Guanaco — The Story Behind the Shot

This is This Place. I took this shot on a recent expedition. It became the first print ordered from the Frames from the Field collection. Here's what I remember about that day...

We were barely inside the park. Van stopped at the ranger checkpoint, Torres Del Paine - Indeterminada, everyone piling out to show passes, stamping our boots in the Patagonian wind — and there they were. A whole pack of guanacos up on the hill, hair blowing sideways, completely ignoring us. Not one of them looked down. They were busy eating calafate berries, heads down, living their lives while we fumbled with our paperwork. I stood there with my camera, waiting for one to turn. The wind was ripping. The ranger was taking forever with our permits. And these guanacos just kept grazing, looking like they owned the place — which, honestly, they did. The irony hit me later that night in El Calafate. We sat down for dinner and the special was guanaco stew. I looked at the bowl, looked at the photo on my camera, and just laughed. That matte cup of wine on the table, the stew steaming in front of me, and the memory of that pack on the hill refusing to acknowledge our existence. You travel to see animals in their world, and then you eat them for dinner. That's Patagonia. Beautiful, brutal, and doesn't care if you're watching. This shot — this one here — is from that exact moment. Before the stew. Before the wine. Just the wind, the berries, and a pack of guanacos who couldn't be bothered to look our way.

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Tags: #TorresdelPaine #Guanaco #FramesFromTheField