LIMA 100

March 12, 2018 SouthAmerica

A collection of 100 photographs of Lima by James M. Wise, taken during years of extensive travels in Peru, illustrates this complex old city, revealing underappreciated building styles and street scenes that many visitors will not find while making a single trip to Peru’s capital. Colonial balconies of the historic old center that once was protected by a medieval wall, scattered Inca ruins, turn of the nineteenth century European-styled facades in an independent nation, and modern cement and glass apartments densely pack the broad arid coastal plain set upon the high clifftop overlooking the south Pacific.

Lima is perhaps one of the more difficult cities in the world to photograph, given its near perpetual gray skies and ongoing security concerns. Cars in the congested traffic are prone to accelerate when coming across a pedestrian, or a photographer, and many in the population will stare at a foreigner taking pictures, sometimes with bad intent. Therefore, photographing the city is an exercise of speed, quick compositions, to move out of the street before being hit or not showing the camera in the crowds for any longer time than necessary.

Covered are the Plaza de Armas, Plaza de San Martin, the centro historico, the historic barrio of Barranco, scenes from Miraflores and San Isidro, and the Costa Verde. Several lesser known parks are explored with surprising results.

Lima 100 is part of a great work of photography that to date has produced Peru 100, Chile 100, Santiago 100, and Seattle 100. Other important cities are presently being photographed, including Denver and San Diego. Lima has been the most difficult.

This photo collection brings order to chaos. Lima 100 assembles a broad suite of pictures from one of the more important metropolitan areas of South America, which I term: