Hi everybody, welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here on Adorama TV.
I'm Mark Wallace on an epic
photo challenge in Patagonia, I'm in
Puerto Rio Tranquilo here,
and it's a, the weather has kicked up
significantly and on this photo challenge if you haven't
seen the previous video make sure you
watch that, it's about failing forward,
learning how to do things we're not
really competent at doing,
That's what I'm doing in Patagonia asking you to
teach me how to do some things I don't
know how to do.
The first challenge was to shoot the Milky
Way against some really amazing
mountains, but I learned that I didn't plan
ahead far enough, I didn't anticipate the
drastic weather changes.
I can't shoot the Milky Way
because as I was riding down here on
route 7, it's a beautiful road,
everything looked spectacular but then weather
changed significantly, really quickly and
now there is cloudy skies for days for
about 10 days, so that is out, but I have
a deadline, I need to get a video to
Adorama TV, and I'm already late doing
that so I'm gonna have to do something
different for this video, I'm going to
try to shoot some glaciers some ice
caves and glaciers but let me just sort
of show you what happened for me to get
to this point where I am right now.
My trip began just south of Puerto Montt
Chile, along the Carretera Austral,
a road that winds to the heart of Chilean
Patagonia.
I headed south to Coyhaique, to meet
Ayleen Martinez.
Ayleen is a fellow world traveler,
and a native of Patagonia, she
agreed to be my guide and writing
partner on the off-road sections of the route.
The weather was perfect until I
arrived in Coyhaique, while I'm on the quest
to find the perfect location.
There's been some setbacks,
the starry night photo that I wanted to
shoot is not possible, because well the
weather has changed dramatically,
right when I was ready to start shooting
at night, and so that's the first big fail,
but to my advantage, I have a guide here in
Patagonia, her name is Ayleen, come in
here, and so here she is she has been all
over the Americas on her motorcycle, it's
right behind us here, and she is from
Patagonia, and so she's showing me
different places, so because I can't
shoot the starry night and the Milky Way and
the things that I wanted to shoot, Eyleen
has a alternative, and that is a glacier
where maybe we can walk through some ice
tunnels and shoot some really cool
things, and so we're gonna have to go to
Plan B because planning didn't work and
that is the first failure that I have
learned in this epic photo challenge, and
that is my planning wasn't good enough,
I didn't get here early enough, I should
have looked at the weather and I've seen
that I had a few days of good weather,
and then an entire, I don't know, five or
ten days of really bad weather.
So I missed it, so we're going to go to plan
B, because I can't shoot the starry night next week
and still make the production schedule
for Adorama TV, so, we're gonna still scout
and today hit the glacier, and hopefully
get a photo that's awesome.
We left early in the morning and rode
south along the Carretera Austral, until
we reach Porto Rio Tranquilo at the base
of where the glacier expeditions begin.
However the permitting is required, so we
can ride there get to the glacier but to
hike in and do the photos that I want to
do, we have to have a permit, and you can
only get a permit from a company.
this is Pancho with El Puesto Expediciones..
El Puesto Expediciones...
There you go.
He has found us some permits but
for tomorrow, which is actually great
because it's not gonna be too rainy, and
so thank you so much for your help.
He's our Savior today,
well now you're caught up with the
journey down here, and what's happened,
you can tell that it's super windy,
I'm trying to block the microphone from the
wind, but tomorrow morning
Ayleen and I are headed to the glaciers,
we're going to be walking through those,
I'm going to try to create some new and
interesting photos with unusual point of
view with some color contrasts, maybe
some backlight.
We're going to try it and
see what happens it's an unexpected
photo challenge, so join me and we're
going to do that right now.
We were up before sunrise the next day,
we drove two hours along a bumpy dirt
road to reach the trailhead.
All right, we are at base camp,
and so now we've got all the safety gear
ready to go, it's going to be chilly,
but I'm not sure how long of a hike it is.
I think about an hour or two,
just to get there, and then hopefully
I'll be starting to shoot some of the ice
caves and things,
so we're all outfitted, time to go,
we hiked for about two hours to reach
the glacier, once we were there we
attached crampons to our shoes,
and for safety reasons we
were not allowed to shoot video or take
photos, while we were moving.
Well we've reached the very first ice cave,
it's right behind us we're going in groups
with a guide, and so I don't know how
wide or how small these caves are, so I'm
not sure which lens to bring
and because of safety restrictions,
I can only bring my camera,
and whatever lens is attached
so this first one.
I'm going to try with the 35 millimeter lens,
and see what the light looks like,
and see what kind of framing in and sort
of composition I can get.
Well I'm inside this ice cave here,
it's pretty cool, there's a lot of light,
but my 35mm lens is just not
wide enough,
so the second cave I'm gonna
switch over to a 21mm, because
there's some really cool ice melting, and
some really cool blue stuff.
I just can't get it with this lens, it needs to be
much much wider, so I'm learning some
things, so we're failing forward, so now
we're gonna march, I don't know another
kilometre or two to the next one of
these and try again.
While we were hiking from the first ice
cave to the second, I took the
opportunity to stop along the glacier
and shoot some photos.
I set my camera to f/8, and focused at
hyper focal distance,
I was using a 21mm lens to get
a more interesting photo.
I got much closer to the ground,
this created a bit more foreground
interest, which pulls us into the
photograph.
Once inside the next ice cave,
I had to work very, very, fast,
we were with the tour group,
and I only had a few minutes
to shoot by myself, so I looked for as
many different ways to shoot the cave as possible.
I stuck with my 21mm lens and
for the most part I shot at a hyperfocal
distance that ensured I got from
the very beginning to the very end of
the shot in focus, and I looked for
different ways to compose the shot.
I got really down low to the ground,
I shot up into the sky,
I look for different little vignettes of
images inside this one cave.
I shot vertical shots as well as
horizontal shots, I just tried to make
the most of the few minutes I had inside
the cave, and here are my results.
Well this photo challenge did not go the
way I anticipated, remember I set out to
shoot the Milky Way at night in
Patagonia, but that didn't happen because
of cloud cover and rain and drastic
weather changes, so the first thing I
learned was be better at planning and
making sure you look at the weather
down the road,
but despite that there was some success
and so I looked for a different
opportunity, I couldn't shoot the Milky
Way but there was a glacier just down
the road, and so I was able to hike in
and shoot that.
Now I've never shot a glacier before,
but I was able to apply
some of my past photography experience
to that glacier specifically, that first
ice cavern I wanted to shoot with a 35mm lens,
it's sort of a go-to lens,
it's very small, I thought that
would work out, but I discovered it
wasn't wide enough, and so I put this
lens on... this is a 21mm lens, and
as soon as I did that something clicked
in the back of my mind, and I remembered
some former scenic photography,
specifically shooting at hyperfocal so
f/8 manually focusing to hyperfocal,
that makes sure that everything from the
very closest to the very farthest thing
is in focus, and that really was magical
for that glacier, because I got really
everything from the beginning to the end
in focus, and that brought that to life.
When I got to the second ice cave, that
also worked, I made sure to get some
unusual point of view getting down low,
getting up high, pointing to the sky, all
of that worked out, but the other thing
that I didn't anticipate was, I began to
shoot as a street photographer because
we were not allowed to shoot any video
or stills when we were hiking because
there were deep crevasses, and so we
didn't want to slip off, and you could die,
and so we were not allowed to do
anything that... got our eyes off
the trail,
and so what I was allowed to do was just
to put my camera around my neck,
like it is right now and because I was at
hyperfocal, I was shooting like I do
sometimes street photography, or without
looking at my camera, I was just sort of
taking photos and shooting the group
hiking in front of me, shooting to the
side and that way I didn't take my eye
off the trail, I wasn't in danger, but I
still got some great photos, so I applied
street photography to a glacier ice
shoot, I did not anticipate that at all, I
also learned that I need to make sure I
pack better, there are a lot of technical
things that I didn't realize I needed to
put in my backpack, crampons and gaiters,
and water, and first-aid and food, and all
kinds of stuff and so as soon as all
that was packed in, that came from the
tour company,
well my camera was at the very bottom,
so to try to dig in there and get all that
stuff out, it made it really slow to
change lenses or to do anything, and so I
would get a different bag the next time
I do this, something with two different
compartments, one for the camera,
and one for all my other stuff,
and so that was a lesson that was learned.
I think this was a great failing forward
experience, and don't worry I am gonna
shoot the Milky Way in Patagonia,
I'm just gonna have to wait about ten days
for the I, the, the skies to clear to be able
to do that, but I'm still gonna do that
challenge here on AdoramaTV, so the key is make sure
you're following me on Instagram,
because as soon as I get to Wi-Fi, if it's
available where I am, I'm uploading sort
of the failures and successes of each day as
I'm traveling through Patagonia.
I'm asking you for your advice to help me
learn how to do things, so I can fail
forward, and that way we can
communicate and everybody grows as a
community, so make sure you're following me on
Instagram, also make sure you subscribe
to Adorama TV, we're posting new videos
almost every single day, by all kinds of
great photographers, make sure you turn
on the bell so you get notifications
when we have new stuff and then I will
see you next time.