Yesterday afternoon we went for a walk around the neighbourhood and ended up in a local neighbourhood park. It was scorching hot – it still is actually, 30°C – and the park was full of people. Everyone seemed to be playing football, children were running around having fun, girls were doing gymnastics, and so on. You can imagine that I filled my roll easily and even almost finished a second roll. All the differences in the plants and trees were a bit dazzling to me too. Already at the airport I saw high grass that looked just like the grass growing near water in Europe, but there was no water in sight! In the park there were trees with spikes on their trunks and trees of shapes I had never seen before. I also saw a bright neon orange butterfly speed past me at some point. Later at night I was looking up at the moon and it looked so different upside down! Gazing at that strange looking moon over the rugged and chaotic skyline of Buenos Aires almost felt like being on a different planet.
Since the weather is still so hot we were taking it easy today as well and we decided to go to a different park in another neighbourhood. At the moment we are staying rather far from the centre, so any more exciting adventure would have involved a lengthy bus ride in 30°C weather, which is not exactly pleasant. We’ll move to a more central area on Sunday and get plenty of opportunity to see more. So, until Sunday we’re probably going to take it easy in this kind of weather and not risk a heat stroke. In any case, put me in a park with lots of people and I’m happy anyway, even if it’s not that special and a motorway runs above it. I shot 2 rolls and I think a couple of the shots might really be quite interesting.
When we were walking to the bus stop on the way back we also stumbled over something fantastic: In the middle of a rather unspectacular neighbourhood we unexpectedly found a little side street with many nice old houses. After all the noise of the motorway above the park and the crowds it was like stepping into another city. Quiet, hardly anyone on the street and instead of the complete mix of old and new, beautiful and ugly houses there was suddenly a homogeneously beautiful street. Very odd, very special, and if one day I could live in a place like this I would be very happy indeed.
I think it was a great choice to bring colour film to Buenos Aires. It’s a colourful place indeed and I think the pictures will seem somewhat less detached. And since I mention colour, I might as well show you some shots from one of my first colour rolls where I was specifically hunting for colour.
All pictures taken with: Olympus XA, F.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8.
Rossmann 400 developed in Tetenal C41 Kit.
© Lilly Schwartz 2014
© Lilly Schwartz 2014
© Lilly Schwartz 2014
© Lilly Schwartz 2014