via panam

For six weeks, I traveled up the spine of South America, following the Panamericana highway from Argentina to Colombia. I was directing a Dutch TV-show called De Panamericana Road Trip, which followed a group of Volvo drivers crossing the continent in their classic cars. My role was behind the camera, but in the margins, I found time to shoot stills.

We didn’t stay long anywhere. Just a night, maybe two. But that rhythm gave me something else: the road itself. The Panamericana isn’t just asphalt connecting one country to the next. It’s a living line, pulsing through everything. Towns shape themselves around it. People make a living from it. And in the emptier stretches, it’s the animals, the weather, and the slow shift of landscape that keep you company.

From the endless pampas of Argentina to the dry silence of the Atacama, from the high plains of the Altiplano to the tropical lowlands of Colombia, the road ties it all together. Sometimes you climb into thin air where engines struggle and people chew coca leaves for altitude. Other times it’s just you, a flat horizon, and the occasional llama crossing the road without urgency.

Photographing along the Panamericana wasn’t about catching the perfect moment. It was more about noticing the in-between. The fuel stops, the roadside meals, the dust on the dashboard, and the quiet life that surrounds a highway most people only see as a way through.

December 2011 – January 2012