Going to visit Machu Picchu is a once in a lifetime trip for most people, so it was a real treat to visit there for the second time in as many years. Just like we did the year before, we made two visits to the site, once in the afternoon and one time the following morning. This gives us two chances to get a nice clear view of the ruins, and since Machu Picchu is located in the cloud forest, it might take a couple of times to get a good view.
On this trip we were fortunate to have a good clear view on the first day. Not only did we have clear views, but we also had nice clouds in the sky to make for interesting photos.
Since this was my second photo tour to Peru in the two years, I knew the best places for my guests to shoot from, and I pushed myself to get something different from last time. For this reason, I looked for different angles and perspectives of these iconic ruins.
The clouds were moving in and out which gave us some really interesting light to work with.
I saw this pretty plant growing on one of the walls and thought that it would make an interesting subject for a photo. I focused the lens on the plant and took this at f/4 so that the ruins would be out of focus, but just clear enough for the viewer to know what was in the background.
We arrived at the ruins at 2pm and took 3 hours to photograph the area. Just before they closed the area (which happens at 5pm every evening), I saw some llamas coming towards us. While other people were trying to get selfies with these animals, I was focused on getting images of them with the ruins behind them. For a split second these two kissed and I got this shot, which my favorite from the day.
After taking that photos, we were walking through the back portion of Machu Picchu when I saw this animal perched on a rock. At first I thought it was a rabbit, but our guide told me that this is a Peruvian Chinchilla.
The best part of closing the area at 5pm, is that everyone else was gone and it gave us clean shots with no people in the frame.
It was really quiet at this time.
The next morning, some of us woke up at 5am and headed back up to Machu Picchu to see the sunrise. Unfortunately it was raining and the visibility was really poor. BUT there was an advantage to this, as many people decided not to make the climb and this provided some nice quiet time to have the place to ourselves.
We did have a quick clearing at one point, but that was the extent of the view that day. The great part was this...one of my guests had her birthday that morning and she had some time to stay at the top of the mountain and enjoy the unspoiled scene. She said that it was the best birthday she had ever celebrated and that made my day!
Later in the morning we took the train from Machu Picchu back to the Sacred Valley. Some of my guests were enjoying time outside, at the back of the train car. I saw this and thought that it would make for a really cool motion blur photo and a great teaching moment. I went back to my luggage and grabbed my camera. I set the ISO to 50 and the aperture to 22, which gave me a shutter speed of 1/5 sec. I took numerous photos and then showed them to my photo tour guests. They were inspired by this and most of them tried some slow shutter images for themselves. I loved that!
Oh - and by the way - I just added new photos tours to Peru and Galapagos for 2027 on my web site. Check them out HERE.
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