Reflections near Torres del Paine, Chilean Patagonia · © Carolina Aravena Costa
The Photograph I Never Brought Home
On Photography, Memory, and Returning to Patagonia
Ten years ago, I traveled to Patagonia for the first time, and there is one scene I still cannot shake.
It was April 13, 2016. The sky had turned red at dawn, and I spent the day happily taking photographs. By evening, my camera had ended up in the Paine River.
I cried, yes, but not because of the camera. I cried for the photographs.
Those images disappeared with the water, and I never saw them again. All I had left was the memory and a single photograph taken with my phone.
Even so, I returned to Santiago happy.
In a few weeks, I will make my tenth trip to those lands. By now I should probably know why I always return, but I don't. I think it has something to do with the fact that everything feels more intense there: the landscape, the wind, the silence, and even the urge to pick up my camera every five minutes.
At first, I traveled with the idea of bringing home the perfect photograph. I still look for images, of course, but without rushing, because the process matters too: walking slowly, waiting for an unlikely light, or discovering a corner I had not noticed before.
Patagonia also has a way of never really ending. There is always another place, a different light, or some unexpected reason to keep exploring. No matter how many times I visit, the landscape still feels larger than any one journey.
In 2024, while photographing flamingos near Puerto Natales during a winter sunset, I ended up lying on frozen ground so I would not scare them away and could photograph them from a lower angle. I remember the sound of the birds and how there was almost no wind. The cold, on the other hand, I do not remember at all. I suppose adrenaline was doing its job.
When I looked at the photograph afterward, I remembered that moment clearly. I also realized that I do not make pictures there only with my eyes. Sometimes I make them with frozen hands, cold feet, exhaustion, and a great deal of patience.
Patagonia pulls you completely into the experience. It does not allow you to remain an observer standing comfortably at a distance.
And maybe that is why I keep returning. After ten years, Patagonia is still the place where I feel most connected to nature at its wildest and simplest.
And I like to believe that somewhere beneath the surface of the Paine River, the camera I left behind is still waiting.
The photographs it carried away are gone, but the memory remains.
In a strange way, loss became part of the story.
Perhaps every journey since has been, at least in part, an attempt to continue a conversation the river never quite allowed to end.
Carolina Aravena Costa is a wildlife and landscape photographer based in Santiago, Chile, specializing in Patagonia and the extreme south of South America. Her photograph Chilean Flamingos, Puerto Natales was recognized in the 2025 Audubon Photography Awards. Judge Daniel Dietrich wrote: “This image immediately stood out in this year's competition. The layers are deep, the silhouettes remarkable, and the whimsical, mystical feeling of the image is outstanding. Planning, timing and skill combined to make this a truly extraordinary moment captured in time.”
All photographs © Carolina Aravena Costa.