While I´ve dabbled in photography more in a pseudo-documentary style managing to capture only the most cliched of images, it has provided the basis of at least a continuing ´reason to be´ rather than a discipline which has helped my get my act together. I state this having looked at the area of fine art photography which to the novice may appear to be a means of conning some unsuspecting art lover out of a few hundred thousand for one or two images that were created on a PC and then printed to a high standard. This is something that I have not achieved, nor aspired to believe it or not.
The question of where 'art´ comes into a photograph will always be asked, even in the case of individuals like myself who can barely remember what they did from one day to the next and tended to want a record largely to ensure that they had at least the vaguest recollection of what had gone on the previous few days. The images I have of Mexico, which to me vary from ´standard holiday photo´ to ´club amateur who has stepped out just a little´ by for instance, combining images of architecture influenced by some still life photography that he saw at one of the club exhibitions a year or so before. Whether there is the gulf between fine art and club photography tends to be a question that maybe could be addressed over several seasons. To an extent, it´s the gulf between enjoyment and possession, the difference between self and society as well may be.
Shots I took this morning didn't really do the landscape justice. The pine forests that surround San Cristobal on the decending journey down to Palenque tended to frame valleys which were filled with mist. Each ridge of pine forests was getting more and more opaque as you looked into the distance with the mist increasing every few hundred yards. Maybe there could be some form of fine art image from this, but it is too self indulgent. The images I did get together on the way would cause a great deal of frustration for some. I know how some club seniors wince at the thought of a shot taken through the window of a bus.
The shots I took in Palenque tended to be rather straightforward snaps until I started heading towards the exit and the pathways down to the museum were shaded with darts of light dropping through onto the stone pathway. Then things really came alive for me. Can't upload today because my cables are in left-luggage while I wait for the bus tonight to take me to Chetumal before crossing the border tomorrow daytime into Belize.
Palenque as an historic site does require a little preparation before wandering in amongst the ruins of what was probably a very notorious kingdom. The Mayan Indians tend not to be as widely discussed in the west as say the Aztecs, however, there is testament to their ingenuity shown by the aqueducts that remain with water still running through and at the sheer scale of the monuments which have largely been restored and replenished rather than showing the nature of the damage that had been done to them by several centuries of dereliction. I can only imagine that Hollywood could capture the surprise that must have been experienced by the Spanish colonisers when they were informed of this lost kingdom which had become overgrown and dominated by the encroaching jungle. Exploring something that would have been disregared by westerners, if not totally unknown to them for the first time must have been quite remarkable.
Having said that there were some very cute looking Mexican women wandering around the site as well - I don´t know the Spanish phrase for ´marry me you sexy beast´ but suffice to say if I did I would probably have used it a few times by now in the last ten days in Mexico. It is almost as if Hollywood was created to transmit an image of beauty of tanned women with high cheekbones, broad smiles, full figures and exotic eyes that seems to be synonymous with the look of the Mexican woman. I guess I struggle to find the words for shock when an attractive woman appears from behind a street corner and just happens to wander right past. Or maybe the heat is getting to me...
Palenque is well worth a visit if only to marvel at the thought of the first people from the west to explore what was largely lost to the world for several hundred years. That and the senoritas who also happen to inhabit the site these days.
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