After touring Lima for a day and a half, we flew to the city of Cusco. But once landing at this high altitude city, we get on our bus and head down into the Sacred Valley. We do this for 3 reasons:
1. It gives people time to adjust to the 12,000 foot altitude
2. There are some beautiful areas to visit in the valley
3. This is on the way to Machu Picchu
Our first visit in the Sacred Valley was to a hummingbird garden where we can view these amazing birds (and species) and capture some cool photos. For these images, I was using the
Canon R6 Mark II and the
Canon RF 100-500mm lens. I watched these two hummingbirds sparring and started firing off photos. In a split second the bird on the left spread its tail feathers, which looks so beautiful!
I was calling out settings as we all tried to track these fast moving birds. I challenged everyone to get good motion in their wings, but while keeping their faces in perfect focus.
We watched as other birds came to visit the area.
Most of the other birds flew slower, less erratic and landed often, making them easier to capture.
But we were there mainly to capture the hummingbirds. Since we were there in the morning, the sunlight was at our backs, which really brought out the amazing color in the birds.
About 10 minutes later, the two hummingbirds were back at it. I liked the way that the one on the left had lifted it's feathers by the face.
It was fun to capture images of the hummingbirds in different positions. I caught this one flying right towards me.
The one hummingbird that we wanted to capture (even more than the others) was the Sword-billed hummingbird which is specific to this high-altitude region, This is the only bird who's beak is bigger than it's body. We were lucky enough to have numerous visits from the Sword-billed during our one hour visit.
After photographing the birds, we were off to visit the local woman artisans who create beautiful alpaca wool garments. They showed our group how they add color to the wool using only natural materials.
This was also a perfect place to teach portraiture and how to use available light to light our subjects...
...and to capture detail images to tell the story of the process.
Since I had been to this same location last year and figured that I would see some of the same people, I printed many of my portraits (on the Canon Pro-1000 printer) to bring them as gifts. It was fun to find this nice woman who was one of my favorite subjects of the last photo tour, and get a photo of her holding the print.
Our next stop was for lunch, and not at just any restaurant. This is also a highlight of the photo tour, because we have lunch at a location which has many llama and alpaca.
My guests always love this spot!
I was shooting with the Canon R5 Mark II and RF 24-105mm f/4 lens and had this one llama who came right up to me. I put the lens right up to it's face, used the face and eye detection to focus on the eyes, and took this shot. Too funny.
Speaking of funny looking subjects...I even had my photo taken at the restaurant. (Photo credit: Gretchen A.)
After lunch we visited the salt mines. These mines have been in existence for more than 1000 years! Each one of these pools is owned by a different family, and has been handed down for many generations.
Since I had photographed these mines using a wide lens during the previous photo tour, I decided to use my Canon RF 100-500mm lens this time around, to get some tight shots of the people collecting salt. And of course, I had to purchase more of the flavored salt for myself and my brother (who was with me on the previous trip).
The next blog post will feature photos from Machu Picchu!
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