Some visual thoughts from Buenos Aires

[texxter]

I am posting this note from Buenos Aires. Assuming that volcanic activity of the Puyehue volcano decreases, the international airport should reopen tonite or tomorrow so that we can fly out to Rio and then back to the USA. These images below are some some visual observations of my stay in Buenos Aires. I only have my Fuji x100 with me and very limited postprocessing gear, so the images are pretty much straight from the camera, made into B&W and resized.

My first impression of this megalopolis is "decay" - this was once a great city, of luxury and sophistication. And I am sure there are pockets of that remaining in Buenos Aires; but to the casual visitor using San Telmo as his base camp, the city looks gritty and in decline. One of the first observations is trash everywhere, and the industry around trash. By this I mean people who make a living going thru trash, picking up stuff that can be sold and leaving a mess afterwards. People with huge carts collecting trash, a family claiming the same corner every night to search the trash for paper, plastic, metal. I am not talking about some poor suburb, but downtown Buenos Aires. Here are two illustrations:

#1 - this young man didn't look homeless or desperate. Yet, he spent a long time going over this bag full of discarded toys and carefully organizing the broken dolls and other toys into piles. He seemed totally unware of my photographing him a few feet away.



#2 - in trendy Palermo Soho I saw a horse carriage carrying recyclable metal collected from the trash. It was quite a surprise, as this is a very fancy area with fashion designers and TV studios. Yes, the culture of trash seems to have no boundaries in this huge city...



Another very noticeable characteristic of life in Buenos Aires is the cafe. People go into a coffee shop, order a latte, pull out books, papers or a notebook and spend hours doing their thing there. Going into a cafe is a great people watching opportunity, and even more interesting if you can understand the nature of the conversations taking place...

#3. This small group was occupying the table next to mine in the old Cafe Tortoni near Plaza de Mayo. The young woman was an actress, from what I was able to pick up from their conversation, one of the older men was a playwriter, and they had an animated chat about contemporary theater in Buenos Aires.



Of course, we cannot talk about Buenos Aires without talking about tango. Today tango is manufactured and packaged for tourists in dinner+tango shows, but the real tango, the soul of this passionate city, is still alive, and can be found sometimes on the streets. This couple was performing right on Florida St, the main commercial artery of downtown Buenos Aires - asking for tips, but also advertising their tango school. Really lovely to watch!

#4 - tango on the streets.



#5 - another defining aspect of life in Buenos Aires is protests - from the legendary Madres de Mayo, who continue to demonstrate asking for justice for crimes committed by the last junta (which fell in 1983), to this demonstration I saw today of public school teachers asking for better conditions. I was told that it is not uncommon to have 5 or more demonstrations every day, all around Plaza de Mayo, where the Pink House, the Presidential mansion, is. This photo is of one of the teachers demonstrating this morning.



#6 - you can't talk about Buenos Aires without mentioning food, and, of course, the typical "asado" or argentinian grill. I was walking around Retiro, the area where the massive train and bus stations share a mass of people, when I made this picture of a small greasy hole in the wall with all kinds of meats and other delicacies. The place was packed with travelers getting lunch before their often day- and night- long bus or train trips.



#7 - Buenos Aires is a city of books - there are wonderful bookstores and a multitude of magazine stands, cultural centers, libraries... This image below is of the "Biblioteca Popular de la Boca" - a humble little library in the working class neighborhood of La Boca (where the Boca Juniors has its famous stadium) - Buenos Aires was chosen by UNESCO 2011 Capital International of the Book and there is an avant-garde Book Babel Tower art installation to celebrate at the Plaza de San Martin. Jorge Luis Borges is the city's hero.



*8 - the Recoletas cementery defines the essence of how Buenos Aires is passionate not only about life, but also about death. This massive cemetery of the wealthy is the ultimate symbol of decay. Some mausoleums of once wealthy and powerful families now show the abandon and decay of loss of fortune. This was one of the most amazing sights in Buenos Aires, a city within a city dedicated to the ostentatious yet beautiful display of the eternal residence of their illustrious or just rich people.

[shiladityab]

Paco, nice set of pictures and narrative. I am from Calcutta, India. Other than the Tango, I can project everything else you said about Buenos Aires to my city. Fascinating. Thank you for giving a flavor of my city in pictures of another great city.

[lhdvies]

Very interesting post Paco-Thks!!!!

[Some Idiot]

Love #3 and #6, #3 is my favorite, I like the lower angle you captured the image at....

[groovyone]

Really interesting shots and a great look into the area.

[WarrenG]

Nice work Paco... I feel like I am there with you.

[Snarfy]

Tango shot is a beautifully captured moment.

[Angelo]

Thanks Paco.
The Argentines are a very proud lot. At opposite ends to the Brazilians.
Showing the images in B&W gave it the flavor that came across in your words.

Can't wait to see the rest of your photographs when you return home.

[PEC]

Sounds like your trip to BA was similar to mine a couple of years ago. It's called the Paris of South America but I didn't see the similarity other than it's a big city :)

Nice grab shots! Travel safely!

[texxter]

Thank you much for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it.

We're back in Dallas and I will be here until Sunday when I leave with a buddy of mine on a motorcycle journey to Colorado and Utah for a week. I am really looking forward to being close to nature after being in one of the largest metropolis in the continent.

Here are some more images, this time in color, with a bit of commentary on each. All the images were made with the Fuji x100, a camera I continue to love, despite its flaws. The very small size and nearly silent operation is a huge advantage when trying to photograph in the city. Also, it weighs so little I don't even notice I am carrying a camera. Image quality is also pretty good - high ISO performance is amazing, actually.

#9. The Argentinian White House is pink - well, not really pink, except at night when it is illuminated pink. This building is where the president of the republic performs his (her now) public function, but unlike the White House, the presidential family doesn't actually live here. The building occupies one of the sides of Plaza de Mayo.



#10. In the same Plaza de Mayo there is a permanent set of signs asking for justice for those who disappeared during the last dictatorship in the 70s and 80s. More than 11,000 people are still not accounted for. The organization Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, an association of Argentine mothers whose children "disappeared" continues to be active (recently involved in some political scandal) asking for accountability.



#11. A candid portrait of an Argentinian working man in front of a wall. Argentinians are a proud bunch, and they've shown a lot of resilience going through really difficult political and economic challenges. While I was there the newspapers commented on the inflation figures, which seemed to involve fabrication by the gov't. Prices in Argentine continue to rise every few months.



#12. Old buildings are usually painted with political or "artistic" grafitti. This wall, not far from my hotel, combined political commentary "long life to socialism and freedom" with cubist-like artistic expression. I liked the grittiness of it.



#13. Here is another example of a wall painting that caught my eye. I like the "I love Buenos Aires" note of humor on the otherwise standard revolutionary stencil. The pink mask must have some meaning that I fail to grasp.



#14. Outdoor market at the outskirts of Buenos Aires. There is a tradition of colorful buildings in working class neighborhoods, like Boca. More on this below.



#15. Speaking of Boca, I captured this moment ("the finger") in this part of town. Yellow and blue are the colors of Boca Juniors, the most famous soccer team in Argentina, whose stadium, so called "The Chocolate Box" is in this neighborhood. This house had a Boca Junior souvenir shop on the ground floor, and a young man giving me the finger on the top floor An irony, as the sign at the botton of the steps says "Welcome" in Spanish!



#16. And here is the inside of the stadium, really small by US standards, but I can only imagine the excitement of being here during a final. Some other time



#17. Working class families, mostly of Italian origin, used to live in tenement houses called "conventillos". The tradition of painting the houses of La Boca in bright colours comes from using paint left over from painting boats to paint their houses. There was never enough paint to paint one house in all one colour so they became multi-coloured. The image below is a fake conventillo, but you get the idea.



#18. My final image from this neighborhood is this restaurant from Caminito, the tourist destination in Boca. Tango couples will insist to pose with you for a photo, or will dance in front of restaurants like this one.



#19. The subway in Buenos Aires dates back to 1913, with the "Peru" station still looking pretty much it did at the beginning of the 20th century. We rode the "A" line - the subway cars are from 1913, made out of wood, and you need to slide the doors yourself to get in or out. Quite an experience!



#20. Florida St. is the main commercial street in downtown, closed to traffic, and populated by a very diverse fauna of street vendors, peddlers, bankers, tourists... My kids enjoyed looking at the stuff being sold by young people on this street, and they even bought a sculpture made out of scrap metal for a few pesos. Here is what the street looks like at night - a young mother and her child are considering buying a toy.



#21. Leather goods are abundant, jackets, purses, shoes, even entire cowhides as rugs. Stella bought a pretty handbag made of leather, printed with colorful flower patterns, similar to the ones you see on the image below.



#22. In the neighborhood of San Telmo, where our hotel was, there is a large number of antique shops, and a really interesting Sunday flea market that we missed because we went to Iguazu Falls. I really loved going in, striking a conversation with the owners and looking around... I saw lots of fake European antiques priced as authentic. Only thing I got was pictures.



#23, #24. I loved the old style restaurants in Buenos Aires - this one is on Defense St. in San Telmo. Waiters are older men with a lifetime of experience and stories about their neighborhood. This one in the two pictures below is decorated with the ubiquitous yellow and blue colors.





#25. After dinner you can go to a place like Cafe Tortoni to have coffee and even see some tango. This is their tiny stage, right before the performance started... it was closed to the public but I talked to one of the guys there into letting me in for a picture. This is one of those situations where having a small camera like the x100 really helped, as I am sure a large DSLR wouldn't have been welcome.



#26. Pacific is a mall on Florida St, which left me speechless. Not only is the building housing the mall beautiful, but the inside is decorated with frescos inspired by the classics, and the top floor is an art space with temporary exhibits and a tango school. A really great place to enjoy art for free.



#27. Speaking of art, I was extremely lucky to be able to visit a photographic exhibition at the Recoletas Cultural Center dedicated to the French photographer Robert Doisneau. It was fantastic, with a total of 137 prints.



We decided to travel to Iguazu Falls by bus to experience land travel in Argentina and also because we couldn't get a reasonable airfare on a short notice. The buses are very comfortable, with meals served, first class-like seats that recline all the way, and even "bus attendants" - the kids loved it. The last few pictures from this series are from the trip.

#28. Taking pictures of people waiting for the bus. This gentleman was immersed in thought and I loved his profile.



#29. This couple was traveling to visit their son near Mendoza, the wine region of Argentina. I didnt want to ask personal questions as we only chatted for a minute, but I could tell that the mother was worried. I think this portrait captured that feeling.



#30. At a stop this boy came into the bus offering sweet breads and I was there to capture this candid moment as he is boarding the bus with his merchandise. I need to mention the x100 again because this image happened as I had the small camera in my hand all the time, and only had to take it to my eye and frame the moment.



#31. Image taken from the bus as we passed through rural communities in Northern Argentina. I liked the red soil covering everything.



#32. And this is magnificent Iguazu falls. No image I took does justice to the majesty of the the place.



#34. Our bus returning to Buenos Aires - it stopped at a town called Posadas to pick up passengers and refuel. Our seats were the first row above the driver on the top deck. The kids had fun riding high up on the bus.



#35. My last photo from this long series is one of a demonstration - again the teachers, but this time in the country side - "march for teaching dignity" - the teachers waved at the children and me as I snapped this image from the bus, which had to slow down as they were marching on the highway. Hope they get what they want.

[Angelo]

Great series of photos Paco.
I would image you have a ton of Iguazu falls!?
Were you able to get on those boats that go under the falls and get you wet?
that's something your kids would love.
But maybe it was too cold since it's winter there.

[texxter]

Gracias, Angelo! I did take some pics at Iguazu Falls, mostly for stock, but I am not a very good landscape photographer, don't get close to what you're able to do! We didn't go on the Adventure thing, mostly because my wife and daughter didnt want to get soaking wet, Pablo and I were game We really enjoyed visiting the park thoroughly for two days. It was cold in the morning, not during the day.

[texkam]

Thank you for sharing your photos and experiences.

[texxter]

Mark, thanks for your comment!