Temple of the Warriors at Chitzen Itza, Mexico

Such an impressive structure. The Temple of the Warriors at Chitzen Itza in Mexico has 200 hundred columns surrounding it. I am not sure what each represents, but they stand resolute around their temple. When I first read about this site, I wanted to capture the feeling of standing amongst the columns. To almost reach out and touch the smoothness of the stone after so many years have passed (over 1000). In the background, you can see the actual Temple of the Warriors towering above the columns.

I knew that I wanted the depth of field to contain some of the columns close to me to be in focus. I did not want the ones closest to me in focus, nor did I want to totally blur out the ones in the distance. Lining up the columns so that they created a nice, clean diagonal off into the distance was also critical. The sun, luckily enough, was in a great position to give shadows of the columns cleanly across the ground giving me some horizontal lines and a sense of stability. Lastly, combined with the vertical columns, this picture makes one of the only photos I have that contains all 3 elemental lines...the stability of horizontal, the strength of vertical, and the excitement of diagonal. Often times, a scene may take many shots of different angles to achieve the best composition. Using the 50mm prime has taught me a lot about movement and repositioning.