The wonder of electricity through a timer, lights greet the sunset offering cheer until, precisely 4 hours later, surrender to the night UNLESS there is a power outage and the lights return for a renewed countdown.
Pushing Back….
…Darkness
Author: MichaelStephenWills
My photographic style centers on the use of natural light to visualize emotion and evoke memory. The evolution of my style began early in the year 2002, with an imperative to capture personal and fleeting memories.
My son and I traveled to New York City, to view the first Saint Patrick's Day parade after September 11, 2001. My work from that parade was so successful and satisfying (see "New York Fire Department, Saint Patrick's Day 2002") I just never stopped.
Santa Elf Spotted…..
….on paddle board.
She was captured via IPhone coming…..
….and going on the Cayuga Inlet off Cass Park, Ithaca, New York, on a December afternoon.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Visitor from the Good ‘ol Days
Our animatronic skiing snowman has entertained and terrorized a generation of grandchildren.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Our Solo Thanksgiving Feast
We spread our Thanksgiving goodies over three meals for our 2020 solo celebration.
Breakfast: Homemade Apple Pie (Grannie Smith Apples), Coffee with foamed milk and cinnamon
Lunch: Relish plate, sour cream onion dip, potato chips (avocado oil), Irish cheddar cheese and crackers, Dr. Frank Pino Noir
The roses are the last blooms from our garden.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
With and Without People
always without water
Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve
Getty requires a signed photo release for each human in a photograph.
For this, the single best overview from our time with the Pintado Geoglyphs, I carefully painted out every human figure, our fellow tourists.
Here are the versions with and without human figures.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click me for the first post of this series.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Geoglyph Panorama
Rain never falls here
Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve
Eternal high clouds that never yield water, we visited these hills just off the Pan American highway, to view shapes formed by moving stones.
The shapes are multifarious, mysterious and majestic. Hundreds of them, rendered for reasons known only to the makers.
I stitched together five images to yield an overall impression.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click me for the first post of this series.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Ghost of a Ghost Town
A place that exists because of water and a roa
Adolfo Tapia Live Here (?)
The Spanish word pintados translates to painted in English. There are many references to the word, in one it is a war loving tribe known for tattoos. Here, it is the name of a deserted town on an abandoned railroad running roughly parallel to the Pan American highway. As we passed through en route to Geoglifos de Pintados, I captured these shots of the ruined town.
The handprinted sign above the window, top photograph, says in translation, “Here lived the Adolfo Tapia Family, 1940-1956, F.F C.C. del Estado.” Searches on Adolfo Tapia turned up nothing, all we know is the sign attributes the designation to the state government.
The hill of the geoglyphs are the background, some of the figures are visible. There will be more in later posts.
The railroad served the many Saltpeter factories dotting the Tarapacá region. To my knowledge all were closed in the mid-20th century.
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Click me for the first post of this series.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
On the Pan American
A place that exists because of water and a roa
Pozo Altamonte
We passed this way between Humberstone and the geoglyph site, the town name can be roughly translated as “High Well.” A watering place, in other words. The sign advertises the “International Hostel” Tata with the convenience of private bathrooms.
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Click me for the first post of this series.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Well Ordered
fighting for truth and honesty
a basis for fairness
Pooleys were a firm of mechanical engineers, founded in Liverpool 1790. Shown as Pooley of Liverpool in Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, the company originally made scale beams, such as shown here, a reminder of the origins of Humberstone.
A demand of the workers was access to a scale to verify company store weights. With this post I close this series of photographs from the Humberstone UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click me for the first post of this series.
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Mother Country
touchstone or Imperialist Tool?
from well watered lands
1872 James Thomas Humberstone founded the Peru Nitrate Company. No, is geography was not deficient, this land was won by Chile from Peru in the War of the Pacific. This rolling stock was delivered from England, where Humberstone was born, in Dover, and worked his early years on railroads, London. At the age of 25, hired by the Tarapaca Nitrate Company, he moved to South American.
Robert Francis Fairlie developed the Fairlie Locomotive.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click me for the first post of this series.
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 