Bolivia - Don McLaughlin

Price: $39.00 -- Shipping $8.00 U.S.A or $14.00 USD Canada. Coffee Table book, 132 pages, 11" x 12", ISBN 978-0-9790597-1-1. Limited edition signed by the author.

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Don McLaughlin began his life-long affiliation with photography in 1936 when he received a Kodak Brownie camera and some rolls of film. Through the years he studied how to make ever-better photographs and went from a simple box camera to several different SLR cameras that could handle any photographic challenge.

leaf McLaughlin trained as a geologist and after serving in the U.S. Navy took a job with Standard Oil of California in 1954. Standard sent the young geologist to Ecuador via Argentina and on to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1959. For the next three years McLaughlin and a crew of three support workers explored the bug-plagued hillsides, valleys and mountains looking for oil.

Early on in his South American sojourn he shot slides that had to be sent to Europe for processing, but he soon included black-and-white film so he could process his own photos and not have to wait for slow mail service to and from Europe. And, since there were few places to purchase supplies in Bolivia, he had to bring everything with him. "Bolivia made one careful with photographic supplies," he said.

leaf He spent much of his time in the Chaco, a place he describes as a vast, largely trackless plain with a dry, spiny scrub forest that lay east of the Andes. He and his crew eventually explored 60,000 square kilometers, an area the size of West Virginia. Their transportation was by air, mule back, on foot, or Land Rover whenever possible. All the while he kept taking pictures.

The crew spent months in remote villages where McLaughlin made friends with the villagers and photographed them going about their everyday lives. When in Cochabamba and in other cities, he captured the daily urban life.

leaf He sums up his experience like this: "I was sent to Bolivia to help find oil. After two dry holes and some $16 million dollars of expenses, we found none. However, I did find a fascinating country and had a wonderful time probing it with my lens."

McLaughlin currently lives in Orleans, Cape Cod, with his wife Martine.

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