Michael Page Miller
Cuzco Time Capsule

Cuzco Time Capsule

In 1972, I traveled in highland Peru with a 35mm Nikormat, 200 feet of Tri-X film, a bulk loader, and a changing bag, developing the film in a cold bathroom while heating water on a Primus stove. I traveled by second-class train, third-class bus, and truck bed, guided by archeologist friends and the bible-thin pages of the South American Handbook.

I shot laborers, craftsmen, and market vendors in and around Cuzco, and I shot Quechua people, descendants of the Inca. The Quechua raised alpacas, llamas and sheep, wove decorative clothing, carried goods on their backs or by donkey, and honored Pachamama and Jesus Christ equally.         

Back home, I printed my work in a shared Berkeley darkroom, making small books for my family but never exhibiting the photographs. Then everything—prints, contact sheets, negatives, notebooks— went into cardboard boxes which followed me for decades to five cities on two coasts. A personal time capsule sealed and waiting.

Shortly before the pandemic, I began the resurrection with the aid of a digital scanner.  I was surprised and delighted by the quality of the photographs which document daily life, people, and atmosphere in the Peruvian highlands -- a reflection of a special world I once witnessed long before the tourist hordes took over Cuzco and Machu Picchu.