Chile gives you two completely different worlds to elope in. The south is granite, ice, and wind. The north is volcanic rock, salt flats, and a sky that does not look real. Within each world there are specific locations that photographers return to because the light and the geography combine to produce images that cannot be replicated anywhere else. Here is where to go and why.
Mirador Las Torres
The viewpoint directly below the three granite towers of Torres del Paine is reached by a four- to five-hour hike from the valley floor. The moraine lake at the base of the towers sits cupped in a bowl of grey rock and ice, reflecting the three vertical granite faces above it. Arriving at sunrise, before the light reaches the base of the towers, and waiting for the first rays to hit the granite, is one of the great photographic experiences in the world. This is the location I prioritise for couples who want the defining Torres del Paine image: scale, granite, and the particular blue of glacial meltwater that photographs as something close to impossible.
Lake Pehoe
Lake Pehoe sits at the western edge of the park and offers the most accessible version of the Torres del Paine composition: the Cuernos del Paine reflected in a large turquoise lake with the ice field behind them. When the Patagonian wind drops and the surface goes still, the reflection is so precise that the photograph becomes almost symmetrical. The late afternoon here, when the Cuernos catch the last sun and the lake surface transitions from turquoise to gold, is one of the moments I structure elopement days around.
Grey Glacier
Grey Glacier is the most remote of the core Torres del Paine locations, accessible by boat or a long hike. It calves directly into Lake Grey, producing floating icebergs of a blue that does not exist in nature anywhere else I have worked. The scale of the glacier and the visual weight of the ice field above it make human figures look small in a way that communicates something true about what it means to stand next to something ancient. For couples who want something beyond the standard tower views, this is where I bring them.
Valle de la Luna
The Valley of the Moon sits fifteen kilometres from San Pedro de Atacama and is named for its resemblance to the lunar surface. The landscape is eroded clay and salt formations that change colour continuously as the sun drops. Two hours before sunset they are bleached white. One hour before they are amber. At the moment of sunset they are deep crimson and violet. I position couples within the formations and work the light as it moves, making photographs in a location that looks different every fifteen minutes.
The Lagunas Altiplánicas
Laguna Miscanti and Laguna Miñiques sit at four thousand metres. They are turquoise lakes ringed with white salt, flamingos in the shallows, and the volcanoes Miscanti and Miñiques rising directly behind them. The colour palette in this location is extraordinary: vivid pink birds against deep blue water against white salt against volcanic grey peaks. I have made photographs here that I have never been able to adequately describe. You have to see the location to understand why.
El Tatio at First Light
El Tatio is the highest active geyser field in the world at over four thousand three hundred metres. The geysers are most dramatic at dawn, when the difference between the boiling water and the freezing air produces steam columns several metres high. Arriving means leaving San Pedro at four in the morning. On the drive up, the Milky Way is still visible. The geyser field in darkness, with steam rising against a sky that is just beginning to differentiate from black, is one of the stranger and more beautiful things I have witnessed in this work. For couples willing to lose sleep for it, the photographs are irreplaceable.
Destination Wedding Photographer
Vancouver · Medellín · Worldwide
