A little seasonal bokeh from our front yard:
Sorry about the thin posting schedule lately, writing photo guidebooks has been absorbing my every waking moment — but the end’s in sight!
Treekeh
New (free!) eBook from Craft and Vision — a review
Craft and Vision just came out with a new eBook — 11 Ways You Can Improve your Photography. It’s a pretty impressive little eBook — and best of all, it’s free!
But before I send you on over to the Craft and Vision website, let me give you a quick rundown of what you’ll get in this thing. Nine of Craft and Vision’s writers contribute eleven tips on how you can improve your photographic skills, and none of it requires buying gear. 69 pages of useful and thought-provoking material, and it won’t cost you a cent to read or put into practice.
Definitely a good thing in the middle of the obligatory holiday shopping binge!
I won’t spell out what the 11 tips are, that’d completely spoil the surprise for you. But I can summarize. A few tips are pretty basic — so, particularly good for beginners. Others are much more profound, and delve into the reasons and rationale behind our photography, and the use of photographic composition as a storytelling device. Good for everyone, but particularly useful for those who have mastered the technology of their cameras and have moved to a more contemplative place with their photography.
So all-in-all, I think this is a wonderful eBook — particularly when you consider the price! So go and get it!
Seed head
A spur-of-the-moment shot from a solo photowalk a few weeks back:
I have no idea what kind of plant grew these seeds, but I liked how the swirl of the seed head mirrored the feel of the bokeh background. It’s just one of those things I don’t really have words for, you know?
Maya Calendar 2012
Why worry about the end of the Maya calendar in 2012? You can just buy another one when it runs out!
 |
|
Pretty much just for fun, I’ve made up some 2012 wall calendars at Lulu featuring images from ancient Maya ruins in Mexico and Guatemala. You can pick from two styles — “standard” (11″ wide, 8.5″ tall, costs $15), or “tall” (13.5″ wide, 19″ tall, costs $25). This batch features U.S. and Canadian holidays — please drop me a line via the contact form if you’d like me to put up a different version for where you live.
Just the thing to chase away any end-of-an-era blues!
Looking back at Autumn…
…from the start of Winter:
A shot from a lunchtime walk about a month back, before the season’s first big snowfall wiped out the colors.
House of the Cenote
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…
Coming soon…
…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.
Majestic
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!
QEC
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!
Xaibe
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.