Chuck Clark's

Inca Trails to Machu Picchu Photo Gallery

The IncaTrails.org website  has the immense honor of exclusively distributing on the Web for the first time,  the images from the Andes of the artistic photographer and adventurer Chuck Clark.  Clark was born and raised in the gold mining town of Victor, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains of the United States.  South America seemed to beckon the Clarks as Chuck's grandfather also explored the southern continent by traveling to Venezuela to prospect for gold at the turn of the 20th century. Moreover, Clark's father was friends with one of the world's great explorer's and one of the most famous member's of the Explorer's Club in New York, Lowell Thomas.  After learning about Chuck's explorations in South America, Thomas recommended that Clark should consider sharing his adventures by becoming an official member of the Explorer's Club.  Recently, this became a reality with Chuck Clark becoming a full member of the prestigious Explorer's Club. 

During the mid-1960s, Clark worked out of Lima, Peru as a freelance photographer.  He was hired by a magazine to photograph what was then an obscure and rarely visited destination, Machu Picchu.  If you look at Clark's 45 year-old images of Machu Picchu, you notice that there are virtually no people in his photos.  This is because very few people knew about Machu Picchu at that time.  In his own words:

"My photos were taken for a now defunct magazine without a lot of research. I thought Machu Picchu was a bowl of spaghetti. I was more interested in the ancestors of the 'Inca.' I still don't know what to call them. I know Inca means leader. I would love to do it over with the availability of the Internet for research." 

At that time, few foreigners came to Machu Picchu and Clark got "the royal treatment."  He stayed right at Machu Picchu in the luxurious Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge and believe it or not, they let him stay free because he was an American.  Today rates at the lodge are upwards of $720 per night.  Forty-six years ago, Americans were a rarity at the hotel and Clark was shown genuine Peruvian hospitality by his hosts.  Sadly, Machu Picchu has become immensely popular with Americans and correspondingly expensive.  Unlike the 1960s when Clark was there, it is now virtually impossible to take a photograph Machu Picchu without a group of tourists appearing in the photograph.   

In addition to photographing the Andes Mountains and its people, Clark obtained a job flying into remote areas of the Amazon jungle in order to capture images of native Amazonians who were previously uncontacted and he was one of the first Westerners that these indigenous people had ever met.  Clark was an active pilot at that time, and became an experienced "bush pilot" flying small aircraft into areas with unpaved runways in the Amazon Jungle. 

Being a professional photographer, Clark used the best camera available for the job at that time, the legendary Hasselblad camera.  This 2¼-inch square (6x6 centimeters) medium format proved idea for the job at hand, being small enough to be portable, yet large enough to give the high resolution required for reproduction in magazines and books.  It is with great pleasure that IncaTrails.org exclusively presents Clark's  photographs of Machu Picchu and the indigenous Peruvian people of the Andes (Quechuans) from forty-six years ago.   

The photographic images featured in this photo gallery are available in high resolution for photo licensing to be published in commercial or scientific books, newspaper articles, magazines, journals, commercial advertising, calendars, and for webpages.  For additional information, please write to Chuck Clark,  P.O. Box 2176, Overgaard, AZ.

To view Chuck Clark's Amazonian Indians Photo Gallery, please visit Amazon-Indians.org.