Peru is a developing nation which depends on mining exports, cash-crop but mostly subsistence farming, and tourism. The majority of the people in the mountainous or jungle interior are Native Americans of Incan or other native descent while Europeans and Mestizos predominate near the coast around Lima. In 1532, the Spanish conquistador Pizarro toppled the Incan empire. One of its cities, Machu Picchu, survived in the rain forested mountains of central Peru unknown till the 1920s, and I accompanied my travel-writer wife, as her photographer to tour it. Our work appears on the Bloomberg website. Photography involves finding the right arrangement of colors and objects which will draw the viewer into focus on the subjects. The shepherd was born into a one-room, mud-brick hut with a grass roof alongside chickens, a cow, sheep, hogs, and dogs. His mother also scratched out a vegetable garden in the red soil of the Andes. She was a woman of thirty whose skin had the weather-eaten look of one of fifty. The woman walking before the water wore the standard gear of her people: a wide dress, a multi-colored blanket over the one shoulder to carry things, and a derby. She appeared to be coming out of nowhere in a vast, grassy, treeless and rugged emptiness, bypassing town and the only civilization, and heading to another nowhere.

-Jim Harmon

 
The artist (JDHS history teacher) at Machu Picchu




Home | Gallery | Awards | Artist of the Month | The Program | The School | Contact Us | Site History