Down and out in Puerto Montt

Down and out in Puerto Montt, Chile. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens. Exposure Details: 1/160 seconds @ f10 ISO 400

Hi guys, here’s another quick post from’ Puerto Montt in southern Chile.

On top of the grimy, fishing port-city vibe that I discussed in the last post, Puerto Montt is also suffering from an economic slump as a result of a contagious disease outbreak in 2008 that devastated the formerly booming salmon farming industry. It is generally accepted that the catastrophe was avoidable but their were no adequate controls or regulations imposed by government to prevent the spread of transmitable fishbourne diseases. Thirty thousand direct and indirect jobs were lost as a result of the crisis, many losing their homes in the process. This economic depression can be seen around town in the run down and abandoned homes and businesses. I feel this picture captures the sense of loss of former wealth, abandonment and depression that is still present in many parts of town two years after the height of the crisis. I also like the view of the ramshackle power lines in this shot as these are a constant fixture of urban South America, yet are rarely depicted in the photography I’ve seen from the continent. They are present just about everywhere, except some wealthier parts of big towns where they are sometimes run underground. A few months later in Rio de Janeiro I was made aware of this when a section of the main street that I was staying on ‘Nossa Senhora de Copacabana’ actually exploded as a result of contact between the gas mains and electric cables under the road. The explosion sent a taxi flying and damaged a few shop fronts but miraculously no-one was killed.

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Cam.

Reading the abstract in Puerto Montt

An empty berthing in Puerto Montt, Chile. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens. Exposure Details: 1/125 seconds @ f8 ISO 400

Puerto Montt, capital of the Chilean Lakes district, is possibly the grimiest city I’ve ever visited. It is perpetually drizzling, blanketed with sea mist, the streets are lined with a kind of dirty, greasy residue and the smell of sea-decay blows in from the fishing port that dominates the city. Yet I dug the vibe, it had a genuine air about it lacking totally in pretension. Stocky fisherman straight out of Herman Melville’s imagination shuffled down the narrow streets and crammed themselves into tiny awkward bars and restaurants for seafood and beer served by buxom curt Chilenas. Down at the market old fishing hands worked fast with a vast array of shellfish, crabs and crays. Bagging and bottling an impressive variety of sea-life, their mouths worked even faster than their hands, ribbing each other between hawking their catch and sending the occasional diner upstairs to their family restaurant for a fresh meal.

I spent a few days in and out of Puerto Montt as it is the home port of Agartha, aboard which I roamed the northern patagonian fjords with Carlos Lonza of Sailing Patagonia. In my spare time I managed to do a few photo-walks in town. Whilst I don’t normally shoot abstracts, this scene caught my attention. It was low tide and I had descended to the pebble beach from the concrete retaining wall protecting the city for a low angle view of the passing fishing vessels. Unfortunately the light was ugly for shooting the boats out on the water so I started poking around for something else when I noticed these improvised fenders hanging into an empty berthing. Something about the griminess of the wall, the pebble beach, the ship’s title painted in complementary colours and the hanging tyres caught my attention. They gave just enough clues to illicit the grimy seaside ‘vibe’ I was contemplating at the time. It was glary and overcast too, so it was perfect lighting to focus in on some detail and the colours came out nicely as a result.

Hope you enjoy, more coming shortly!

Cam.

Encounters with Patagonian Fisherman

Fishing family aboard Don Jason II aproach Agartha for a chat in Chile's Reloncaví estuary. Volcano Mt Yates rises 2111m directly above sea level in the background. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens. Exposure Details: 1/320 seconds @ f9 ISO 400

Here’s another quick post from northern Patagonia. This time from the Reloncaví estuary which sits directly south-east of Puerto Montt in the the lakes district of Chile. It is a stunningly beautiful landscape dominated by ice capped volcanoes, sheer granite cliffs, impenetrable four thousand year old rainforests and an almost entire lack of roads. Travelling by sail allowed us to visit places and meet people that we would just never have encountered trying to explore the region by land. Like many in the region this family depends on the sea for a living, their small hand-built home sits perched on an isolated strip of land beneath a steep haulking mountain thickly clad with temperate rainforest. No road reaches the small subsistence farm upon which they live, rather a small natural pebble beach serves as their ‘driveway’. They supplement their diets with vegetables grown on their plot and home raised lamb, chicken, beef – that is when the pumas don’t descend from the national park above and steal their feed! For electricity the family has recently invested in a small water-turbine that harvests the energy of a nearby cascade, of which there seems to be an inumerable number due to the steepness of the terrain, the permanent ice caps towering above and plentiful precipitation. This photo captures a brief meeting of our vessels Don Jason II and Agartha for a chat in late January.

Hope you enjoy the photo, don’t forget to leave a comment and more coming soon!