File talk:GuatemalanMarimbaGourds.JPG

This same photo appeared in the book "Making Gourd Musical Instruments," by Ginger Summit and Jim Widess. I asked him specifically about this picture and was told that it was not an original untouched photo, but rather a Photoshopped picture. The Guatemalans do not use and have not used gourds as resonators for hundreds of years. I would like to see this photo removed as or replaced with the real article, if it exists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.61.29.99 (talk • contribs)

I took this photograph myself, and find your statement bizarre. The photo was taken in the courtyard of a hotel in Chichicastenango (I forget the name, one of the nicer ones at the time) in 1980. The Maya man seen at the left regularly played this instrument there. (The woman at right was a friend of mine who posed at the marimba for what was just a casual snapshot when I took it -- only decades later after I started contributing to Wikimedia I realized it might be of some illustrative use as showing a gourd marimba.) Not photoshopped to show anything that wasn't there at the time. In my time in Guatemala in the 1975-1980, yes, carved wood resonators were certainly much more common on marimbas. But as this shows, at least on occasion they still existed. Are you saying this exact photo of mine was used in the book? Was I credited as photographer? -- Infrogmation (talk) 03:51, 23 October 2013 (UTC)