PHOTOGRAPHING MACHU PICCHU
The ordeals of travel to experience Machu Picchu is in fact minimal. Many other places in Peru have greater issues to contend with. A journey into Machu Picchu is groomed, organized, and highly trafficked by people from all over the world. It is a great place to visit, spectacular scenery, incredible history, but could hardly rank as high adventure. This post is not about the logistics of getting there, or the soul-searching inspiration upon arrival and dream realization dribble found on most travel blogs, we have matured beyond that with four trips into Machu Picchu scattered from 1999 to as recent as 2016. Furthermore, we leave the statistics of history to Wikipedia and the encyclopedias. Instead, some impressions of the Machu Picchu-ness are commented upon retrospectively from the perspective of a photographer.
The experience has changed no doubt about it. In 1999, October, Aguas Calientes was a smaller affair, and the walk through the ruins was spacious, uncrowded. Things change. The doltish mayor of Aguas Calientes thought to re-brand the town with the cumbersome name of Machu Picchu Pueblo, thinking that it was so difficult to find despite numerous detailed travel guides and a rail line coming right into town. We therefore continue to think of the odd high mountain jungle ravine hosted town in its original name, which after all, was given for the hot springs that likewise makes an important stopping point for tourists. Aguas Calientes hot spring. More importantly, in 1999 Cusco was cheap.
Those days are gone. The government charges foreigners a premium for entry. Even the train ride will leave a dent in your pocketbook, although costing a mere fraction of a bitcoin. Our first visits were free from selfies, and the dangerous swinging about of selfie sticks. Now mobs of buses cram the small parking lot at the entrance, and throngs of people overwhelm the small snack bar. More importantly, the visit in the site is now roped off, channeling people through the ruins like cattle in the chutes. A cue of swashbuckling selfie sticker wielders. This has ramifications; a main one being it is hard to “do” photography now at Machu Picchu. One is limited to the same vista points, angles, and perspectives and the millions that trodden through there before you, making arriving at an original photographic composition rather difficult. Even more difficult to score pictures without random clusters of tourists making the scenery appear very un-Incan.
To offset the popularity of Machu Picchu visitations, we find bad weather helps, not going on a Sunday which is free to Peruvians, going in the off-season months (though Machu Picchu activity is becoming more a year round phenomenon). And for interesting photography, forget about one’s face, or posing with your arms out thrown, or jumping in the air, or an of the other silly tourist clichés. One needs patience to frame a picture and wait for people to move out of the view. Use a telephoto lens to get you “off the trail” into areas that are roped off. Take close up pictures; there are plenty of designs in the neatly laid Inca stonework. Use a wide-angle lens- this is something on our list of thing to try. It should open up the field of view to new possibilities. Just do not shoot everything with this lens. Remember to try for variety.
Visit Machu Picchu more than once, to see it in different lighting, weather, seasons. The impressions are very different when the buildings are veiled in clouds versus the harsh deep blue sky on those somewhat rare dry days. Machu Picchu is green for a reason, it rains a lot. The logistics of getting in and out of the ruins using the shuttle bus service essentially limits one to the daylight hours; it is very difficult site to shoot with sunset or sunrise lighting.
And remember, everybody has taken pictures of the llamas grazing on the terraces. If you want some Andean wildlife shoots, this is not the place to shoot them. We do have a few pictures of lizards, and vizcachas at Machu Picchu that give a pleasant break from the shaggy long-legged camelids.
With a little effort, slowing down and waiting, timing the crowds, you too can gather an impressive collection of pictures that those following about in guide tours will just not gather for the money paid out. Finally, of course, shoot lots of pictures and be selective. The eight pictures posted here were taken from a total of 477 pictures of the Machu Picchu ruins. It is not exactly shooting fish in a barrel. And at the same time, it is one of the safer places in Peru to do photography. There is little chance of being robbed while in the park. Do not let your guard down once back in Cusco! Machu Picchu is one of the great ruins of the world, and the place has been photographed so many times, so experiment and see if you can capture something different from the hordes of travelling pilgrims.
For more on photography by James M. Wise go to https://www.jamesmwise.com and don´t forget to check his 100 Series including Peru 100, Lima 100, Chile 100 and Santiago 100.
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South America seems to refuse to show its inexhaustible creative force.
