The Essence is in the Details
Most travel photographers — including this one — have the reflex of aiming for the iconic, most impressive spots of a destination, sometimes missing out entirely the best part of the experience of that destination. Most of the time, that experience comes out of the details.
Sights, smells, sounds, people shouting, cars passing by, the colors of the sky in the morning. Just imagine how many wonderful locations have you visited and the best you remember are those details.
Of course, in a limited 2D media, as photographs are, there’s a big challenge in being able to capture all the sense-triggering details. And powerful compositions are able to make that leap, from a flat color screen, to a full sensorial experience.
So, let me share my vision of the details of one travel destination.
Focusing on the Details in Queretaro
A while ago I had the unique opportunity to wander through the streets of the historic quarter of Queretaro, in central Mexico, on a Sunday. I only studied a few facts and references about Queretaro roughly 48 hours before arriving, and that didn’t give me a clear visit plan ahead. Then capturing “the essence” became the simple and powerful plan. That essence, again, is in the details.
This statue, slightly larger than a normal person, captivated me. It was in the middle of a pedestrian way, impossible to miss. The character, the decoration, the attitude. Everything shouted “magnificence”.
Since I spotted this butterfly, elegantly flying from one tree to the next in a small park, it was impossible not to follow it. The deep black highly contrasted the bright yellow of the stripes. And the size, it was big! This combination became a powerful invitation to capture it with the camera. So I followed it for a few minutes until it finally stopped for a few seconds in the tip of a branch. I breathed deep, aimed, focused, and got a few shots like this one.
It caught my attention right away as I was passing by this restaurant. It was a beautifully crafted collage of pieces of broken ornaments and plates. An invitation to stop for a few minutes and try to see every little piece included. It became a perfect whole. Not caotic, but balanced. And it was big. A wide shot would not portrait the details enough, so I finally decided to crop the whole facade to this particular plate, with an unforgettable, universal message: “welcome, my house is your house”.
The Queretaro aqueduct can hardly be considered “a detail” of the city, since it is a huge structure that covers a big part of historic downtown and represents the graphic identity of Queretaro on every tourist brochure. But after shooting some photos from the distance, combining the lines, curves, and surrouding buildings, the best angle became this: a close-up of one or two of the arches, thus producing a very simple, yet powerful composition, that also describe the details of an iconic structure of this wonderful mexican city
This collection, with only 5 images, aims to summarize a Sunday visit as a tourist in Queretaro. At least, my own summary. I still left a big set of other Queretaro details, but I’m confident that any visitor might be related to the images included here, and hopefully will feel “the essence” of this destination.
