From the Archives
Stray Dog
August 19, 2009 #
Stray dogs are a common sight in most Argentine cities. And while many of them look pretty ragged, you can often tell that there’s a beautiful animal under all that tousled fur. The one on the right was our favorite. And the heartbreaking thing is that she totally knew it: She followed us around for a long time, clearly doing everything in her power to get herself adopted.
The photo was shot in central Salta, which is a lovely little city in northwestern Argentina. I fired off a few quick frames at knee level, to capture a dog’s eye perspective of the world. Because the image is taken at point blank range, with a wide open aperture, almost everything is out of focus. But her eye, with that deep gash—maybe from a fight with another dog—is tack sharp, and becomes the focal point of the image.
I’m not sure if it’s the injury that gets me, or her expression of guarded hope, or maybe just the sense of isolation from the blurry locals in the background. But this is one of my favorite images from Argentina.
Funnily enough, as this dog was following us around, she appears in quite a few other photos. In this slightly more cheerful image, she is hovering patiently while I’m trying to find a good angle on an inside-out magazine stand.
Rotorua Redwoods
August 5, 2009 #
It took me a full seven years in New Zealand to realize that we have redwoods. But once I found out, it didn’t take long to organize a hiking trip: Whakarewarewa Forest is just three hours south of Auckland, on the shores of Lake Rotorua.
The result of a commercial forestry experiment started in the late 1800s, Whakarewarewa Forest has a selection of exotic trees—some planted by prison labor. There’s Douglas fir, Mexican cypress, Oriental plane tree, Japanese cedar, Australian eucalyptus and many more. But the main attraction is unquestionably the beautiful stands of California redwood.
Wide walking paths meander through the most prominent groves, offering easy access to the biggest trees. But as you set off on the half-day or full-day hikes, the paths soon peter out into steep, muddy tracks, with thick vegetation on all sides. Here, the already lofty redwoods seem even taller, even straighter as they emerge from the chaos of native ferns.
It may be a far cry from stunning Sequoia National Park in California. But the curious juxtaposition of California redwoods with the almost impenetrable New Zealand rainforest makes Whakarewarewa Forest a very worthwhile hiking destination. Below, some photos from my weekend outing to the forest.
Travel companion Sarah patiently waits for the shutter to close.
Closeup of a mature California redwood. Because of the high humidity in New Zealand, these trees don’t bear the scars of forest fires so often seen in California.
HDR image of a stand of redwoods.
A cluster of redwoods reaching for the sky.
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