Missing the Beach in Mexico

The beach near the Mayan ruins of Tulum in Mexico looks warm and inviting in this photo from our 2016 Cruise to Mexico. Warm and inviting certainly sounds appealing right about now.

Every year as the days get colder as we approach the actual start of winter, I begin to long more and more for a nice, warm beach somewhere. Or a nice, warm day just about anywhere, actually. But if I had to choose, I would choose the beach.

That was especially true this morning, because it was rather cold outside when we got up:

https://twitter.com/Burnsland/status/807201181613363200

Actually, sometime after that the temperature dropped down to 21. Not that an extra degree makes that much difference when you already can’t feel your fingers. I had carried a couple of buckets of warm water outside to thaw out the horses’ water trough last night, and I took another one out this morning. Fortunately, they seem to handle the cold a bit better than I do, especially once their water is thawed.

I will admit that I do like the change of seasons from summer to fall, especially because of the change of colors in nature and the different look that the color change gives to everything. But once the temperatures start getting cold, I am just about done. Yes, I know that 22 is pretty cold for this early in the season and that things should eventually even back out to more normal temperatures, and I didn’t die or even suffer anything serious while I was outside, so it will all be just fine. These cold mornings are always a little bit of a shock, that’s all.

But anyway, back to the beach. Or back to talking about the beach, since we don’t have a beach visit scheduled for any time soon. I have mentioned before about how much I enjoyed this beach at Tulum, and it was difficult to leave such a beautiful place, because we didn’t have much time to spend there at all. Fortunately, I took several photos such as this one to help me remember it all, and to help me feel a little warmer, at least on the inside.

I do sometimes wonder what it is like to live close to the beach all of the time. Maybe if that is all you have ever known, you don’t think that much about it. But maybe if you move there sometime in your life after living away from the beach for so long, you might appreciate it a bit more, unless of course you don’t really like the beach to begin with. Don’t worry - we don’t have any plans of leaving our beautiful woodland home any time soon, because there are plenty of nice things about it, too (especially during the warmer summer months). It is just nice to dream sometimes.

If you go to a beach as nice as the beach at Tulum in Mexico, it will make your beach dreams even better. Or maybe even worse, if you are the kind that can’t stand to think about not being there because it torments you so. But I am not that kind. I just have the good beach dreams, being content with what I have where I am and enjoying the beach when I can go there.

If this beach scene looks familiar, it was taken just a few feet away from one of my favorite photos:

You can read more about it and see more photos from this fantastic beach in Visiting the Beach at Tulum in Mexico. But the photo at the top of this post wasn’t included there, so I thought I would post it here to add a little warmth to the day. You can thank me later.

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.” - Genesis 8:22

About the photo:

Although it might not look like it at first glance, this photo was taken with the fisheye lens. I used the lens correction tool in Photoshop to remove most of the fisheye-ness from the photo. That left a nice, wide view, which explains the 16x9 crop here. The only downside to that is that it reduces the overall image size due to cropping out the areas that end up being blank, but the photo is still fine for web viewing. It looks nice as my new desktop wallpaper on the office computer, too.

Also, I was pretty liberal with the processing here, making the colors nice and bold, and bringing up the detail in the shadows quite a bit, because the rock wall creates some pretty strong shadows in the midday sun.

Here is a before-and-after view showing the processing, although I went ahead and used the post-fisheye view for the before version to have it match up with the after version. Otherwise, it would be quite confusing. Anyway, here is the photo:

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: July 18, 2016
Location: Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico