Allejandro; Ollantaytambo, Peru [Canon 10D]
Allejandro runs the restaurant where we ate on most nights (and even some lunches and breakfasts). It was the same last year... we usually ended up eating at Allejandro's place. Great food, relaxed atmosphere, good prices, and excellent pisco sours (the Peruvian cocktail).
Allejandro is from Chile and is a big, larger than life personality. The kind of chef who comes out from the kitchen with a drink in hand to greet the patrons with a laugh and a joke and see how they are enjoying their meals. He makes one of the best chicken sandwiches I have ever had. I am looking forward to having more of them when I go back next year!
Luis, Blacksmith...Ollataytambo, Peru [Canon 10D]
Much of the work we did at the Bridges workshop in Peru involved portraiture of the local people. Luis' small blacksmith shop was a few doors down from our hotel and when I found him at work one day I asked if I could photograph him. Here's another image of him at work.
Cusco Riot Police [Canon 10D]
(click in the image for a larger version)
On my final day in Peru there was a countrywide transit strike and large demonstrations protesting the high cost of gasoline and insurance rates for taxi drivers. This meant that no taxis, busses, or cars of any kind were operating that day. Since I had to get to the Cusco airport for an afternoon flight to Lima, this presented a bit of a dilemma. Apparently, even if I had been able to find a taxi driver willing to brave the demonstrators, he would run the risk of having his car pelted with large rocks if he ran into any of them. In the end, the proprietor of my hostal enlisted the aid of a friend and they used two dirt bikes to transport me and my luggage to the airport, using narrow, cobblestone back streets to avoid the main groups of demonstrators. By the time we left, things had quieted down considerably, so it was an uneventful ride, but we did drive along streets that were littered with rocks and large chunks of concrete, which I presume was evidence of previous violence.
This image was taken in the main Plaza de Armas. In this area of the city the protests were large but peaceful and the riot police in the Plaza spent the day on the sidelines. I asked if I could photograph them and they were most obliging. The man on the far right is named Amelio.
The scuffed and scratched surface is from an old piece of plastic that was scanned and then added in Photoshop.