Travel Photography on the Yucatan
The newest images added to ohiophoto.org can be found on a new page titled “Jim Crotty Travel Photography.” On display are a series of photographs captured last month in and around the Playa del Carmen area of Mexico, including the Mayan ruins and village of Coba’ and the island of Cozumel.
If there’s one word to describe this region of Mexico and the Mayan culture it would be colorful. Bold, bright and reflective of the sky and sea, the colors come at you from every direction. There’s a unique light to the Yucatan Peninsula that enhances the colors of the melding of two distinct cultures, Spanish and Mayan. Throw-in the gaudiness of the number one industry of the region - tourism - and you have a never-ending kaleidoscope for the eyes and camera.
Travel photography can be full of spontaneous shooting opportunities. What I wanted to capture on this trip were the small details and moments that go unnoticed by the typical tourist. The scenes and objects that tell the true story of the local culture versus the typical vacation photos that get filed away in dusty photo albums.
The key to good travel photography is to travel light and shoot often. On this trip I took one camera body - a Canon 5D digital - and two lenses, a 28-70mm and a 70-200mm. I also packed my Canon Speedlite 550ex - fill light is very important when shooting in bright sun and shadows - as well as my Epson P-2000 - a portable, digital storage drive
with a fantastic 3.8 inch display screen. All of this fit easily into the bottom portion of my smaller LowePro backpack with plenty room left over for sunglasses, wallet, iPod and book. I shot in high-res JPEG mode and was able to include 300+ images on one, 2 gig flashcard.
The highlight of the trip was photographing and learning about a Mayan village located near the Mayan ruins of Coba’. This is a fascinating culture with quite an interesting history, soon to become even more popular with Mel Gibson’s upcoming release of Apocalypto.
The Mayan people live a simple and harmonious life with their natural environment, yet they were able to observe and record astronomical events and the annual progression of the sun with skill that was unmatched anywhere in the world during their rule of most of what today is the Yucatan Peninsula and most of Central America.
What was really fun for me was sharing my photographs as I would shoot them by way of the LCD screen on the back of my Canon 5D. The Mayan children loved seeing themselves and their friends, posing and playing for the camera.
This is a wonderful area to visit, as soon as you get away
from the wild party scene over at Cancun (God I hope the whole spring break thing dies before our daughters go to college). I was amazed at how quickly the people there were able to rebuild after last year’s devastating hurricane. The only evidence remaining are all the leafless trees over on Cozumel.