the view from the underworld
X'Keken Cenote is lovely in person, and magical when a camera is turned on to it. We traveled around the Yucatan for our recent honeymoon, and hit a few ce...
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X'Keken Cenote is lovely in person, and magical when a camera is turned on to it. We traveled around the Yucatan for our recent honeymoon, and hit a few cenotes we didn't see on our last trip there. This was the most photogenic, period. With that magical shaft of light and that deep blue-green water? You should have seen the fish swimming about, too.
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Oct, 2015Views
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Katnott
October 10, 2018
Wow!! Awesome photo. You've captured such a powerful mood here its fantastic lighting is perfect ..love this!!!!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
Cenote Xkeken (actual place name), Dzitnup (nearest town), Quintana Roo (state), Yucatan Peninsula (region), Mexico (country). Cenotes are limestone sinkholes that pepper the Yucatan Peninsula, and were the water sources for the Maya.Time
This was late morning - we were on our honeymoon and had spent the night before in Valladolid. On our way to the coast for the next stop, Akumal, we stopped in to see this cenote. I knew from photos it was going to be hit or miss if we got the right light, and as they say, "nailed it." It was probably 11am, in October.Lighting
This cenote is underground, and is a popular tourist spot. There are terrible floodlights in every underground cave I've visited in Mexico - the color temperature is heinous. It gives an eerie look to the cave, though, and shows off the stalactites and the root systems of the trees above, and allows you to see more clearly than if there was just one hole in the roof. I did not add any additional lighting, though - this was 30 seconds of the light in the cave from the floods and the shaft of sunlight from above.Equipment
This was taken with my D700, Nikon 20mm 2.8, and ISO 100, on a tripod, at 30 seconds. I was standing in the water, not quite up to my waist, and had the camera mounted on the tripod maybe a foot about the surface of the water to really show off the size and scope of the cenote.Inspiration
My husband I love this part of Mexico - and though it was our honeymoon and we were off exploring and having fun together (right after this was taken we were drinking from fresh coconuts in the parking lot) I still wanted to take some time to document the beautiful places we were visiting. My husband is quite patient, letting me "do my thing" but I also try to work fairly quickly, I want to EXPERIENCE places and remember being there and that's just as important to me as having the proof I was there. I think finding that balance as a photographer on vacation can be challenging. The colors in this cenote are stunning, the impossibly warm, blue-green water, the tiny black fish swimming about, the craggy walls, the roots, it's just so beautiful. Of course I wanted to bring a "piece" of this home with us. I do that through my photos.Editing
As I mentioned, there are floodlights in the cave that give off a strange reddish/magenta hue to the walls in photos, so I had to adjust the white balance without desaturating the natural colors. Even with a gray-card and pre-set white balance there was some tweaks to be made. I also had to crop to achieve the best horizon line/have the roots hanging essentially vertical. It's tricky with the wide angle lens to get a dome shaped cave full of water to look level.In my camera bag
Currently it's my D800, my 50 1.4, 20 2.8, and my 80-400. The 80-400 isn't as fast as I would like and will be upgraded eventually. SB900. CPL and ND6 filters and step up rings so I can use my 72mm filters on my smaller 50 and 20 lenses. Gray card. Lens cleaning cloth. Safety pins. Hand sanitizer. When I'm traveling like this there's Deep Woods Off and water. Usually some sort of Snickers bar (or something similar). If I'm going to be in the water I have a new waterproof housing made by CMT I just invested in last year. And my iPhone.Feedback
Know thine own equipment! I cannot stress this enough, know the features on your camera body and the quirks of your lenses. I was in what is still a relatively dark cave, standing in water, with my camera inches from the surface - I HAD to know how to make adjustments easily so I wasn't "fighting" with my camera body and taking it on and off the tripod and scrolling through menus. Being prepared is SO MUCH of photography. If you are prepared, know your equipment, have it handy, and end up in a place like this you can get The Photo. You have to make yourself available to luck. It was luck that the sun was shining in the hole in the ceiling, it was experience that left me able to document the look and feel of the cave and capture that shaft of light.
