Isla Slideshow
Since I didn’t really have an agenda on my last visit to Isla (other than a side trip to Akumal), I don’t have any stories to tell. So, I’m just going to post a slideshow of some miscellaneous photos. I think music enhances slideshows, but not everyone wants to hear it, so if you want a soundtrack to the show, click on the right arrow just below…
Then you can advance the slideshow at your own pace by clicking on the right arrow at the bottom. If you want to view the photos in full screen, click on the “menu” button at the bottom left of the screen and it will give you that option. Hope you enjoy.
Having fun with panoramics…
One of the things I played around with on this last trip was taking panoramic photos. Actually, they’re separate photos taken in a row and then stitched together with a software program…mine being Photoshop CS5. If your camera has this feature, you take a picture in the stitch mode, turn a little, take another one…and so on. Then the software program does most of the work stitching them together. As you can probably guess, the more pictures you put together, the skinnier and longer the end product gets. For example, this photo was only two shots. (You can click on it to get the full effect.)
I actually took four pictures of this scene, but for some reason, Photoshop did NOT want to stitch them all together, so I settled for two.
This one is three photos…
This one is two…
This one is four. As you can see, the more photos you take, the less you capture in detail. But it’s still a cool effect.
You can also notice that it distorts things a little and/or puts things on a slight slant.
I kind of like how the zocalo turned out.
So, when you stitch these photos together, this can be the result. It pulls them together in a way that it thinks it should look, with a lot of white space where things don’t line up. Normally, you would have to crop inside the photo to get rid of the white space which would make it really long and skinny.
But Photoshop CS5 has a feature that fills in that white area with what’s called “content aware” in which it takes neighboring pixels and figures out how to match them to complete the photo. Amazing. You usually have to fix a few flaws, but it’s incredible how accurate it is.
Although sometimes it does get confused. I was standing at the end of this pier when I took this series of photos. For some reason, Photoshop decided the pier should end about 20 feet in front of me. Haha! Oh, well…still kind of a neat effect.
Now that I’m back, I can think of all the other panoramics I could have taken…like at Punta Sur or along Garrafon. Well, I guess I’ll just have to go back.
My tribute to the Isla Mujeres cemetery…
I decided to spend a little more time in Isla’s tiny cemetery on my last visit. I wanted to do this post showing respect for those who have passed, while illustrating the uniqueness, color and history of this special (and crowded) place. I try not to step on the graves when I walk through the cemetery, which is extremely difficult considering almost every square inch is “occupied”.
Some of the graves are very colorful and well cared for…
But a lot of them are in disrepair and probably haven’t been visited by anyone in a long time.
One thing I particularly noticed on this visit were the little angels that sat on some of the graves. Some of them were adorable, although there is a sadness about them.
You can really see how much damage the constant salty sea air does to them.
I’m not too sure about this one, though…kind of strange…
Raising arms…
Maybe this person was a guitar player…
Then there are the shushing angels…my favorites…
I spent more time looking into the little enclosed areas on the tops of some of the graves…I don’t know what they are called.
In addition to candles, flowers and/or statues, it was interesting to note that most of them had either cups or soda bottles inside these areas. I posted a question on the Isla Chatter Board about what these meant, and I received this reply: “I asked a Mexican this question. It is for the dead person so they can have a drink. They leave it for them and it acually evaporates. They said the person who cleans the cemetery probably turns them over when they clean.” So there you go.
I also noticed that some had the face of Christ leaning on a wall…
I don’t know what this one was all about…
Interesting crucifixes…
One of the sadder things I noticed is that a lot of the people buried in this little cemetery weren’t that old. Many were just in their 40s and 50s. And some younger ones…
Very sad…
And Mundaca, the resident pirate…who apparently isn’t even really buried here…
After I took my last photograph here, I looked around and saw this little guy. Hmmmm…not a good omen in a cemetery…
So, I turned around to leave, and just about jumped out of my skin because a woman had walked in without me hearing her and was standing right behind me. Geez, you just don’t do that to people in cemeteries! Haha!
So that’s my little walk through the Cementerio Municipal. The caretaker encourages visitors and doesn’t mind if you take pictures…just be respectful.
Random Travel Musings 