The Wow Factor of Patagonia

People liked the photos from Torres del Paine National Park that we posted two weeks ago, so here are some more. This is a wider shot from our room at the Explora Patagonia Lodge.
In our posts 2 weeks ago I talked about the benefit of staying right inside the park so that we can see the scenery in a variety of lighting conditions. This is a long exposure taken at night, with the moon over the massif.
The weather changes rapidly and often near the southern tip of South America. The contrast between the late afternoon sunlight and the dark, foreboding clouds drew me and my tripod outside like a magnet. This walkway outside the lodge was a little loop trail to offer vista points to photograph or simply admire the scenery of mountains, lakes, meadows and clouds.
This is the same walkway that I showed in the preceding photo, taken from our room.
This waterfall cascaded right next to our lodge. The blurred effect of the water is achieved whenever you shoot at a shutter speed slower than 1/15 of a second. Early morning or late afternoon is the only time to get such photos (unless the spot is shaded in a dense forest) because there is too much light for a slow exposure during the bright part of the day. (I prefer taking such photos in the late afternoon rather than early morning, for obvious reasons.)
We enjoyed each of our hikes during our visit to Patagonia over the holidays a couple of months ago. Herds of guanacos allowed us to observe them, as they observed us. Several of the herd would serve as sentries, looking out for puma, as the rest could relax, eat and frolic.