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There will be no new content on this photoblog until February 17, when we return from a trip to Singapore, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In the meantime, enjoy this series of tango photos from El Viejo Almacen in Buenos Aires.
Regards,
Victor Bloomfield
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Some pictures of the quintessential Argentine activity at the traditional club El Viejo Almacen. We were sitting right next to the stage, and I took photos with a little point-and-shoot camera without flash and paying no attention to white balance. The technical quality is poor, but the blur and warm reddish color captures the feeling perfectly.
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El Retiro is the exclusive Buenos Aires cemetery of the rich and influential. Even Eva Peron had trouble getting buried there. An interesting place for photography.
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A couple more colorful wall paintings from the streets of Buenos Aires.
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The neighborhoods of Buenos Aires are often enhanced by colorful, attractive murals. Here are a couple.
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On our way back north from Antarctica, we spent a few days in Buenos Aires. This is a large, lively, sophisticated, interesting city. One of its popular neighborhoods is La Boca. It's notable for colorfully painted buildings, a famous soccer team, and sculpture celebrating a bawdy past.
(click to enlarge) I'll end this series of Antarctic photos with two that show the presence of humankind. The first is an abandoned whale boat, probably from many decades ago. Wood decays very slowly in this cold, dry climate.
(click to enlarge) At Palmer Research Station, an experiment to study photosynthesis under Antarctic conditions. A striking place to have a lab!
The title for today's blog is an adaptation of that for David Plowden's book "The Hand of Man on America". As Geoff Wittig wrote on The Online Photographer, "Plowden may be the best photographer you never heard of". He's worth getting acquainted with.
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2007/11/vanishing-point.html
(click to enlarge) The Antarctic Peninsula is volcanic in origin (with recent activity in a few places) so around volcanic craters one sees pebbles like this.
(click to enlarge) The ground is not totally lifeless, but the green will be lichen, not grass.
(click to enlarge) It's quite a trek to some of the high rookeries of the penguins.
(click to enlarge) But sliding down is so much fun!
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Nesting in such crowded quarters, penguins get pretty dirty.
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But they have lots of water in which to rinse off.
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Sometimes penguins run around busily, sometimes they wait patiently, and sometimes they just hang out.
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I tend to think of penguins as dignified and a bit pompous -- It's that tuxedo, as well as the influence of the movie "March of the Penguins". Those were Emperor Penguins, which live further south on the continent. The ones we saw on the Antarctic Peninsula were smaller Gentoos, Adelies, and Chinstraps like these, which scurried around more like Woody Allen or Mister Magoo than strolling serenely like David Niven. However, they showed their romantic side by lifting their heads to the sky and calling plaintively -- if a bit stridently -- for a mate.
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Some penguins live in remarkably harsh terrain, even beyond the challenging Antarctic norm.
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One often sees penguins by themselves, running errands of one sort or another, but for habitation they seem to prefer vast rookeries when suitable space is available.
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Two images from Brown Bluff, at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula - our first step onto the Antarctic continent proper.
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We saw this seal while on a Zodiac trip from our ship to the Palmer Research Station. Passengers on a Zodiac that preceded us said that they had seen a pod of orcas surrounding the ice floe and jumping partway out of the water, trying to tip the seal into the sea, where it would make a nice meal. Fortunately for the seal, the tactic didn't work; but from the blood smear one can see it wasn't totally unscathed.
Even Antarctic fur seals get runny noses. (click to enlarge)
Happy New Year!
Leopard seal - a fearsome predator. (click to enlarge)
Weddell seal - someone got too close. (click to enlarge)