Medellín has a cable car system, the Metrocable, that functions as urban public transit connecting the hillside comunas to the metro network below. It is not a tourist attraction. It is how people who live in the hillside neighbourhoods get to work. Four lines run from the valley floor up the steep slopes of the Aburra Valley and into the mountains above, carrying residents between their neighbourhoods and the city below. Photographing in the comunas that the Metrocable connects gives a version of Medellín that no tour package covers and that produces images of the city from above that are completely different from the El Poblado viewpoint photographs that appear on every Medellín travel account.
The Comunas and the View
The comunas northeast of the city centre, specifically the neighbourhood of Santo Domingo Savio accessible by Line K of the Metrocable, are the hillside barrios that received the famous urban intervention programme of the early 2000s: libraries, parks, escalators, and infrastructure investments that transformed some of the most marginalised neighbourhoods in the country into functional communities with genuine civic pride. The outdoor staircases and escalator system at Las Escaleras Eléctricas in the La Sierra neighbourhood is the most photographed element of this transformation, but the streets and viewpoints throughout the comunas give perspectives of the city below that are unavailable from El Poblado or the valley floor.
From the stations along Line K above Santo Domingo, Medellín’s full valley is visible: the dense urban fabric of the centre, the mountains on the opposite slope, and the specific quality of the cloud cover that the Aburra Valley traps below the ridge line in the afternoon. The city sits at 1,495 metres and the clouds often form at the ridge level and above, which means the valley sometimes appears to be at the bottom of a cloud bowl with clear sky above. This is one of the more unusual meteorological photography conditions I encounter regularly, and it produces images of the city that look nothing like the standard aerial photography.
Street Portraits in the Comunas
The comunas are residential neighbourhoods and photographing in them requires the same consideration as photographing in any lived-in community: moving through with respect and awareness of what is private versus public. I have photographed in the comunas multiple times with couples and the reception has been consistently positive when the approach is clearly that of visitors who appreciate the neighbourhood rather than voyeurs treating it as a visual backdrop. The community murals, the steep narrow lanes, the specific quality of the hilltop views over the valley: these are all genuinely there and available to photograph, and the resulting images look like Medellín as a complete city rather than Medellín as a collection of upscale neighbourhoods in the flat valley.
Practical Notes
The Metrocable is integrated with the Medellín metro system and operates on the same fare card. The Line K runs from Acevedo metro station up to Arví, with multiple stations in the comunas. The ride from Acevedo to Santo Domingo station is approximately fifteen minutes and gives a bird’s-eye view of the neighbourhood as the gondola crosses above it. For photography sessions in the comunas, I plan arrivals for morning on weekdays when the neighbourhoods are active with daily life rather than weekend afternoons when activity patterns are different. I work with a local contact who knows the neighbourhoods and can advise on which streets and viewpoints are accessible without intrusion. The comunas of Medellín are not a photography backdrop: they are communities, and the session works best when it is conducted accordingly.
Destination Wedding Photographer
Vancouver · Medellín · Worldwide
