CEP882 - Photo project

I traveled some 5000 miles back to Lansing, Michigan from Santa Cruz, Bolivia this week.  Before I left, I made a point to snap some photographs of the cathedral located on the central plaza of the city.  I have been to that plaza countless times during my six years in Bolivia, and it has become a special place for me.  

Capturing my feelings about Bolivia in a digital photograph proved to be extremely challenging for me.  Though I like to take pictures, I have never considered myself a great photographer.  And trying to communicate to others the feelings that I have when I see that plaza became almost frustrating to me during this project.  There are always cultural nuances that are not easily conveyed in a photograph.  In fact, they are not easily conveyed as part of a two-week visit to a particular place.  It is something that must be experienced by becoming part of the culture.

In any case, I started with a view of the cathedral as a whole building during the daytime.  In this photo you can see the throngs of people who are present on any given weekend.   However, it wasn’t the people that I was interested in, rather it was the place.  So I snapped some photographs from different angles, trying to eliminate the majority of the people from the scene.  I then cropped them a bit and converted them to sepia tones.  Better…but they still didn’t say anything I wanted them to say.  Finally I shuffled through some photos I took of the plaza during a nighttime visit during the Christmas season.  I found a photo of the cathedral at night time.  There is something “magical” about the plaza at nighttime.  The lights are spectacular.  The sights and sounds are inviting.  And the cathedral takes on a particularly majestic look all lit up.  I tried to capture that mood in the last picture.  (Though, admittedly, I am still somewhat unsatisfied and open to suggestions.)