Tyla Fergusson-Platt sits down with landscape photographer, Heather Carpenter, to find out more about Argentina’s unique Patagonia.
Patagonia is one of those rare places where you will find desert, icy glaciers and temperate rain-forests all in the same region.
Skirting both Argentina and Chile, its vast landscape touches both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, owing to its diverse climates.
It really is a dream part of the world for a landscape photographer to get lost in. On a recent trip to Argentina photographer Heather Carpenter did exactly that.
We caught up with her to find out more about her work as a photographer and about the truly unique Patagonia landscape.
What brought her to Patagonia
Heather’s job involves the enviable task of going to some of the most beautiful areas of the world. As a freelance photographer, she is UK based, but her work takes her outside of the British Isles.
Her trip to Patagonia was one of these trips.
‘I was photographing some beautiful experience hotels over there. However I managed to squeeze in a few days of my own adventures too which was really lucky as it’s such a phenomenal place.’
One of these pictures has actually become one of Heather’s favourite photos, but more on that later in the article.
What she loves about Patagonia
At Deep Travel we love to highlight unique places to visit and Patagonia fits this criteria perfectly. The size and uniqueness creates an experience that is matched by few other destinations.It was such a special trip for Heather that she still thinks about it daily.
‘The landscape is just magical, it’s so unique and so vast. It makes you feel small in the best way, the locals are so friendly and helpful and it really was just the most impactful place I’ve ever visited. I’ve thought about that trip every day since I’ve been
back.’
What makes Patagonia Unique
Heather has travelled from Europe to Asia and back again, but nowhere has impacted her in quite the same way as Patagonia.
‘The landscape is unlike anywhere else, I have been fortunate enough to experience places like Italy, Iceland, Japan and Canada but nothing takes your breath away like standing and staring up at Mount Fitz Roy across miles of Patagonian Steppe. It’s an unexplainable beauty.’
What she loves about landscape photography
Landscape photography, as opposed to something like street photography, has much more of a changeable aesthetic. Nature exudes from its pores, expressing multitudes of colours and weather.
‘Even if you visit the same location 10 times, the photographs are always so vastly different because of seasons, time of day, weather and I find that so fascinating. The atmosphere and the skies will change around the seemingly exact place. I love capturing the same places across the four seasons and putting the photographs side by side.’
Photographing Patagonia though was unlike anything she had captured previously. It even surpassed the amount of pictures she took for a job, an outward expression of her love of the landscape.
Heather Carpenter’s favourite photograph
Her favourite photograph
It turned out that the Patagonia trip produced some of Heather’s finest work of her career.
‘I have a few favourites from Patagonia, some of my proudest work was taken there. I think it’s probably a photograph of the landscape that was the backdrop to one of the hotels I worked at, Estancia Cristina.’
The photo was not only spectacularly shot, but it also provides Heather with a footnote to a particularly fond time of her life. It evokes for her a space and time of warm faces and savoured conversation.
‘That place holds a lot of sentimental value to me and I met such wonderful people there, it reminds me of a beautiful part of my personal life too so though it might just be a really incredible landscape, for me it holds conversations and faces too.’
Canyon Hike – Glacier Upsala
Heather’s underrated recommendation for Patagonia
After spending a good chunk of time in Patagonia, Heather has all the below the radar recommendations that other tourists will miss. Heather’s tip concerns a hike which combines Mars-like rock with the intense pure blues of the glacier.
Heladería Domo Blanco – Heather’s favourite place to eat in Patagonia
Heather’s favourite place to eat in Patagonia
You would think being in a country famed for its steak that this might be what Heather would choose for her favourite place she ate at. Of all things it was a solitary ice cream shop that caught her fancy.
‘Controversially, I don’t like steak, so unfortunately I can’t recommend the best stop for Argentine steak. However I do have incredible taste in sweet treats and there was an ice cream spot in El Chaltén that was phenomenal called Heladería Domo Blanco that I’d highly recommend after a hike!’
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