Over the winter break from school I spent close to 12 glorious days in Santiago, Chile with my Mother and Aunt Regina. It was a remarkable trip, with our time spent exploring the city, multiple trips to the Baha’i House of Worship and a day trip to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. The weather was amazing, in the 80s and 90s with radiant sunshine every day. I even came back with a sunburn!

But most important was that I got to explore a new city, spend time with family and take tons of photos. It’s been a while since I’ve spent so much time taking photographs while exploring and it was good to get behind the camera, even if it was mostly just with my phone.

While I was in Santiago, I realized that I have begun taking a new approach to taking pictures. A long time ago when I first started photography, I always waited for the best shot, without people or objects, trying to always get the clearest shot possible. But I think it’s been in the last year or so, that I’ve grown to love and appreciate movement in my photos.

Whether it’s hands visible and moving in a scene, or streaks in the background, these movements give life and energy to photographs. Even in the graffiti photos I took in Santiago, there are plenty of times where people seemed to almost be posing in my shot, a guy in a pink shirt was looking over his shoulder like he was being followed or cars were driving in front of a piece. Instead of waiting for these “obstructions” to clear in order to re-shoot, I simply stayed in the moment, took the photo with them in it and moved on.

Not only have I generally come to appreciate movement, but in a place like Santiago, where there is life and energy everywhere, this movement is both essential and unavoidable. In a city with close to 7.5 million people and a density of  21,925 people per square mile, to try and exclude this energy, would be to omit the very essence that is the soul of the city. So I embraced that and look full advantage of the city breathing additional life into these photographs.

I was going to make each group of photos its own post in order to add reflections or thoughts about them. But that would have taken way too long and I really wanted to get these up. Some photos will have captions, and some will speak for themselves.

For those who are interested, full size images of photos taken at the Baha’i House of Worship are available upon request. Just send me note with the image number found in the caption.

Without further ado, I present to you photographs that capture my experience in Santiago. I hope you enjoy them. There are A LOT so please take your time, stay awhile, or come back more than once. : )

Art & Graffiti:

Baha’i House of Worship:

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Churches & Basilicas:

The Pope was scheduled to visit Chile and Peru beginning January 15th, three days after our departure. As part of gearing up for the celebrations surrounding his visit, these awesome life-size Pope cutouts were in pretty much every church and basilica.

Here he is again…

Landmarks:

Artequin

Pedal boat boat pond at Quinta Normal.

Museum exhibits keeping it real…

The Museum of Memory and Human RIghts…

Fountain of Neptune

Hidalgo Castle

President’s Palace

Museo de Violeta Parra…so amazing!

Military School

Railway Museum!

Markets & Street Vending:

One of the many “tool malls”

Mercado Central = the dead fish zone.

Lots of street vendors selling fried foods, meat on sticks, and every once in awhile delicious fresh fruit!

Local artisan store at the Fountain of Neptune.

The fruit and vegetable market at Mercado de Abastos Tirso de Molina. I was in heaven!

For reference, this is 1 kilo of cherries which cost 800 Chilean pesos. So almost 2.5 pounds of cherries for about $1.32 USD. Also here is a pint of blueberries which cost 1,000CP.

Mercado de Flores

Lots of Chinese stores in Santiago. From textiles, gadgets to food and snacks. Also lots of Chinese restaurants.

One of many street vendors lining the streets selling their wares.

Natural medicine shops abound!

Odds & Ends:

There are lots of stray dogs in the city and surrounding areas. People generally treat them with either indifference or kindness. People even put out water for them.

Some dog houses by the side of the road, possibly for area strays.

A really cute little French cafe.

My lunch at the cafe. Mint lemonade which was basically just mint with lemon juice and water, very little sugar. Also yogurt, granola and fruit. In Chile fruit mixes usually always include apples.

My favorite little breakfast cookies!

A neat looking hostel.

There are not a lot of traditional gyms or fitness centers easily visible in Santiago. But what’s neat is that most parks have equipment like this made for exercising.

Vina del Mar & Valparaiso:

Vistas & Flores: