Moody Photos of South America's Natural Wonders - 1
Published 11 May 2018, 20:05 BST
This is the Perito Moreno, one of the biggest glaciers in the world. It is located in Los Glaciares National Park on the Argentinian part of Patagonia. The weather in Patagonia is changing constantly, so when I arrived in the park, I didn't know what to expect. Sure enough, it started snowing, meaning it would be hard to take pictures of the gigantic glacier. Fortunately, this had the opposite effect as it made the scene all the more mysterious, by hiding the surroundings in thick fog so that the only subject left in the frame was this great block of ice. I had to take several shots, though, as snow kept covering my lens. But when nature gives puts on such a show, you have to try capture it as well as you can.
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year"The Valle de la Luna, or Moon Valley, couldn't have a better name. It is a mix of yellow sand dunes, white salt and red hills as if it were from another planet. I arrived there a bit before sunset, as I knew this would be a great time to capture a desert landscape. Getting up to the location I was at when I shot this image is not for the faint of heart. It is a very narrow walk with very steep slopes on each side."
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year"When driving through the desert, looking for salt flats, the last think you would expect to see are flamingos. Yet, they don't seem to mind the high concentration of salt in the water, as hundreds of them live in this lagoon near San Pedro de Atacama."
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year"I made this image on my way to the top of the cactus island — it’s the only place that rises from the salt flats of Uyuni. The amazing thing is that most of the flora there is made of cactus. And since the cacti grow very slowly, it means that to be standing that tall, they have to be hundreds of years old."
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year"In the South of Bolivia, a lot of different type of Camelids coexist. At first I didn't even notice them. I was amazed by this animal I had never seen before."
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year"In Torres del Paine National Park, the weather changes often and you sometimes feel that several seasons exist on the same day. This makes for some great moody scenes of sun lighting the snow covered mountains."
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year"The good thing about rapidly changing weather, is that you won’t experience same landscape more than once. In this scene, the clouds were casting shadows on the mountains and made the scene look like a painting."
Photograph and caption by Guillaume Flandre, 2018 National Geographic Travel Photographer Of The Year