462 - Lake Atitlán
We arrived at the Airbnb today, barely. And when I mean barely I mean our van bottomed out on the hill up, sticking out in the middle of the road.
Never a dull moment…
According to our host, our van would be “perfectly fine” to go up the winding dirt road that rivaled streets in San Francisco. Haha, no. The moment we started going up it, the van’s backside got stuck on the ground and we couldn’t back out of the hill because of the awkward angle.
I calmly took a breath and got out of the van to take account of the situation. The front right tire was in mid-air, the entire back side of the van was squashed into the ground, and it was sticking out in the middle of the road with cars whizzing by at 30mph+. This was gonna be fun.
We tried going back and forth a few times, but no cigar. It looked like we were gonna need someone to pull us out- and possibly fuck up the backside of the van in the process. But I had one more idea. What if we put our traction pads under the back tires to lift them up a bit and hopefully get the backside higher in the air?
And guess what? It worked. We were in, but also out… Now we had to figure out an alternate parking spot. There was no way we're going to try to go back up the hill again, and there was no parking on this narrow road for four miles. The Airbnb host suggested we park at his friend’s lot for the next couple days, then he’d drop us off at the Airbnb.
Fine with us. We’d just have to gather some luggage up.
The Airbnb was incredible, despite the difficulty getting in. Haley’s parents had rented the place out for her birthday, and we were planning on staying here for the next three nights. It was complete with a fantastic view of Lake Atitlan, hot tub, and most importantly- a warm shower and oven.
French fries were tossed in within 10 minutes of entering, and the sun began to set over the lake. We had the perfect view. Because of the arrival shenanigans, I didn’t have time for a formal shoot, but I snagged this quick visual of the mountains with a smoke stack burning. Seeing as half of Guatemala and Mexico smell like someone burning shit, it was fitting:
“Orange Toke”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 250 ~ 114mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/1250s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Now, onto the real adventure. The next day we decided we’d head down to the local marina of Lake Atitlan for sunset. Although the view was incredible at the Airbnb, we were anxious to get out after sleeping all day and lounging about. And based on the pictures I’d seen, the docks at the marina were made of these rotting pieces of wood, which would look like a killer foreground for the lake.
We called a tiktok (fuck I mean tuk-tuk…) and started our journey through the town of Panajachel. Fun fact- I’ve never been on a tuk-tuk before, and they’re quite the experience. No doors, open air, and the sweet, sweet smell of gasoline. The agility those things have is nuts. We were weaving through street stalls, stray dogs, and motorcycles like nobody’s business.
Finally, we arrived at the docks- about three hours early. Our plan was to gather some last minute stuff from our van parked nearby, then head over.
Once we filled our bag with our food for the next two days (which we’d completely forgotten to pack in the fluster of arriving), we hauled it over to the docks. And trust me, this bag is full of shit and heavy as hell. It was a process to lug to the docks.
Upon arrival, we just sat there and enjoyed the sun for a while. It was quite nice, but my foot was starting to act up again after the walk over. Remember how at Volcán Santiaguito I fucked it up? Well, it was back today, with a vengeance. The pain was worse, and I was having trouble walking.
I went from thinking I may have a bad case of tailor’s bunion to considering something else. But I had no idea what.... The good thing was that we had our Airbnb to rest up in the next couple days, so I vowed to stay off it. After this shoot, that is.
The sunset was starting to look epic. The clouds were lighting up orange/maroon, and I realized it was time to pick a dock to shoot. I’d held off on picking one until the very end, because boats were coming and going every couple minutes to new spots. There were over 30 docks, and if you found a solid composition, chances were a boat would come up and ruin it within 10 minutes.
I limped over to one that looked promising and set up shop, carrying my massive grocery bag with me. I took a bunch of snaps, but nothing looked that magical. And like clockwork, a boat came up and ruined the scene anyway. *Sigh.* I looked around and found another empty dock about 100 feet away, so I hobbled over with my loot and setup again in the nick of time. Literally- the sun had about 1 minute left before it disappeared behind a cloud. It was time to think quick.
I realized I needed to do a long exposure. I have something against choppy water, I can’t use it unless absolutely necessary. It just looks so bad. Long exposure water is what takes a body of water and turns it surreal.
And with that, I snagged two absolute bangers, each with about 13 seconds of exposure. But I came to the greatest photography conundrum of all time: I had a picture with great light and a picture with great composition. Which do I choose?
This is a problem that frequently occurs when you’re running out of time and have one shot with perfect light, and another a moment later when the lights are gone and you had time to perfect the composition. You could say it’s a pet peeve of mine.
Normally, I pick the one with the good light in a situation like this. Timing and light always triumphs composition to me. But today I wasn’t having it. I felt like I had developed sufficient Photoshop skills over the past 8 months to combine the two. Here’s the final result:
“Sacred Abyss”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 80 ~ 37mm ~ f/22 ~ 13s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Now, you’re probably wondering what the two original shots were. In the first shot, the sky was perfect. The sun was still out, and about to disappear behind the clouds. Only problem was I zoomed in too much. In the second shot, the composition was perfect. I’d zoomed out enough to isolate the dock in the water and give context to the scene, but the sun had set behind the sky.
Thus, this was an extremely tricky exposure blend. Since I’d zoomed out, the dock positioning was off, and none of the poles lined up. So I had to cut the image in half at the horizon and blend, stamp, and heal my way into perfection. It took upwards of two hours, and since the mountain in the back was larger than the sky photo, the blend paid off and became my first successful focal length blend.
Hell ya.
A focal length blend, by the way, is where you take two images at different zooms and combine them into one. This can help make mountain backdrops look bigger if you’re shooting wide for your foreground. They work best where solid horizon lines are able to be seen.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about editing in Photoshop. Oftentimes these edits can take hours, especially when you’re manually blending photos. But there’s something I like about it- it’s relaxing. Almost in the same way coloring with crayons is. Tedious, yes. But also relaxing because it requires you to focus on something miniscule and non-important.
And with that philosophy in mind, we started walking back. I didn’t want to be out here after dark with expensive camera gear. Doing so would break the number one rule of Central America. But as we headed toward the line of tuk-tuks, one more scene caught my eye.
There was a single fisherman sailing in a rowboat, as the sun illuminated bright orange with a volcanic backdrop. Check this shot out:
“Volcano Fisher”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 2000 ~ 70mm ~ f/8 ~ 1/80s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Looked like something out of a movie, and was worth the extra 15 minutes of ever-darkening sky.
The ride home was just as wild. My foot was now throbbing, and I knew I’d sent it over the top today. I need to seriously calm the fuck down and rest.
Worth it for today? Most likely, I thought to myself. I just hoped I had the mindset to actually rest this thing. We were in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I didn’t want to lay around in a van.
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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