The vineyards of Mendoza are born of the marriage between the mountain snows and the desert sun.
I set out to show this by tracing the trajectory of the water from the snow on the mountain tops, into the sparkling Laguna de Horcones, from the streams rushing down the rocky slopes into the Río Mendoza, from the huge irrigation canals into the smaller canals in the vineyards, and finally to the foot of the vines.

In Mendoza, sunny days combined with low humidity make for very stark, clear light with beautiful color, which is perfect for my kind of photographs.

I was already familiar with the vineyards and town of Mendoza, but I was unprepared for the stunning beauty of the mountains, how unspoiled the area was, like Yosemite must have been in the 1920's.

I drove up to the Laguna de Horcones, a blue lake half way to the top of Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Andes at 6,950 meters. It was a humbling experience, like being in the presence of a huge sleeping giant, where his little toe was 1000 times bigger than I was. At such high altitude, the air was incredibly thin and clear, and the sun felt intensely strong on my skin.

Accompanied by Bernardo, my assistant, and Magda, a local sculptor, I hiked into the sandy dunes filled with beautiful desert flora. Magda, with her sculptor's vision, noted that many of the small groupings of plants reminded her of "ichebana", the sparse Japanese flower arrangements. She was right, and I set out to photograph a dozen "ichebana" vignettes before the sun got too high and we had to stop. 

We drove back late that day, hot and covered with sand that the wind had driven into our every pore, all of us exhausted. For me, it was worth all the effort to show the world such a beautiful place.

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