Mountain Magic (11/19)

If there has been anything about Santiago that has moved me, connected me to the country, and inspired me to love despite my finite existence, it has been the cordillera. I sit on the terrace outside our apartment almost daily and study these mountains and their ever changing vista. I just never tire of this view. So I have been experimenting. For some reason, the mountains never look on film/digital camera/screen the way they look in real life. So I have been constantly taking pictures of the same views, trying to capture what I see. Here are two pictures, almost identical but for the time of day. One early morning and the other evening on the same day. The colors are only one way the mountains change. Light and shade, clouds, angles, snow, and plant growth have constantly kept me examining their slopes. But, the truth is, we live so close to the foothills that you can't really appreciate the size of these ancients. And the freaking lampost has been a sore spot in all my pictures, especially the dark ones when the light is illuminated. I'd like to chop the blasted thing down. From the Kennedy Highway you can see the incredible size much better. In fact, the mountains in the foreground only reach about half the height of the snow covered peak in the back. From Kennedy you can see the Colorado Ski Resort at about 9,000 feet. The Colorado Mountain is about 10, 930 feet. Worthy of picture taking. But, it just never looks as good.