When time and funding permit, each flower (each plant species) will have its own page, and its own PDF, and eventually its own PPT so that professors and students have plenty of material on Guatemala (and Honduras, etc) to study.
Heliconia adflexa, Coban, Guatemala, Hotel Monja Blanca, FLAAR, by Nicholas Hellmuth
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Plants in the ancient Mayan World |
Plants were much more than just food for the ancient Mayan people. Many plants were used to make soap; others to weave baskets. Plants were used to color the bodies, both of men and women, and of course lots of plants produced dye to use as colorant for the clothing of native Mayan cotton and bark paper. After many years of doing photography at Yaxha with basic equipment (because we had no funds for better equipment) we learned that this is not the way to achieve good photos. For example, one carved stone stelae we photographed at Yaxha in the 1970's was subsequently destroyed when a local government archaeologist put it in the back of his pickup truck and drove 300 km to the capital. The fragile 2000 year old stone monument was bounced to pieces on the rough unpaved roads. Many years later archaeologist Miguel Orrego found this stelae in the basement of the Museo Nacional. But the point of this is that I wish I had done better photography in the 1970's, with better equipment, since today there is not enough remaining of this stela to do modern photography. So the last week of May 2015 we drove the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR lens in a 4WD pickup truck to the remote mountain area of Finca La Perla, and with the help of local people hiked up the steep mountains to photograph flowers of Magnolia quetzal.
Rainforest Plants of the Maya Forest There are dozens, scores, of different eco-systems in Guatemala, from sea level of both the Caribbean on one side and Pacific Ocean on the other side. Then you get the mountain chains, and in between a rain shadow, which creates a cactus and thorn-plant filled desert-like eco-system along the Motagua River.
Aromatherapy: Mayan Plants for Perfume Medicinal Plants of the Mayan people Magnolia trees have additional chemicals which are useful for native medicine as well as for modern medicine. We will be seeking funds for further studies to assist local Mayan people. So doing high-resolution photography is a good first step In the long run we will need
because we prefer to avoid the issues of 1.4x and 2x tele-extenders (though we will be reviewing these also). We also prefer to not use zoom lenses. The old Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM zoom lens was clunky and close to unusable. It should be a public embarrassment for a company claiming to make professional equipment to have such an inadequate lens for sale for years. So in general we prefer to avoid using zoom lenses. If you Google for digital camera lens reviews, over 90% ask for money for their reviews. They seem to praise every item of equipment (and ask you to buy it so they get a sales commission). Magnolia flowers tend to be high up in really tall trees. There are hundreds of other species of tall trees in Mesoamerica, so it is essential for botanists and Mayanists to have telephoto lenses. We at FLAAR will be testing various models; these samples of the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR lens are our first results.
Ancient Maya Botanical Research: Our web site for plant bibliographies, www.maya-art-books.org, will have a bibliography on Magnolia and Taluma species as soon as possible. You can also check our review on the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR lens here. Posted June 10, 2015 |