MONT MACHU PICCHU PEINT PAR GEORGIA O' KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)
Mont Machu Picchu (2 430m)
Pérou

In Machu Picchu, Morning Light (1957) Huile sur toile, 61 x 45.7 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago (Donation Rosenbaum)

Le site
Machu Picchu (2430m) du quechua machu pikchu, litt. « vieux sommet », est une ancienne cité inca du xve siècle au Pérou, perchée sur un promontoire rocheux qui unit les monts Machu Picchu et Huayna Picchu (« le Jeune Pic » en quechua) sur le versant oriental des Andes centrales. Son nom aurait été Pikchu ou Picho. Considérée comme une œuvre maîtresse de l'architecture inca , elle est peu à peu abandonnée après l'effondrement de l'Empire inca au XVIe siècle, puis méconnue durant des siècles en dehors de la population locale. Cela lui a conféré une réputation de « cité oubliée ». Machu Picchu fut explorée en 1911 par l'archéologue américain Hiram Bingham (1875-1956), professeur assistant d'histoire de l'Amérique latine à l'université Yale, qui la fit connaître dans un ouvrage de référence. Le site est généralement considéré comme une des résidences de l'empereur inca Pachacútec. Quelques-unes des plus grandes constructions et le caractère cérémonial de la principale voie d'accès au llaqta évoquent un sanctuaire religieux. En revanche, les experts ont écarté l'idée d'un ouvrage militaire. Au centre d'un ensemble culturel et naturel connu sous le nom de « Sanctuaire historique de Machu Picchu », le site est depuis 1983 sur la liste du patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO et depuis le XXIe siècle une des destinations touristiques les plus visitées de la planète, suscitant des mesures de régulation du surtourisme.

La peintre
Georgia O’Keeffe est une peintre américaine considérée comme une des peintres modernistes et des précisionnistes majeures du xxe siècle. L'art de Georgia O'Keeffe, un temps considéré moderniste et d'avant-garde, est basé sur une observation minutieuse de la nature et sur sa volonté de peindre ce qu'elle ressent. Elle demeurera à l'écart des courants, suivant sa propre voie. Ses gros plans de fleurs, qui caractérisent une bonne partie de sa production, révèlent son sens aigu de l'observation. Le format de ses toiles, les couleurs et les nuances rendent ses tableaux pratiquement abstraits. Les paysages du Nouveau-Mexique lui offrent de nouveaux sujets. Ses toiles représentant des crânes d'animaux, peints minutieusement, cherchent à symboliser la beauté du désert. Ses nombreux voyages en avion durant les années 1950 et 1960 lui inspirent sa série sur les nuages avec des toiles souvent de grandes dimensions.
À sa mort, Georgia O'Keeffe laisse environ 900 tableaux.
En novembre 2014, la vente aux enchères du tableau « Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 » en salle des ventes à New York, estimé initialement à 15 millions de dollars, monte à 44,4 millions de dollars, établissant par la même occasion un nouveau record mondial lors d'une vente aux enchères pour une artiste féminine.Le Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, un musée consacré à l'artiste, a été inauguré en 1997, à Santa Fe, grâce aux avoirs légués à sa mort. Sa maison à Abiquiú a été déclarée National Historic Landmark en 1998. Un film inspiré de son mariage a été réalisé par Edwin Sherin en 1991, A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Un film biographique de Bob Balaban, Georgia O'Keeffe, est paru en 2009. Ses œuvres font partie des collections de nombreuses institutions muséales.

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2024 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau   

ALPAMAYO SUMMIT PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1936 BY ERWIN SCHNEIDER

 

 

 

ERWIN SCHNEIDER (1906-1987) 

Alpamayo ( 5,947m - 19,511 ft) 

Peru

In  "Alpamayo summit", argentic photo 1936

The mountain
Alpamayo ( 5,947m - 19,511 ft) possibly named from Quechua words is one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca of the Peruvian Andes. Alpamayo Creek originates northwest of it. The Alpamayo lies next to the slightly higher Quitaraju. n July 1966, the German magazine "Alpinismus", published a photo of Alpamayo taken by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger accompanied by an article on a survey among mountaineering experts, who chose Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World". Not defined by a single summit Alpamayo has two sharp summits, the North and south, which are separated by a narrow corniced ridge.
The first attempt on Alpamayo's summit was in 1948 by a Swiss expedition. Climbing by way of the heavily corniced North Ridge, the three climbers came within sight of the virgin summit when a large cornice broke under them and they were carried down the precipitous Northwest Face. By some amazing piece of good fortune, the three were neither buried nor injured by the 650 foot fall and they were able to make an 'orderly retreat' from the mountain. In 1951, a Franco-Belgian expedition including George and Claude Kogan claimed to have made the first ascent via the North Ridge. After studying the photos in George Kogan's book The Ascent of Alpamayo, the German team of Günter Hauser, Frieder Knauss, Bernhard Huhn and Horst Wiedmann came to the conclusion that the 1951 team did not reach the actual summit, thereby making their ascent via the South Ridge in 1957 the first. Although the South Ridge is no less steep or dangerous than the North Ridge, it has the advantage of leading directly to the higher south summit. This was written up in Hauser's book White Mountain and Tawny Plain. Although there are several climbing routes on the Southwest Face the most common is known as the Ferrari or Italian Route. It was opened in 1975 by a group of Italian alpinists led by Casimiro Ferrari. It begins at the top of the highest point of the snow slope where the bergshrund separates the upper face on the left and then ascends a steep runnel to the summit ridge. Because of its esthetic beauty, Alpamayo is one of the most climbed mountains in the Andes and the base camp can be a hodge-podge of nationalities. Each year the route is made easy by the first party to ascend the route as they usually leave snow-stakes in place at the belay stations. Then it is just a matter of finding out what length of rope they used so that your rope is long enough to reach each station. In the summer of 1988, they had used 50m ropes.

The photographer
Erwin Hermann Manfred Schneider was an Austrian mountaineer. On July 25, 1928, he was part of the German-Soviet expedition for the first ascent of Lenin Peak. They reach the top with Karl Wien and Eugen Allwein. In 1930, he participated in an expedition in the Himalayas led by Günter Dyhrenfurth to Kangchenjunga. On June 21, 1931, he made the first ascent of Jongsong Peak at 7,462 meters1,2. They climb the Ramthang Chang at 6,802 meters. In 1932 and 1936, he took part in two expeditions organized by the German-Austrian Alpine Club (DuOeAV). During these expeditions, Schneider and his companions made about ten first ascents.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ALPAMAYO PHOTOGRAPHED BY LEIGH ORTENBURGER

 

LEIGH ORTENBURGER (1929-1991)
Alpamayo (5,947m - 19,511 ft)
Peru

In Cordillera Blanca - Alpamayo - Peru, South West face, 1959 et 1960, black and white photos published in 1966, Courtsesy Stanford University Archives and collections

About the photo
In the July 1966 issue of the German magazine Alpinismus, a photo taken by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger, accompanied by an article resulting from an international survey among climbers and photographers, chose Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World." The photo (above) was of its Southwest Face which is a steep, almost perfect pyramid of ice? Although slightly smaller than many of its neighboring peaks, it is distinguished by its unusual ice runnels and overwhelming beauty especially when seen in the evening alpenglow. Günter Hauser, who made the first ascent, wrote: "As we pitched our tents the sun went down and Alpamayo became a kaleidoscope of swiftly-changing colour altogether becoming suffused with the pale lunar radiance of the evening before against the background of the dark blue sky with its diadem of stars."
This mountain was first photographed in 1936 by Erwin Schneider.

The photographer
Leigh Ortenburger (1929-1991) climbed and photographed for more than forty years in the world's greatest mountain ranges. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1952 with a degree in mathematics, and earned a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1953 and a second in statistics from Stanford in 1963, where he did additional work toward a Ph.D. He worked several years as a Teton mountain guide and served a two-year stint in the Army before settling into a career as a mathematician with Sylvania. His classic guidebook, A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range, is now in its third edition. Ortenburger’s extensive knowledge of the terrain equipped him to play a key role in the rescue of two climbers trapped on the North Face of the Grand Teton in 1967. Together with fellow climber Irene Beardsley, whom he met through the student-run Stanford Alpine Club in the 1950s, he raised a family in Palo Alto, California. He died October 20, 1991, in the firestorm that swept the Oakland, California hills.
No less impressive than the photographs of Alpamayo themselves is the process of making them, said Glen Denny, also a mountaineering photographer:  “Few realize the difficulty of creating images like Ortenburger's. During hard climbs, while others rested, he performed a painstaking ritual countless times: Plunge the tripod legs into soft snow until they are solid, mount and level the camera, select and attach the lens, huddle under the head cloth while composing the dim, upside-down image on the ground glass, with the wind snatching at the cloth and shaking the camera. Then take off your gloves and spin the delicate dials on the light meter, calibrate the exposure, set the aperture, and cock the shutter, while your fingers still have feeling left. Insert the film holder, pull out the slide, squeeze the cable release--very gently--and replace the slide. There! One shot taken.”

The mountain
Alpamayo ( 5,947m - 19,511 ft) possibly named from Quechua words is one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca of the Peruvian Andes. Alpamayo Creek originates northwest of it. The Alpamayo lies next to the slightly higher Quitaraju. n July 1966, the German magazine "Alpinismus", published a photo of Alpamayo taken by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger accompanied by an article on a survey among mountaineering experts, who chose Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World". Not defined by a single summit Alpamayo has two sharp summits, the North and south, which are separated by a narrow corniced ridge.
The first attempt on Alpamayo's summit was in 1948 by a Swiss expedition. Climbing by way of the heavily corniced North Ridge, the three climbers came within sight of the virgin summit when a large cornice broke under them and they were carried down the precipitous Northwest Face. By some amazing piece of good fortune, the three were neither buried nor injured by the 650 foot fall and they were able to make an 'orderly retreat' from the mountain. In 1951, a Franco-Belgian expedition including George and Claude Kogan claimed to have made the first ascent via the North Ridge. After studying the photos in George Kogan's book The Ascent of Alpamayo, the German team of Günter Hauser, Frieder Knauss, Bernhard Huhn and Horst Wiedmann came to the conclusion that the 1951 team did not reach the actual summit, thereby making their ascent via the South Ridge in 1957 the first. Although the South Ridge is no less steep or dangerous than the North Ridge, it has the advantage of leading directly to the higher south summit. This was written up in Hauser's book White Mountain and Tawny Plain. Although there are several climbing routes on the Southwest Face the most common is known as the Ferrari or Italian Route. It was opened in 1975 by a group of Italian alpinists led by Casimiro Ferrari. It begins at the top of the highest point of the snow slope where the bergshrund separates the upper face on the left and then ascends a steep runnel to the summit ridge. Because of its esthetic beauty, Alpamayo is one of the most climbed mountains in the Andes and the base camp can be a hodge-podge of nationalities. Each year the route is made easy by the first party to ascend the route as they usually leave snow-stakes in place at the belay stations. Then it is just a matter of finding out what length of rope they used so that your rope is long enough to reach each station. In the summer of 1988, they had used 50m ropes.
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

NEVADO HUASCARAN IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1946

VINTAGE POSTCARD 

Nevado Huascaràn (6,778m - 22,205ft) 

Peru 

In Postal Peru de Foto Sotopaytor, 1946 

The mountain
Nevado Huascaràn  (6,778m - 22,205ft) is a mountain in the Peruvian province of Yungay, situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes. Nevado Huascaràn is the highest point in Peru, the northern part of Andes (north of Lake Titicaca) and in all of the Earth's Tropics. Huascaràn is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere and South America after Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado, and Monte Pissis.
The mountain has two distinct summits, the higher being the south one, Huascaran Sur (6,768 m- -22,205 ft). and the north summit, Huascaran Norte (6, 654m - 21, 831ft). The core of Huascarбn, like much of the Cordillera Blanca, consists of Cenozoic era granite.
Huascaran gives its name to Huascaran National Park which surrounds it, and is a popular location for trekking and mountaineering. The Huascaran summit is one of the points on the Earth's surface farthest from the Earth's center, closely behind the farthest point, Chimborazo in Ecuador.
The mountain was named after Huбscar, a 16th-century Inca emperor who was the Sapa Inca of the Inca empire.
The summit of Huascaran is the place on Earth with the smallest gravitational force.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

HUAYNA PICCHU PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARTIN CHAMBI

MARTIN CHAMBI (1893-1973), 

Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu (2,430 m -7,970 ft) 

Peru

In Huayna Picchu con humo, photo, 1929

The mountain and site
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 2,430 m -7,970 ft above sea level. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru, above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Machu Picchu lies in the southern hemisphere, 13.164 degrees south of the equator. It is 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,430 m-7,970 feet above mean sea level, over 1,000 m-3,300 ft lower than Cusco, which has an elevation of (3,600 m -11,800 ft. As such, it had a milder climate than the Inca capital. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, one of the most visited tourist attractions in Latin America and the most visited in Peru.
The city sits in a saddle between the two mountains Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu, with a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back.
Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas" (a title more accurately applied to Vilcabamba), it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham III brought it to international attention in 1911.


The photographer
Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, was a photographer, originally from southern Peru. He was one of the first major indigenous Latin American photographers. Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. As well as being the leading portrait photographer in Cuzco, Chambi made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards, a format he pioneered in Peru.
In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later traveled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.
Martín Chambi was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. When his father went to work in a Carabaya Province gold mine on a small tributary of the River Inambari, Martin went along. There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.
Chambi initially served as an apprentice in the studio of Max T. Vargas, but after nine years set up his own studio in Sicuani in 1917, publishing his first postcards in November of that year. In 1923 he moved to Cuzco and opened a studio there, photographing both society figures and his indigenous compatriots. During his career, Chambi also travelled the Andes extensively, photographing the landscapes, Inca ruins, and local people.
The archives of Martin Chambi's works are kept in Cuzco in his own house and by the care of his family. Everything is preserved in boxes, left by the photographer, classified and numbered by his own hand. A recent inventory has enumerated about 30,000 photographic plates and more than 12,000 to 15,000 photograph (rolls). Scanning work is in progress to retrieve photographic plates and photos.
"It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."
(Mario Vargas Llosa)

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

NEVADO HUASCARAN BY TEOFILO CASTILLO GUAS

TEOFILO CASTILLO  GUAS (1857-1922)

Nevado Huascaran (6,768m - 22, 205 ft) 

Peru 

The mountain 
 Novado Huascarán  or Huascaran  ( 6,768m - 22, 205 ft)  is a mountain in the Peruvian province of Yungay (Ancash Region), situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes. The highest southern summit of Huascarán (Huascarán Sur) is the highest point in Peru, the northern part of Andes (north of Lake Titicaca) and in all of the Earth's Tropics. Huascarán is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere and South America after Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado, and Monte Pissis. The mountain was named after Huáscar, a 16th-century Inca emperor who was the Sapa Inca of the Inca empire.
The summit of Huascarán is the place on Earth with the smallest gravitational force.
Huascarán Sur was first reached on 20 July 1932 by a joint German–Austrian expedition. The team followed what would become later the normal route (named today Garganta route). The north peak (Huascarán Norte) had previously been climbed on 2 September 1908 by a U.S. expedition that included Annie Smith Peck, albeit this first ascent is somewhat disputed.

The painter 
The peruvian painter, art critic and photographer Teófilo Castillo Guas was very representative of the peruvian pictorial academicism,  influenced by the impressionism.
He studied at the Seminary of Santo Toribio in Lima and later in Europe: Spain, Belgium and France, countries where he contacted masterly art production. Returning to Peru, he stood out by exhibiting his paintings, inspired by the traditions of Ricardo Palma.
In 1888 he traveled to Buenos Aires where he married María Gaubeka and worked as a photographer and painter. In 1906 he returned to Peru to open his own workshop.
In the bieginning ot 20th century,  he worked as a painter and art critic in charge of the artistic direction of the magazines Prisma, La Ilustración Peruana and Variedades , where he presented reproductions in three colors (trichromes) of his main works.
He enthusiastically promoted the founding of the National School of Fine Arts in Lima.
From 1920 to his death, he settled in Tucumán, where he directed the magazine Sol y Nieve (Sun and Snox . In addition, he painted a large canvas depicting General Manuel Belgrano presenting the Argentine flag to the Congress of Tucumán in 1816, a work that the Argentine government acquired for 20,000 pesos.
He was also noted for his canvases of colonial evocation inspired by episodes of the Peruvian Traditions of Ricardo Palma, which he made with a quick, colorful brush, in which the characters and the crowds in the processions vibrate, among browns and pinks, greens and blues.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

HUANDOY / TULLPARAJU PAINTED BY TEOFILO CASTILLO GUAS

TEOFILO CASTILLO  GUAS (1857-1922) 

Huandoy / Tullparaju (6,390 m - 20, 870 ft) 

 Peru 

In Huandoy seen from la laguna de Llanganuco, watercolour, Banca nacional del Peru

The mountain 

Huandoy / Tullparaju (6,390 m - 20, 870 ft) is a mountain located inside Huascarán National Park in Ancash, Peru. It is the second-tallest peak of the Cordillera Blanca section of the Andes, after Huascarán. The fisrt name Huandoy is  probably from Quechua Wantuy meaning  to transfer, to transpose, to carry, to carry a heavy load).  The second name Tullparaju is  possibly from Quechua Tullpa which means rustic cooking-fire, stove and Rahu  which means snow, ice, mountain with snow...  Huandoy / Tullparaju and  Huascarán  are rather nearby, separated only by the Llanganuco glacial valley (which contains the Llanganuco Lakes  represented in the painting above)) at 3,846 m asl.
Huandoy / Tullparaju  is a snow-capped mountain with four peaks arranged in the form of a fireplace, the tallest of which is 6,395 m. The four peaks are each over 6,000 m, and are :
- Huandoy (6, 395 m - 20, 981ft)
- Huandoy-West (6,356 m - 20, 853 ft)
- Huandoy-South (6,160 m - 20,209 ft)
- Huandoy-East (6,000 m- 19, 685 ft)
It was first climbed in 1932 by a German team.

The painter 
Teófilo Castillo Guas was a Peruvian painter, art critic and photographer. Representative of the Peruvian pictorial academicism,  he was influenced by the impressionism.
He studied at the Seminary of Santo Toribio in Lima and later in Europe: Spain, Belgium and France, countries where he contacted masterly art production. Returning to Peru, he stood out by exhibiting his paintings, inspired by the traditions of Ricardo Palma.
In 1888 he traveled to Buenos Aires where he married María Gaubeka and worked as a photographer and painter. In 1906 he returned to Peru to open his own workshop.
In the bieginning ot 20th century,  he worked as a painter and art critic in charge of the artistic direction of the magazines Prisma, La Ilustración Peruana and Variedades , where he presented reproductions in three colors (trichromes) of his main works.
He enthusiastically promoted the founding of the National School of Fine Arts in Lima.
From 1920 to his death, he settled in Tucumán, where he directed the magazine Sol y Nieve (Sun and Snox . In addition, he painted a large canvas depicting General Manuel Belgrano presenting the Argentine flag to the Congress of Tucumán in 1816, a work that the Argentine government acquired for 20,000 pesos.
He was also noted for his canvases of colonial evocation inspired by episodes of the Peruvian Traditions of Ricardo Palma, which he made with a quick, colorful brush, in which the characters and the crowds in the processions vibrate, among browns and pinks, greens and blues.

VERONICA / URUMBAMBA BY MARTIN CHAMBI

MARTIN CHAMBI (1893-1973)

Veronica / Urubamba ( 5,893 m - 19,334 ft) 

Peru

In  Urubamba Mountain, photo 1930

The mountain 
Veronica  (5,893 m - 19,334 ft), also called Willka Weqe ("holy tear"),  Huacrahuilki, ("horn pass"), Huacay Huilcay, Wayna Willka, Waqaywillka, Urubamba ("spider's plain"), or Padre Eterno is a ( 5,893 m - 19,334 ft) mountain in the Urubamba mountain range in the Andes of Peru. It is located in the Cusco Region, La Convenciуn Province, Huayopata District, and in the Urubamba Province, Ollantaytambo District northwest of the town of Ollantaytambo.
The Urubamba mountain range extends in a northwesterly direction between 13°08' and 13°17'S and 71°58' and 72°16'W for about 30 km.

The photographer 
Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, was a photographer, originally from southern Peru. He was one of the first major indigenous Latin American photographers. Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. As well as being the leading portrait photographer in Cuzco, Chambi made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards, a format he pioneered in Peru.
In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later traveled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.
Martín Chambi was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. When his father went to work in a Carabaya Province gold mine on a small tributary of the River Inambari, Martin went along. There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.
Chambi initially served as an apprentice in the studio of Max T. Vargas, but after nine years set up his own studio in Sicuani in 1917, publishing his first postcards in November of that year. In 1923 he moved to Cuzco and opened a studio there, photographing both society figures and his indigenous compatriots. During his career, Chambi also travelled the Andes extensively, photographing the landscapes, Inca ruins, and local people.
The archives of Martin Chambi's works are kept in Cuzco in his own  house and by the care of his family. Everything is preserved in boxes, left by the photographer, classified and numbered by his own hand. A recent inventory has enumerated about 30,000 photographic plates and more than 12,000 to 15,000 photograph (rolls). Scanning work is in progress to retrieve photographic plates and photos.
"It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."
 (Mario Vargas Llosa)

EL MISTI IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1920

VINTAGE POSTCARDS 1920 

El Misti or Guagua Putina (5,822m -19,101ft)

Peru 

The mountain 
El Misti (5,822m -19,101ft) also known as Guagua Putina, is a stratovolcano located in southern Peru near the city of Arequipa. With its seasonally snow-capped, symmetrical cone, Misti lies between mount Chachani (6,075m - 19,931ft) and Pichu Pichu volcano (5,669 m -18,599 ft).
El Misti  is located at 3,415m above the sea level on the Altiplano and the elevation of the cone is approximatively 2,400m  above the Altiplano base. El Misti has three concentric craters. In the inner crater fumarole activity can often be seen. The symmetric conical shape of El Misti is typical of a stratovolcano, a type of volcano characterized by alternating layers of lava and debris from explosive eruptions, such as ash and pyroclastic flows. Stratovolcanoes are usually located on the continental crust above a subducting tectonic plate. The magma feeding the stratovolcanoes of the Andes Mountains, including El Misti, is associated with ongoing subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. Its most recent relatively minor eruption was in 1985, 198 years after its previous documented eruption. Near the inner crater six Inca mummies and rare Inca artifacts were found in 1998 during a month-long excavation directed by archaeologists Johan Reinhard and Jose Antonio Chavez. These findings are currently stored at the Museo de Santuarios Andinos in Arequipa.
The city center of Arequipa, Peru, lies only 17 kilometers (11 miles) away from the summit of El Misti; the gray urban area is bordered by green agricultural fields. With almost 1 million residents in 2009, it is the second largest city in Peru in terms of population. Much of the building stone for Arequipa, known locally as sillar, is quarried from nearby pyroclastic flow deposits that are white. Arequipa is known as the “White City” because of the prevalence of this building material. The Chili River extends northeastwards from the city center and flows through a canyon between El Misti volcano and Nevado Chachani to the north. Nevado Chachani is a volcanic complex that may have erupted during the Holocene Epoch (from about 10,000 years ago to the present), but no historical eruptions have been observed there.

Vintage postcards
Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories. Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Teich & Co. were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well. Yvon were the most famous in France. Many individual or anonymous publishers did exist around the world and especially in Africa and  Asia (Japan, Thailand, Nepal, China, Java) between 1920 and 1955. These photographer were mostly local notables, soldiers, official guides belonging to the colonial armies (british french, belgium...) who sometimes had rather sophisticated equipment and readily produced colored photograms or explorers, navigators, climbers (Vittorio Sella and the Archiduke of Abruzzi future king of Italy remains the most famous of them).
There are many types of collectible vintage postcards.
Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.
Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards–often embroidered over a printed image–were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes; they were especially popular during World War I.
In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.

Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters or natural wonders. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Frances Brundage.

NEVADO HUASCARAN IN VINTAGE PRINTS 1908 & 1960

VINTAGE PRINTS 1908  & 1960

Nevado Huascaràn  (6,778m - 22,205ft) 

Peru 

1.  In The american alpinist Annie Smith Peck at the summit of Husacaràn Norte with Huascaràn Sur behind her, Archive photo,  September 2, 1908    

2.  In  Nevado Huascaran (Norte and Sur) seen from the Village Yungay, destroyed by an avalanche in 1970, Archive photo, 1960

The mountain 
Nevado Huascaràn is a mountain in the Peruvian province of Yungay, situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes.  Nevado Huascaràn  is the highest point in Peru, the northern part of Andes (north of Lake Titicaca) and in all of the Earth's Tropics. Huascaràn is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere and South America after Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado, and Monte Pissis.
The mountain has two distinct summits, the higher being the south one, Huascaran Sur (6,768 m-  -22,205 ft). and the north summit, Huascaran Norte (6, 654m - 21, 831ft). The core of Huascarбn, like much of the Cordillera Blanca, consists of Cenozoic era granite.
Huascaran gives its name to Huascaran National Park which surrounds it, and is a popular location for trekking and mountaineering. The Huascaran summit is one of the points on the Earth's surface farthest from the Earth's center, closely behind the farthest point, Chimborazo in Ecuador.
The mountain was named after Huбscar, a 16th-century Inca emperor who was the Sapa Inca of the Inca empire.
The summit of Huascaran is the place on Earth with the smallest gravitational force.
Climbing
The north peak (Huascaran Norte) had been first climbed on 2 September 1908 by a U.S. expedition that included Annie Smith Peck, albeit this first ascent is somewhat disputed
The summit of Huascaran Sur was first reached on 20 July 1932 by a joint German–Austrian expedition. The team followed what would become later the normal route (named today Garganta route).
On 31 May 1970, the Ancash earthquake caused a substantial part of the north side of the mountain to collapse. The avalanche mass, an estimated 80 million cubic metres (2.8 billion cubic feet) of ice, mud and rock, was about half a mile wide and a mile long. It advanced about 11 miles (18 km) at an average speed of 280 to 335 km/h (175 to 210 mph), burying the towns of Yungay  (in the second photo above) and Ranrahirca under ice and rock, killing more than 20,000 people. At least 20,000 people were also killed in Huaraz, site of a 1941 avalanche which killed over 6000 (see Palcacocha Lake). Estimates suggest that the earthquake killed over 66,000 people.
In 1989, a group of eight amateur mountaineers, the "Social Climbers", held what was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records (1990 edition) to be "the world's highest dinner party" on top of the mountain, as documented by Chris Darwin and John Amy in their book The Social Climbers, and raised Ј10,000 for charity.
Climbing Huascaran's has become increasingly dangerous due to climate change. On July 20, 2016, nine climbers were caught in an avalanche on Huascaran's normal route at approximately 5,800 m (19,000 ft), four of whom died.

EL MISTI PAINTED BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)
El Misti or Guagua Putina (5,822m -19,101ft)

Peru

The mountain 

El Misti (5,822m -19,101ft) also known as Guagua Putina, is a stratovolcano located in southern Peru near the city of Arequipa. With its seasonally snow-capped, symmetrical cone, Misti lies between mount Chachani (6,075m - 19,931ft) and Pichu Pichu volcano (5,669 m -18,599 ft).

El Misti  is located at 3,415m above the sea level on the Altiplano and the elevation of the cone is approximatively 2,400m  above the Altiplano base. El Misti has three concentric craters. In the inner crater fumarole activity can often be seen. The symmetric conical shape of El Misti is typical of a stratovolcano, a type of volcano characterized by alternating layers of lava and debris from explosive eruptions, such as ash and pyroclastic flows. Stratovolcanoes are usually located on the continental crust above a subducting tectonic plate. The magma feeding the stratovolcanoes of the Andes Mountains, including El Misti, is associated with ongoing subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. Its most recent relatively minor eruption was in 1985, 198 years after its previous documented eruption. Near the inner crater six Inca mummies and rare Inca artifacts were found in 1998 during a month-long excavation directed by archaeologists Johan Reinhard and Jose Antonio Chavez. These findings are currently stored at the Museo de Santuarios Andinos in Arequipa. The city center of Arequipa, Peru, lies only 17 kilometers (11 miles) away from the summit of El Misti; the gray urban area is bordered by green agricultural fields. With almost 1 million residents in 2009, it is the second largest city in Peru in terms of population. Much of the building stone for Arequipa, known locally as sillar, is quarried from nearby pyroclastic flow deposits that are white. Arequipa is known as the “White City” because of the prevalence of this building material. The Chili River extends northeastwards from the city center and flows through a canyon between El Misti volcano and Nevado Chachani to the north. Nevado Chachani is a volcanic complex that may have erupted during the Holocene Epoch (from about 10,000 years ago to the present), but no historical eruptions have been observed there.

The painter 

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.

Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.

O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.

In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.

In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.

Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”

Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.

Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

-  Georgia O'Keeffe Museum 

QULLIQIP'UNQU BY MARTIN CHAMBI

MARTIN CHAMBI (1893-1973),

Qullqip'unqu mountain (5,522m - 18,117ft)

Peru 

In Pilgrim at Quyllu rit'i in Qullqip'unqu mountain, 1930, Martin Chambi official Website

The mountain 

Qullqip'unqu (Quechua qullqi money) is a mountain in the Andes of Peru and the name of a lake near the peak. It is situated in the northern extensions of the Willkanuta mountain range in the Cusco Region, Quispicanchi Province, in the districts Ccarhuayo and Ocongate and in the Paucartambo Province, Kosсipata District. Qullqip'unqu lies northwest of the lake Sinkrinaqucha, southeast of Minasniyuq.  The lake named Qullqip'unqu is situated south of the mountain at 13°32′04″S 71°12′29″W. The annual Quyllur Rit'i festival takes place at the foot of the mountains Qullqip'unqu and Sinaqara. The ukukus (Cusco Quechua ukuku spectacled bear (or just 'bear'), also a character in the Andean mythology) of all the groups climb the glaciers of Qullqip'unqu and spend the night there. They return, carrying on their backs huge ice blocks for the people of their community. The waters of the mountain are believed to heal the body and the mind.

The photographer 
Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, was a photographer, originally from southern Peru. He was one of the first major indigenous Latin American photographers. Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. As well as being the leading portrait photographer in Cuzco, Chambi made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards, a format he pioneered in Peru.
In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later traveled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.
Martín Chambi was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. When his father went to work in a Carabaya Province gold mine on a small tributary of the River Inambari, Martin went along. There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.
Chambi initially served as an apprentice in the studio of Max T. Vargas, but after nine years set up his own studio in Sicuani in 1917, publishing his first postcards in November of that year. In 1923 he moved to Cuzco and opened a studio there, photographing both society figures and his indigenous compatriots. During his career, Chambi also travelled the Andes extensively, photographing the landscapes, Inca ruins, and local people.
The archives of Martin Chambi's works are kept in Cuzco in his own  house and by the care of his family. Everything is preserved in boxes, left by the photographer, classified and numbered by his own hand. A recent inventory has enumerated about 30,000 photographic plates and more than 12,000 to 15,000 photograph (rolls). Scanning work is in progress to retrieve photographic plates and photos.
"It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."
 (Mario Vargas Llosa)

MACHU PICCHU PAINTED BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)

Machu Picchu (2,430 m -7,970 ft)

Peru

1. In Machu Picchu, morning light (Peruvian Landscape), n.d. watercolor on paper (9 x 11 7/8 i.), 

Heckscher Museum of Art

The mountain and site 

Machu Picchu  is a 15th-century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 2,430 m -7,970 ft above sea level. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru, above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Machu Picchu lies in the southern hemisphere, 13.164 degrees south of the equator. It is 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,430 m-7,970 feet above mean sea level, over 1,000 m-3,300 ft lower than Cusco, which has an elevation of (3,600 m -11,800 ft. As such, it had a milder climate than the Inca capital. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, one of the most visited tourist attractions in Latin America  and the most visited in Peru.

The city sits in a saddle between the two mountains Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu, with a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back.

Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas" (a title more accurately applied to Vilcabamba), it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911.

The Painter
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru (see above) and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below....

VINICUNCA - MONTANA DE SIETE COLORES IN VINTAGE POSTCARDS 1930-1940

VINTAGE  POSTCARDS 1930- 1940

Vinicunca or Montaña de Siete Colores  (5,200m- 17, 100ft)  

 Peru (Cuzco)

1. In Vinicunca at noon, 1940, Vintage Peruvian postcard 

2. In Vinicunca at dawn, covered with snow, 1930, Vintage American postcard

The mountain 

Vinicunca (5,200m- 17, 100ft)  also called Montaña de Siete Colores (The Mountain of Seven Colors) or Montaña de Colores  (Mountain of colors), sometimes known as Rainbow mountains, is a mountain in Peru, located in the Andes of Peru, in the . The Mountain of Seven Colors is a spectacular place, as if it were taken from another planet. It is found in the mountain range of Vilcanota and its striking natural coloration is due to the presence of sedimentary stones and minerals thanks to the erosion of wind and water. Ocres, reds, whites, yellows, greens and purples form a chromatic range that make Vinicunca a unique place in the world.

According to what some people of the area, this part of the mountain range was covered by glaciers for millennia. It seems that the disappearance of perpetual snow since the 1920's, made this colorful show. One of the peculiarities of this mountain for tourists (and they actually are too many!) who arrive there at dawn, is to discover Vinicunca covered with frost and entirely white (second photo above), without any of the colors that the brochures had promised! Then, as the sun warms up the atmosphere, the frost melts and reveals a land of multiple colors, a true rainbow mountain. One can imagine the reaction of the Incas to this phenomenon and why they immediately declared it sacred mountain.

There are two others Rainbow mountains or so called Colored Mountains on planet Earth : one in Canada, one in China.

Vintage postcards
Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories. Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Teich & Co. were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well. Yvon were the most famous in France. Many individual or anonymous publishers did exist around the world and especially in Africa and  Asia (Japan, Thailand, Nepal, China, Java) between 1920 and 1955. These photographer were mostly local notables, soldiers, official guides belonging to the colonial armies (british french, belgium...) who sometimes had rather sophisticated equipment and readily produced colored photograms or explorers, navigators, climbers (Vittorio Sella and the Archiduke of Abruzzi future king of Italy remains the most famous of them).
There are many types of collectible vintage postcards.
Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.
Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards–often embroidered over a printed image–were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes; they were especially popular during World War I.
In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.
Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters or natural wonders. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Frances Brundage.

CHACHANI BY MARTIN CHAMBI

MARTIN CHAMBI (1891–1973)

Chachani (6, 057m- 19, 872ft) 

 Peru  

1.  In Mount Chachani, 1915,  autochrome 

2.  In Mount Chachani, 1917,  autochrome

3.  In Mount Chacani and The Misti seen from Arequipa, 1920,  autochrome  

The mountain 

Chachani  (6, 057m- 19, 872ft) is  the highest of the mountains near the city of Arequipa in southern Peru and the eighty-four highest summit of the Andes. Between six and eight separate craters form the massif of Chachani. Erosion has only left one recognizable crater in the western part of the complex. This structure has an arcuate shape. A shield 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) thick with a diametre of 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) is formed from coalescent lava flows on Chachani's southern side and is known as Pampa de Palacio or Las Cortaderas. An escarpment on the eastern side of Chachani may be part of a "Chachani" caldera, the source of several ignimbrites in the Arequipa area. Vegetation cover above 4,500 metres (14,800 ft) altitude is scarce. 

A Inca temple was constructed on Chachani's summit area, and archeological relics date back to pre-Hispanic times. This sanctuary was looted as early as the end of the 19th century. During one of these lootings, a skeleton of a woman, wooden vessels and ceramics. An archeological study in 2013 did suggest that Chachani's summit was the site of Capacocha sacrifices. Rock material from Chachani has been used to construct churches in Arequipa and sulfur was mined on the mountain. Oral tradition attributes to Chachani the ability to choose the gender of newborn children.
Climbing 
Chachani is often touted as the easiest 6000 meter mountain in the world, and for good reason.  There are three main routes up Chachani but the mountain is normally climbed from its northern side. The start of the trek is at a drop-off point which is reached in 2.5 hours by four-wheel drive vehicle, driving west around Chachani and turning off from the main highway near Pampa Cañahuas, or heading north from Arequipa between Misti and Chachani. Base camp is at approximately 5,200 metres (17,100 ft). There is another higher camp called Camp Azulfrera situated at about 5,400 metres (17,700 ft). The route starts with the ascent to the Angel Col before traversing the El Angel mountain itself. Then climbers ascend the face of Fatima mountain in a zig-zag pattern before making another traverse on the Fatima mountain. Only then the summit of Chachani can be seen. From there, climbers need to make the final ascent on the face of Chachani all the way to the top of the mountain.
The standard route requires crampons and an ice axe, but does not require roping up, as there are no large crevasses on Chachani. Two traverses over relatively steep terrain constitute the main challenges on the way to the summit. The final push to the summit is a very steep[clarification needed] scree slope, which provides for a fast descent back to the first traverse.
In recent years, the amount of snow on Chachani has decreased dramatically, so for many months of the year there may be little snow on the mountain. For example, in October and November 2010, there was no snow at all, and the ascent could be made without crampons or ice axes. Climbers need to check on the snow conditions beforehand.
The average total climb time from base camp ranges from six to nine hours, with a two-to four-hour descent.
 Source: 
- Summitpost. org 

The photographer
Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, known as Martin Chambi was a photographer, originally from southern Peru. He was one of the first major indigenous Latin American photographers. Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. As well as being the leading portrait photographer in Cuzco, Chambi made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards, a format he pioneered in Peru.
In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later traveled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.
Martín Chambi was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. When his father went to work in a Carabaya Province gold mine on a small tributary of the River Inambari, Martin went along. There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.
Chambi initially served as an apprentice in the studio of Max T. Vargas, but after nine years set up his own studio in Sicuani in 1917, publishing his first postcards in November of that year. In 1923 he moved to Cuzco and opened a studio there, photographing both society figures and his indigenous compatriots. During his career, Chambi also travelled the Andes extensively, photographing the landscapes, Inca ruins, and local people.
The archives of Martin Chambi's works are kept in Cuzco in his own  house and by the care of his family. Everything is preserved in boxes, left by the photographer, classified and numbered by his own hand. A recent inventory has enumerated about 30,000 photographic plates and more than 12,000 to 15,000 photograph (rolls). Scanning work is in progress to retrieve photographic plates and photos.
"It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."
 (Mario Vargas Llosa)
 Source:
- Martin Chambi official Website

MACHU PICCHU BY HIRAM BINGHAM III

 HIRAM BINGHAM III (1875-1956) 

Machu Picchu (2,430 m -7,970 ft) 

Peru

Photo made in 1912 - original ruins before modern reconstruction 

The mountain and site 

Machu Picchu  is a 15th-century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 2,430 m -7,970 ft above sea level. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru, above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Machu Picchu lies in the southern hemisphere, 13.164 degrees south of the equator. It is 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,430 m-7,970 feet above mean sea level, over 1,000 m-3,300 ft lower than Cusco, which has an elevation of (3,600 m -11,800 ft. As such, it had a milder climate than the Inca capital. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, one of the most visited tourist attractions in Latin America  and the most visited in Peru.

The city sits in a saddle between the two mountains Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu, with a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back.

Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas" (a title more accurately applied to Vilcabamba), it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Inti Watana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of how they originally appeared. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored[4] and restoration continues. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

The photographer - explorer

Hiram Bingham III was an American academic, explorer and politician. He made public the existence of the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later, Bingham served as a member of the United States Senate for the state of Connecticut.
Bingham was not a trained archaeologist. Yet, it was during Bingham's time as a lecturer – later professor – in South American history at Yale that he re-discovered the largely forgotten Inca city of Machu Picchu. In 1908, he had served as delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile. On his way home via Peru, a local prefect convinced him to visit the pre-Columbian city of Choquequirao. Bingham published an account of this trip in Across South America; an account of a journey from Buenos Aires to Lima by way of Potosí, with notes on Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.
Bingham was thrilled by the prospect of unexplored Inca cities, and organized the 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition with one of its objectives to search for the last capital of the Incas. On July 24, 1911, Melchor Arteaga led Bingham to Machu Picchu, which had been largely forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the immediate valley, possibly including two local missionaries named Thomas Payne and Stuart McNairn whose are supposed to have already climbed to the ruins in 1906. Also the Cusco explorers Enrique Palma, Gabino Sanchez and Agustín Lizarraga are said to have arrived at the site in 1901. Bingham returned to Peru in 1912, 1914 and 1915 with the support of Yale and the National Geographic Society. In The Lost City of the Incas (1948), a bestseller upon its publication in 1948, Bingham related how he came to believe that Machu Picchu housed a major religious shrine and served as a training center for religious leaders. Modern archaeological research has since determined that the site was not a religious center but a royal estate to which Inca leaders and their entourage repaired during the Andean summer.
Machu Picchu has become one of the major tourist attractions in South America, and Bingham is recognized as the man who brought the site to world attention, although many others helped to bring this site into the public eye. The switchback-filled road that carries tourist buses to the site from the Urubamba River is called the Hiram Bingham Highway.
Bingham has been cited as one possible basis for the "Indiana Jones" character.
Peru has long sought the return of the estimated 40,000 artifacts, including mummies, ceramics and bones, that Bingham had excavated and exported from the Machu Picchu site. On September 14, 2007, an agreement was made between Yale University and the Peruvian government for the return of the objects. On April 12, 2008, the Peruvian government stated that it had revised previous estimates of 4,000 pieces up to 40,000.

EL MISTI (GUAGUA PUTINA) PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARTIN CHAMBI

 MARTIN CHAMBI (1893-1983) 

El Misti or Guagua Putina (5,822m -19,101ft)

Peru

3 photos of El Misti from Arequipa between 1917-1930 

Martin Chambi Archivo Fotografico 

The mountain 
El Misti (5,822m -19,101ft) also known as Guagua Putina, is a stratovolcano located in southern Peru near the city of Arequipa. With its seasonally snow-capped, symmetrical cone, Misti lies between mount Chachani (6,075m - 19,931ft) and Pichu Pichu volcano (5,669 m -18,599 ft).
El Misti  is located at 3,415m above the sea level on the Altiplano and the elevation of the cone is approximatively 2,400m  above the Altiplano base. El Misti has three concentric craters. In the inner crater fumarole activity can often be seen. The symmetric conical shape of El Misti is typical of a stratovolcano, a type of volcano characterized by alternating layers of lava and debris from explosive eruptions, such as ash and pyroclastic flows. Stratovolcanoes are usually located on the continental crust above a subducting tectonic plate. The magma feeding the stratovolcanoes of the Andes Mountains, including El Misti, is associated with ongoing subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. Its most recent relatively minor eruption was in 1985, 198 years after its previous documented eruption. Near the inner crater six Inca mummies and rare Inca artifacts were found in 1998 during a month-long excavation directed by archaeologists Johan Reinhard and Jose Antonio Chavez. These findings are currently stored at the Museo de Santuarios Andinos in Arequipa.
The city center of Arequipa, Peru, lies only 17 kilometers (11 miles) away from the summit of El Misti; the gray urban area is bordered by green agricultural fields. With almost 1 million residents in 2009, it is the second largest city in Peru in terms of population. Much of the building stone for Arequipa, known locally as sillar, is quarried from nearby pyroclastic flow deposits that are white. Arequipa is known as the “White City” because of the prevalence of this building material. The Chili River extends northeastwards from the city center and flows through a canyon between El Misti volcano and Nevado Chachani to the north. Nevado Chachani is a volcanic complex that may have erupted during the Holocene Epoch (from about 10,000 years ago to the present), but no historical eruptions have been observed there.
Climbing
There are two main climbing routes on the volcano. The Pastores route starts at 3,300 m-10,800 f). Usually a camp is made in 4,500 m -14,800 ft  at Nido de Aguilas. The Aguada Blanca route starts at 4,000 m- 13,100 ft near the Aguada Blanca reservoir, and a camp is made in 4,800 m -15,700 ft at Monte Blanco (the camp is named after Mont Blanc, the summit of which is approximately the same elevation as the camp). Neither climbing routes presents technical difficulties, but both are considered strenuous because of the steep loose sand slopes.

The photographer 
Martín Chambi Jiménez or Martín Chambi de Coaza, was a photographer, originally from southern Peru. He was one of the first major indigenous Latin American photographers. Recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs, he was a prolific portrait photographer in the towns and countryside of the Peruvian Andes. As well as being the leading portrait photographer in Cuzco, Chambi made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards, a format he pioneered in Peru.
In 1979, New York's MOMA held a Chambi retrospective, which later traveled to various locations and inspired other international expositions of his work.
Martín Chambi was born into a Quechua-speaking peasant family in one of the poorest regions of Peru, at the end of the nineteenth century. When his father went to work in a Carabaya Province gold mine on a small tributary of the River Inambari, Martin went along. There he had his first contact with photography, learning the rudiments from the photographer of the Santo Domingo Mine near Coaza (owned by the Inca Mining Company of Bradford, Pa). This chance encounter planted the spark that made him seek to support himself as a professional photographer. With that idea in mind, he headed in 1908 to the city of Arequipa, where photography was more developed and where there were established photographers who had taken the time to develop individual photographic styles and impeccable technique.
Chambi initially served as an apprentice in the studio of Max T. Vargas, but after nine years set up his own studio in Sicuani in 1917, publishing his first postcards in November of that year. In 1923 he moved to Cuzco and opened a studio there, photographing both society figures and his indigenous compatriots. During his career, Chambi also travelled the Andes extensively, photographing the landscapes, Inca ruins, and local people.
The archives of Martin Chambi's works are kept in Cuzco in his own  house and by the care of his family. Everything is preserved in boxes, left by the photographer, classified and numbered by his own hand. A recent inventory has enumerated about 30,000 photographic plates and more than 12,000 to 15,000 photograph (rolls). Scanning work is in progress to retrieve photographic plates and photos.
"It is wrong to focus too much on the testimonial value of his photos. They have that, indeed, but, in equal measure they express the milieu in which he lived and they show (...) that when he got behind a camera, he became a giant, a true inventor, a veritable force of invention, a recreator of life."
 (Mario Vargas Llosa)
Sources:
 - Martin Chambi official Website