Norte Argentino: Time Lapse showing portraiture of Northern Argentina’s unseen beauty

Please watch in HD full screen with headphones.

From Aimogasta (La Rioja) to Chile, through Tinogasta (Catamarca), for the past nine months I’ve been traveling across the Argentinian north over the route 60 and this is what I’ve shot with my camera.

All the night shots are real, although they can’t be seen with the naked eye since they are 15 to 30 second exposures and later joined together to make a video. This technique is known as time-lapse.

•  In some shots you can see some sort of ‘spot’ next to the stars. These are, in fact, tiny galaxies with millions of stars that can only be seen from the southern hemisphere.
•  The dead cow at 01:53 is real. It’s a petrified cow next to the road in Laguna Verde. It froze to death as a consequence of the low temperatures up there (14,271 feet above sea level). There used to be one completely covered in salt, but it’s gone. Laguna Verde is in fact in Chile, but is just so beautiful that I couldn’t put it behind for the video –and it’s much nicer under clear skies days, since the water can be seen as kind of green, therefore the name of the place, ‘Green Lagoon’.
•  The river seen at 01:17 –and all of that area- used to be, many years ago, the homeland of the Diaguitas. Today there are only the remains of what once was their civilization.
• The ‘cave’ at 05:19 no longer exists. I came back to the place sometime after shooting there and it had collapsed. Something similar happened with the shot at 04:31.
• At 03:06 and at 04:38 you can see the ‘Sleeping Giant’ (El Gigante Dormido in spanish) over the horizon, a geographical landmark in Tinogasta.
• There are some goats over the hill at 05:08. I overheard them in the distance the night of the shot, but it wasn’t until the video that I became aware of their presence in the images.
• The sequence at 02:14 was shot during quite a windy night. I was inside of my car and could feel it shaking. Luckily the shot came out just fine. And don’t even get me started on the cold; the range of the Andes has one of the harshest weathers of the Argentinian north-east, even in the summer.
• Nuestra Señora del Rosario church at 03:18 is made entirely out of adobe. It was built in 1712 and completely restored recently, along with other temples in the area.

I want to thank to everyone that helped me, especially those who stood by me waiting for the camera to do its job. I also want to thank the folks at the Department of Roads who gave me a place to spend the night at Las Grutas. Also, thanks to Lucas for helping me with the translation.

Locations: Aimogasta, Tinogasta, El Puesto, Saujil, Cachiyuyo, San José, La Puntilla, Las Higueritas, Anillaco, La Troya, Fiambalá, Paso de San Francisco (all of them in Argentina) and Laguna Verde (Chile). Except for two shots, the rest of the video was shot in Tinogasta, Catamarca.

BEHIND THE SCENES:

Images via leandroprz.wordpress.com

 The soundtrack is Sigur Rós’ “Glósóli” from the album Takk… (sigur-ros.co.uk/band/faq.php#13)

Gear: Canon 60D, Tokina 11-16, Tamron 17-50, Canon 50mm f/1.8, filters, Dynamic Perception’s Stage Zero.

About the experience (in spanish): wp.me/pPCLh-gg

All the images are property of Leandro Pérez. All rights reserved.

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