At the ancient Maya ruins of Tulúm, México:
This was a tricky shot to get — bright sky above, and (dark, cave-like) cenote below. It didn’t turn out well as a multi-image HDR, for some odd reason — but tweaking a single image and running HDR on that did the trick. Amazingly, the structure at the top still has some of its original (500+ year old) plaster, in spite of being close to the cliff’s edge and the Caribbean.
Want to know more about photography in Tulúm? You might want to check this out…
You may not realize it, but this is a particularly odd structure in the Maya world:
It’s a pyramid called Xaibe at the ruins of Cobá in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. The name comes from a Maya term for a crossroads, since it’s at the junction of four Maya roads — and it’s nearly unique in being a Maya pyramid with an elliptical (vs. rectangular) footprint. It *may* have been used as a lookout tower, but I’ve never seen anything resembling an authoritative statement on that.
As seen from neighboring structure II:
The ruins on the top of the pyramid were once an elite residential area, BTW — sort of the ultimate gated community.
Labná is a neat little Maya ruin that doesn’t get nearly as much visitor traffic as it deserves. On the east end of the “Puuc Route” in the Yucatan, Labná isn’t particularly close to any major modern cities — but it and its neighboring sites are an easy day trip from Mérida.
Should you ever make it to Labná, its arch is its claim to (touristic) fame:
The unusual (and somewhat funny) thing about this arch is where it’s found. Most arches at Maya sites served as ceremonial entrances to the cities — a way to both announce your arrival at the city, and demarcate the boundaries of the city core.
But this arch is different — it separates the royal from the mercantile parts of Labná. This side of the arch (the fancier of the two) is what you’d see as you were walking into the royal part of town (those two ground-level doors may have been where guards were stationed). The other face of the arch, far plainer, announced your arrival into the home of the merely affluent.
I guess some things never change…
One of the odd things about visiting ruins is that the tour guide books seem to always give them short shrift when it comes to photography. The books will tell you that this set of ruins is more scenic than that one, and one or two things to see at a site — but they always seem to miss a lot of really nice stuff (possibly in the interest of fitting in more plugs for affiliated hotels and such). This is one of those missed things at the Maya ruins of Tulum, México:
If you walk down to the far southeast corner of the ruins (on an unofficial trail), you can sight up along the coast to get this nice composition. Much better than some of the other coastal shots you can make here (and the colors came out far nicer than I’d expected they would)…
If you’ve dropped by this blog more than a time or two in the past, you likely know I’m a bit of an archaeology buff. Here’s a shot through my 60mm crystal ball of Chimney Rock, in southern Colorado:
The Chimney Rock Archaeological Area is home to some ancestral puebloan ruins, nearly 1000 years old. They were built at this site due to the two rock pinnacles in this image — every 18.6 years, the moon rises between the columns (the geometry is called a Major Lunar Standstill). If you’d like to see this event in person, there’s good news and bad news. Good news: the site has public viewing events for lunar standstill. Bad news: the next one won’t occur until 2022.
So patience is the key…
At full size, this is a (free) iPad wallpaper — but thought I’d put it up here too, just for show:
If you’d like this on your iPad, just click on the image to get to its Flickr page — you can downlink the 1024×1024 wallpaper image from there. FWIW, this is a slightly-stylized version of last night’s sundown, shot with my iPhone.
Coming to you from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, it’s Fajada Butte:
Fajada Butte is the site of an ancient “Sun Dagger” solar clock that marks the occurrence of the solstices and equinoxes. It’s too delicate for visitors to see in person any more (it was damaged by tourism-induced erosion, and closed to the public in 1989), but still inspiring to look at from a distance.
Two women start their descent of Structure I (as seen from Structure II) at Calakmul, México:
Structure I (a.k.a. Pyramid I) is the highest at Calakmul (by virtue of its being built on a small hill), but not the tallest. Its neighbor Structure II (a.k.a. Pyramid II) is the tallest at the site, and the largest (in bulk) too — standing about 50 meters / 160 feet tall (these numbers vary depending on the source you’re looking at). Structure I is just a few meters shorter than Structure II, meanwhile Structure II’s base is some 120 meters (390 feet) square.
Translation: they’re both really big…
Should you ever manage to visit Antelope Canyon in Arizona, don’t forget (from time to time) to look up:
By the way, this is a 3-image HDR composite, with the original images being shot 1 stop apart. Even then, the sky is nearly blown out.
It’s a tricky place to work, that’s for sure.