Photography
#aerial
#different vitality
#books
#Jamey Stillings
#mining
October 25, 2023
Grace Ebert
Valle de los Vientos Wind Farm, Atacama Desert, Chile (2017). All photographs © Jamey Stillings, courtesy of Steidl, shared with permission
An arid area with uncanny similarities to Mars, the Atacama Desert is sparsely inhabited by animal life however wealthy in mineral deposits. Located west of the Andes Mountains in northern Chile, the realm is home to huge mines harvesting a 3rd of the world’s copper and lithium provides. These extractions date again to a minimum of the nineteenth century, having scarred and broken the panorama within the course of.
The similar dry, sun-soaked qualities that make the Atacama inhospitable uniquely position it as a profitable web site for producing wind and solar energy, two types of renewable vitality that stand in opposition to the area’s historical past of fossil-fuel dependence. Santa Fe-based photographer Jamey Stillings spent a part of 2017 flying over the area documenting the shift towards sustainable sources, now compiled in a recent e book revealed by Steidl.
Dozens of aerial photographs fill the 160 pages of Atacama: Renewable Energy and Mining in the High Desert of Chile, juxtaposing the older mines with the newer photo voltaic and wind vegetation. Stillings not solely captures the attractive and saddening sights most people won’t ever witness firsthand but additionally illuminates our present crossroads: as we collectively take into account the best way to stay in methods which might be much less ecologically harmful, we additionally have to plan for reasonable, and even apparent, options like these available in Atacama and clearly establish how we’ll transition from one system to the subsequent.
Atacama is available on Bookshop, and you could find extra from the sequence, together with Stillings’ different initiatives, on Instagram.
Cerro Dominador Concentrated Solar Plant below development, Chile (2017)
El Romero Solar Photovoltaic Plant, Chile (2017)
Mina SQM Lithium Mine, Salar de Atacama, Chile (2017)
Aerial panorama, Atacama area, Chile (2017)
Pampa Elvira Solar Thermal Plant situated at Minera Gaby Copper Mine, Chile (2017). ‘Atacama’ e book cowl
#aerial
#different vitality
#books
#Jamey Stillings
#mining
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