Guanaco on the Chimborazo vulcano. Ecuador.

As I write this I’m waiting for the first in a series of flights and ferries that will take me to Isla Grande de Chiloé in Chile. The waters surrounding this island are part of one of the most productive marine ecosystems on the planet, and harbor the largest known aggregation of blue whales on the southern hemisphere. I’m going there to photograph a blue whale and southern right whale conservation project for National Geographic Netherlands/Belgium.

As I’ve never been to Chile before, the photo above is from Ecuador. But it does symbolize the journey I’m about to embark on. I made it when I was fifteen with my first camera, a four-megapixel digital compact with a video teleconverter attached to the front. Four megapixels seemed huge to me at the time. How far this technology has come in a few years! It was not truly my first camera though—my first camera was made of blue plastic and had one button to release the shutter and a dial to advance the film to the next frame. A gift from my parents when I was seven. It broke down after exposing as many as three rolls of film. But in a way that digital compact was still my first real camera—for the first time I was taking pictures with the intention of creating good photos as opposed to just holiday snaps for the family album. And on this trip to Ecuador, for the first time, I dreamed of going on photographic adventures for the famous yellow-bordered magazine…

I have to board the plane now, so I need to finish up. The next post will be from Chile!