Tunupas tears
Karla Gachet
Colchani, Uyuni, Bolivia, 2009
Legend has it that mountains used to walk and talk like humans. One of these mountains was Tunupa, a woman who lived with her husband and three children. One of the children died and the husband left, taking another child with him. In her grief, Tunupa cried so much that her tears mixed with her breast milk and gathered in a valley below to form the Uyuni salt flats.
At over 10 500 sq kms, the Salar de Uyuni are the world's largest salt flats. The thick crust of salt rests on top of a vast body of highly saline brine which contains between 50-70% of the world's lithium. The coarse salt can easily be scraped off the crust and is a vital source of income for small communities living along the shores of the flats.
The tiny village of Colchani on the shores of the flats relies heavily on the salt industry. On windless days, the thin layer of water covering parts of the flats forms a perfect mirror reflecting the cloudless blue skies. Sunsets create surreal spectrums of colour.
Specification
Karla Gachet
Karla Gachet discovered photography while studying in the US and in 2004, moved back to Ecuador to explore her homeland with fresh eyes. She began working freelance until one of the main newspapers in the country, Diario El Comercio, hired her in 2005. Karla worked here for two years, and became the first woman to be a part of their photographer’s staff.
Karla has published two books: Historias Mínimas, from Ecuador to Tierra del Fuego (2009) and Gypsy Kings (2012). Both projects were produced with her husband Ivan Kashinsky, also a photographer. Her photographs have been exhibited in Ecuador, Guatemala, London, India, Peru, Uruguay, China and USA. Together with Kashinsky, she created the collective Runa Photos (2011).
Your Print
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Your print will be posted flat, in a protective sleeve, to avoid damage or curling in transit. Prints come with a Panos Prints provenance certificate with background information about the image and the photographer.
The paper is A4 sized, the image will be smaller than A4 with a white border around it - see Image Specification for exact image size. Borders will be laid out as demonstrated by the print images on the site. We do not provide framing services and images of framed prints are only meant to be illustrative.
Print Care
Paper and ink
We print on Hahnemuhle Baryta FB, an archival fibre based 350gsm fine art paper. It is a bright white paper with a traditional character finish and heavy weighting. This paper has long been the industry standard paper for digital printing.
What is a giclée print?
Giclée comes from French and literally means ‘squirt’, referring to the spray of very fine drops of ink that produce an inkjet print. We print with archival paper and pigment inks to the accepted standards of fine art giclee printing found within the collectors market. Prints should last over a hundred years and with care longer than this. Avoiding extremes of light, heat and humidity will help prolong the life of your print.