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…
…to an eBook reader near you. 12 Photographer’s Guides to Maya ruins:
So far, the eBooks for Becán, Chicanná, Chichén Itzá, Cobá, Dzibanché / Lamay / Kinichná, Ek’ Balam, and Tulúm are available; the rest will be out by the end of January. Head on over to the series’ page for more information.
Building 6 at the Maya ruins of Dzibanché, near Chetumal in Quintana Roo, México:
Dzibanché is a bit of an odd duck — great things to see, but it’s sufficiently off the “usual” track for tourists that it doesn’t get many visitors. It doesn’t help, either, that basically all the tour guide books describe the road to the site as being a rutted dirt track (it’s narrow and crooked, but has been paved for at least 10 years).
Of course, the good news for those that *do* drive out to Dzibanché is that you’ll most likely have the place to yourself. Oh, and you can climb most of the pyramids here (unlike many of the more-visited ruins).
Building 6, by the way, is the first pyramid you see on your walk into the site. It’s also known as the “Palace of the Lintels” after some carved wood beams that were discovered here (sadly, they’ve been removed and replaced by more modern wood).
12 November update — by the way, if you happen to be planning a trip to the Yucatan, I’m in the process of releasing a set of 12 guides to Maya ruins. Oriented toward photography in the ruins, they only cost a couple of dollars each via Amazon’s Kindle store — the one for Dzibanché and its neighbors is described here. I’ve released two guides so far, the rest of the dozen should be out before the end of the year — so stay tuned!
A Quick Engine Change (QEC) unit for a historic P-38 fighter undergoes a rebuild at WestPac Restorations — on the campus of the (not quite open to the public yet) National Museum of WWII Aviation in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
QECs were developed to speed aircraft maintenance — containing an engine and all its support equipment, a QEC allowed an engine swap to be performed with a relatively short grounding of an aircraft.
I made this image on a recent tour of WestPac Restorations and the National Museum of WWII Aviation. The Museum has been designed and is in the process of collecting funding to start construction (anybody have $12M they can spare?). Meanwhile, they have monthly tours during summer months — my daughter and I went on a special tour this past weekend as part of an AIAA-sponsored group.
Cool stuff!
You may not realize it, but this is a particularly odd structure in the Mayan world:
It’s a pyramid called Xaibe at the ancient 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 in the heart of the ancient Maya ruins of Becán — at the time, the ultimate gated community.
Grizzly bears are some really amazing creatures — smart enough to act a bit like humans, unpredictable enough to be hazardous. When we were in South Dakota earlier this Fall, one of the residents of “Bear Country, U.S.A.” was having a grand old time playing with a chunk of wood in his pond.
It was almost like watching a kid play with their bath toy. A big, furry, lethal kid, that is. Should you like a closer look, I’ve included the two images making up the diptych below.
I was really happy with how these turned out, I don’t get much practice with splash photography — much less out in the real world (vs. in a more controlled setting).
I’d heard about “light field cameras” when they hit the news a while back — but didn’t honestly think they’d be commercially available in the next decade.
Turns out they’ll be available by the end of the year. Here’s a CNetTV intro to the little critters (by way of Pixiq):
The idea is that the sensor in the Lytro is covered with little lenses that allow the camera to record brightness, color, and direction of light at each pixel. Apply some processing power to the data afterwards, and you wind up with a camera that lets you focus your picture after you take it.
Amazing stuff, I can’t imagine what these will do in a few more years, once they’ve learned from the original models!