Guatemala: Tikal, Crash Bandicoot and the lost images of SBPS.

It is a rather sad reflection on how cultured I feel when I get to a place like Tikal, which is an hour away from Flores, Guatemala, where I am currently staying and I the strongest link I have to the Mayan city ruins that are known as Tikal is that they strongly resemble the backgrounds in some of the Crash Bandicoot series on the sony play station. Tikal is quite astounding and well respected as a Mayan site of pyramids and burial grounds. It is indication of perhaps a very strong pagan desire to mark the passing of a loved one by creating a monument which is still relatively important in European culture despite the more superficially sophisticated processes relating to it. Maybe we admire the cultures despite their general demise because they managed to mark the loss of loved ones in a manner which has lasted until now. Perhaps they were sacred sites and this will always be respected across cultural boundaries, who knows.

The Mayan indian culture does start to get under your skin after only a short while in this country. It is only a very short period of time before things start to feel right in Guatemala especially. I have felt pretty comfortable here on the whole. I seem to have an inverse relationship with danger: the more dangerous a country is meant to be, the safer I generally feel. Perhaps I should think about a holiday in Afghanistan.

I guess also today was the day that I recalled the influence of the shots I took in India that resembled some that I had seen in South Birmingham Photographic Society Club events. There was a member called Peter Bardell, at least that´s what I think his surname was. He had also been to Central America, and shown pictures of his work at the club. I don´t know for definate, I think he entered a picture in one of the club competitions called ´cheap tomatoes´ and with no intention of copying what he had done, I found I had produced and images and finished it last night. Peter if you´re listening, please put your shots on ´Flickr´ the free yahoo site so I can see what you did here. I just want to avoid copying what you did and try to do something original while I´m here.

Wishing everyone at SBPS well, at least I hope that someone from SBPS reads this and can contact Peter who I think was living in Kings Heath the last I heard. Kind regards, Steve.