Valparaiso is a port city in Chile, located near the capital of the country, the city of Santiago. In addition to everything that Valparaiso is known for, I would like to tell you about one thing: in my opinion, it can be called the capital of graffiti... and this is a very curious sight. Take a closer look, there is a door under this beautifully detailed street art. It could be as boring and nondescript as the neighboring one, but no ... maybe this is the secret door to the magical city of graffiti?
If you look closely, you can see that the artist painted a view of this very street on the wall: here is a white door on the right, next to it is a window covered with a grill, and to the left again is the same magic door ... and on this already painted wall everything is drawn again! Reality and the picture are intertwined with each other and copies of the street with graffiti appear in the depths of the drawing. I like it!
Well, let's open this magic door and find ourselves on the streets of Valparaiso. Let's walk a little and admire the graffiti in more detail, fortunately, we don't need to take a telescope, like this sailor's, for this. I cannot give the addresses of each graffiti and mural, and the authors are unknown to me (very often it is quite difficult to find out).
We managed to walk a lot during that day in 2018 (it was October 27, for accuracy), since then a lot has probably changed, but I'm sure if you come to the city and also go to wander the streets on foot (especially in the central historical part of the city), you will immediately see dozens and hundreds of pictures on the walls, it is simply impossible to miss them. Graffiti there is not just individual single drawings on separate streets — they are almost everywhere!
Here is a typical narrow street in the city. Not central, of course ... but not a back street where only a local can get.
Or such a street. This one is wider, but this does not affect the number of drawings on the walls. Walls, doors and other parts of houses are sometimes completely hidden behind them. At least the first floors. However, the very condition of buildings is often not very good, so graffiti are a decoration for them.
There are houses that are painted along the entire facade to the very roof! Like this one. I heard that earlier the townspeople did not like graffiti artists, but over the past few years everything has changed, and property owners are increasingly happy to provide the walls of their houses at the disposal of artists.
This house is more detailed. And the mural is very good, right?
Unfortunately, as it was already possible to notice, in addition to beautiful bright graffiti in the city there are a lot of black wires hanging low over the streets, in some places they greatly interfere with photographing ... but there is nothing I can do about it. Granny on the wall, too, seems to have come to terms with this for a long time, and, slightly added wine to the mood, is watching the passers-by.
By the way, in Valparaiso there are a lot of bright colorful houses, like on these streets, I like them very much. This splash of colors, already bright, is often complemented by graffiti anyway, at least a little.
These two graffiti resemble the real streets in Valparaiso leading down to the water in the port area, and the rest of the city on the hills can be seen in the distance.
But there are, of course, more abstract plots and fantastic characters there. By the way, almost all tourists walk around the city, almost without taking their phones and cameras out of their hands. Well, how can you not take pictures of such beauty! Moreover, there are even excursions around the city — Valparaiso street art tour — to the most beautiful and interesting places with graffiti and mural art.
The images that emerge in the minds of street artists are very different.
By the way, there are murals on high-rise buildings. The scale is amazing.
And here is a very cute picture, as if from a children's fairy tale.
I really like this graffiti. It is so laconic and perfectly combined with the white wall and this round window. Just awesome.
A cute little hooligan, and she, it seems, is in clothes with elements of a national ethnic costume.
On the contrary, here we have a little lady with flowers in her hair. Valparaiso stands on hills that gradually descend to the water, so there are many sloping streets and stairs.
Even after dark, I could not resist and walked around the city a little more ... and of course, I took pictures of graffiti :) This is some kind of cultural space, if I translated correctly. Decorated really well.
Somewhere the walls are simply covered with many inscriptions and tags...
... and somewhere with a string of various characters, animals, and quite ordinary people ...
... walking along a painted staircase along a real staircase.
And this artist was inspired by the paintings of Van Gogh, and it turned out great, take a closer look. It's lucky that I saw and photographed this graffiti at night :)
Two beautiful ladies look across the street at the slightly mysterious-looking kings. I would also have looked at them, but it seems to me it's time to end this walk through the Valparaiso graffiti. Valparaiso is a real open-air art gallery, right? :)
This post was made specifically for the CCC's Street Art Contest #42. Take a look there!
It's better to watch photos in high resolution.
OLYMPUS E-M1 Mark II
Exposure time: 1/60 sec
Aperture: F 7.1
Sensitivity: ISO 250
Focal length: 12 mm
35 mm equivalent: 24 mm
You can also see my photos in my blog LJ and in my profile on NatGeo
