487 - Tikal
Apparently the cost of nine delicious photos is a hornet to the face. Worth it? Yes. But before I get into that, I have something on my mind I need to clear up.
I’m all over the place in this shoot guys. I’m not going to lie to you. There’s all sorts of different styles of photographs going on here, and none of them fit together aesthetically. This is something that often bothers me, but I’m not sure if it should bother me.
Sure, it’d be cool if all my photos flowed together perfectly when placed next to each other. But more often than not, I feel as though in order to accomplish this, I’d have to sacrifice elements of individual photos that I enjoy. Which inevitably leads me to conclude that each photo should be its own vibe- not the overall collection.
You know what? Who am I kidding. I don’t fucking know. It’s art. Do whatever you want. Let’s get to the hornet.
It all started on a lovely day in the Guatemalan ruins of Tikal. Arguably the most famous ruins in Central America, this place boasts the tallest temple of the Mayan world. Naturally, we decided to start our adventure as early as possible- which ended up being at 6AM, right when the park opened. See, Guatemala actually has their shit together when it comes to opening Mayan ruin sites for sunrise. (Take a note, Mexico.)
We grabbed a map, and I began to take in how absolutely massive this place was. According to the map, we were supposed to walk 15 minutes just to get to the ruins. And then another 30 minutes in various directions to see other temples. This was going to be a long day…
Well, my first shot was a nice eerie warmup of the staircase leading to the first set of ruins. Check this out:
“Entrance to the Gates”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 500 ~ 53mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/80s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
If you follow my adventures closely, you’ll notice a similarity between that opening photo and the opening photos of the ruins at Xpuhil, and the ruins of Palenque. I love that sense of being led into the dark, misty rainforest. Especially at the very start of a photoshoot.
From there, we were led deeper into the abyss. Birds chirped through the air, lemurs ran amok, and howler monkeys echoed in the distance. I had an odd feeling this place wasn’t going to be just about the ruins.
The second scene I really enjoyed however, didn’t feature animals or ruins. It was a symmetrical tree pattern that looked too good to be true:
"Symmetrical Signs”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 1000 ~ 57mm ~ f/7.1 ~ 1/100s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I mean, come on. How is that type of pattern even real? There’s no way they planted it like that- the whole place is a fucking rainforest. Unless some Mayan god is trying to give me a sign or something…
Either way, we kept going as the morning sun began to peek its way through the mist. The neat thing about being here so early was that the entire place was foggy. Which meant perfect lighting for ruins. More often than not you’re looking up at them, and there’s nothing worse than ruins with a nice blown out, blue sky behind them.
Here was the first moment of light I noticed:
"First Light”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 500 ~ 52mm ~ f/7.1 ~ 1/80s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
As you can see, directly behind those trees, are the ruins. By now I’d felt like I’d warmed up enough, so I started to try and frame the entire pyramid- a daunting task. Even with the fog, it looked a bit meh… So I decided to try something new. There was a tree that lined up perfectly with the ruins in terms of height/angle, which lead me to think I could match them up:
“Pinnacle of the Maya”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 320 ~ 24mm ~ f/9 ~ 1/2000s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Perfect fit.
Now, some would argue that the tree takes away from the temple shot. But personally, I think it adds to it. I think it’s a nice way of “syncing” the Mayan temple up with nature, which was their entire shtick. Therefore, my first tip of this adventure is to look for ways to sync your “ruins” shots up with the landscape. It’s a nice way to add interest to a shot that might otherwise simply be too basic on its own.
Alright. Moving on.
From here, I decided to get to a vantage point. As I learned in my ruins adventure at Archeological Park Zaculeu, getting height at these sites can make a huge difference in perspective. It allows you to look down upon them, and see shapes that might not be relevant from below. Kind of like a drone point of view.
Luckily for me, the Tikal ruins often feature staircases at their behind that allow you to climb to the top of the ruins, without having to go up the sketchy stone stairs. I was in a boot with my foot recovering, so that’s what I did. Here was my first view:
“Line Dance”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 320 ~ 24mm ~ f/9 ~ 1/200s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
As you can see, I’m really milking that initial light leak/fog for all it’s worth. Because I know that once it’s gone, it’s gonna be gone. Of course, the main subject of this photo is the tree. However, I recently learned a great editing tip from Marc Adamus about the darkness percentage of your blacks. As a general rule of thumb, the closer the subject is to you, the darker you want those blacks to be. This helps give the shot depth and atmosphere. So as you can see in this shot, the blacks in the tree are much darker than the blacks in the background, for example.
I was about to head down from the top of the pyramid when I noticed a screeching sound that was impossible to ignore. Suddenly, a swarm of parrots flew out from the brush and dispersed amongst the trees. Holy shit! This was my chance…
I’d always wanted a photo of a parrot, but I’d never been quite able to line one up on this trip. I began to scan the trees closely, playing a real life game of Where’s Waldo? After about 20 minutes, I was able to land on a composition that I actually enjoyed- two birds loving each other’s company on a long branch. It was perfect:
“Lover Birds”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 1000 ~ 200mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/5000s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Note that this photo took a ridiculous amount of tries in order to get right- the parrots kept moving none-stop and flying away every couple of seconds, so I had my shutter speed high. It was quite the game. But I’m extremely proud of that shot- not only are the birds looking cute, the red branch looks out of this world. That’s something I always like to look for in my wildlife photography- a perfect backdrop for a perfect moment. Hard to get, but always worth the extra effort. You’ll notice that not many wildlife photographers focus on this- they merely get the animal in the middle of the frame.
Then Haley somehow spotted a toucan in the trees. How? I have absolutely no idea. The thing was basically in camo. But nonetheless, I was able to nail a shot of it:
“Toucan Sam”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 1000 ~ 198mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/1000s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Damn. I still can’t believe that shit was wild. Seems like a fucking zoo at this place.
Speaking of which, we climbed down from the temple and started walking back into the main plaza. All of a sudden I heard a loud drone noise coming from above. I asked Haley what it was, but she had no idea either. It almost sounded like an alien invasion was commencing. That’s how powerful this sound was.
hen a fly landed on my face, and I whacked it away with my hat. It then came right back, even more aggressively this time. At this moment, Haley yells, “there’s a hive above us!” I looked up and saw hundreds of thousands of hornets, all surrounding a hive that was probably about 2ft x 2ft large. I immediately ran away, temporarily forgetting about the “fly” that was attacking my face.
Well, it turns out that it wasn’t a fly as it stung me right next to the left eye and chased me about 50 feet across the yard. Keep in mind that at this point my boot is on my broken foot, so I can only run so fast- and that there were about 30 people staring at me from the sidelines while I swatted at something and threw my glasses.
Finally the hornet (or whatever ungodly species of bug it was) flew away and left me alone. My heart was pounding like a mongoose, and the whole thing felt beyond primal. Nothing like being chased by a rabid fucking hornet to get your blood pumping.
Phew.
My face swelled up a bit, but other than that the pain felt like any other sting. By this point, I felt like I’d “gotten” the Tikal experience, but there was still so much more to do. So I put on my big boy pants and kept going- we were about ¼ of the way done with the park.
Our next objective was to climb Temple IV, which was deemed the highest Mayan structure in all of Central America. Despite my swollen face, I was amped. The climb up to the top was brutal- even though it was still only 9AM. I couldn’t imagine shooting this place any later in the day- I would be dead on arrival.
But the view at the top was worth the sweat on my back. You could see the entire rainforest stretching across the horizon, and a couple temples poking their heads above the trees. It truly was fascinating to imagine how these things were built about 4,000 years ago. They’re so tall:
“Above the Clouds”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 1250 ~ 20mm ~ f/9 ~ 1/8000s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
We’re really sending it with the photos today, folks. I think that was number 8… It’s a rarity that I find that many photos I like on a particular shoot. But this place continued to blow my mind. As we kept walking, some monkeys brushed the corner of my eyes in the trees- and I lined up my last shot.
Now, monkeys in my opinion are notoriously difficult to shoot. I tried over at Charco Verde Park in Nicaragua a few adventures back, but came back with nothing. The problem is that they are often way above your head, surrounded by small branches that steal your focus. AKA the trick with monkeys is to follow them until you can find them with enough of a backdrop that there’s no blown out sky, and no branches in the way.
We stalked this monkey for about 20 minutes as he moved across the trees, hundreds of feet in the air:
“Fixated”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 160 ~ 200mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/500s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Damn! I’m glad I got that monkey shot. This shoot felt like I was just cleaning up shop on all the animals I’ve wanted throughout Central America, but haven’t gotten. What a day.
Anyway, that’s my Tikal story. A hornet sacrifice to the Mayan gods in favor of a couple bangers. I’ll take it.
NEXT TIME ON INTRICATE EXPLORER… We head back into Mexico for one final hurrah before the United States. And this waterfall we found is no joke.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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