North Chili is surprising. Actually, arriving there, it is discovering a place that is pretty unknown to most of us: outstanding national parks that are as great as the most famous US ones, incredible landscapes, unusual wildlife, active volcanoes, unexpected villages in the middle of nowhere… And all those treasures are finally pretty accessible, thanks to the excellent highway between the Chilean coast and La Paz in Bolivia.
However, before entering those unforgettable lands, Parinacota and Salar de Surire were the only names that sounded a bit familiar, probably from articles read on some magazines or on the Internet. But not a single image could be remembered and every single turn on the road opened a door to some new surprises. Few clouds, an intense dark blue sky that exists only at such high altitudes, old chapels or churches lost hours from the rest of the world, thousands of lamas… and of course the altiplano, intoxicating and omnipresent. It is a real high altitude steppe at more than 12 000 feet, covered by this yellow grass, hard and spiky. It is a landscape of contrasts. Contrast of colors and lights, but of exuberance and desolation too. It is a place that is both incredibly welcoming and inhospitable. One could easily get lost, the mind too. Around, mountains are volcanoes offering a wide variety of shapes and slopes to mountaineers.
Going on a journey up there, it is getting ready to loose all kind of references, to let the sun, the sand and the wind disrupt the daily life. It is being ready to face a new obstacle at any time, a new challenge that one will have to overcome in order to leave a too comfortable world and to sink a bit deeper into something incontrollable. It is being able to let the unknown gently jostling us.
For me, black and white photography is probably the best way to show those emotions, to share these incredible feelings, those ephemeral instants, because a black and white picture is finally just the interpretation of a memory: it is just a way to play with lights and contrasts.
