, but that didn't protect me from being assaulted by a crazy man who really didn't want his picture taken.)
But I loved these faces -- even better in black and white -- and after thinking about it, I walked back and took the picture. I did leave some money in their jar as a thank you.
I admit I walked past them the first time because it seemed so rude and intrusive to take a picture of them -- you need a certain ruthlessness to do street photography and whatever ruth is, I apparently have way too much of it. (In the US, it's actually legal to take a picture of anyone you want on the street as long as it's not for commercial purposes, but that didn't protect me from being assaulted by a crazy man who really didn't want his picture taken.)
But I loved these faces -- even better in black and white -- and after thinking about it, I walked back and took the picture. I did leave some money in their jar as a thank you.
Labels:
black and white,
Chile,
Santiago,
street photography,
urban poetry
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Astronomy Tuesday
Cassini, of course. The probe may have plunged into the cloudy unknown of Saturn's surface last year, but its magnificent images still amaze me.
This one, from 2005, shows two of the smaller moons, Tethys and Mimas, but what's really cool here is the shadow of the rings across the top of the planet. (The rings themselves are seen edge-on between the two moons.)
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April
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- Some street art in Valparaiso
- Sunday bird blogging
- The main market
- And for comic relief
- Bounty
- Mercado
- Saturday reflections
- Urban poetry
- Street minus reflections
- Astronomy Tuesday
- If you're not crazy about funiculars...
- Public transportation, Valparaiso-style
- Valparaiso
- Sunday bird blogging
- Saturday reflections
- Random things I saw in Santiago
- Urban poetry
- Astronomy Tuesday
- Sunday bird blogging
- Saturday reflections
- Geometries
- Urban poetry
- Astronomy Tuesday
- Welcome to the working week
- Sunday bird blogging
- Air conditioning
- Old and new in Santiago
- Iglesia de San Francisco
- Saturday reflections
- Urban poetry
- Astronomy Tuesday
- Down to the river though I know the river is dry
- Sanhattan
- More Patagonia
- In, well, Above Patagonia
- Sunday bird blogging
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