Stuck In Customs

If there is one thing that is almost as cool as being deep in the Himalayas, then it’s being at Disneyworld after dark near the Expedition Everest ride. This is probably one of my favorite rollercoasters, and I endeavored to stay here late one night to try to grab the moon in the right spot. The whole area is riddled with excellent little Buddhist offering temples, where you can submit fruits of offering in exchange for the blessing of not tossing your lunch right before the Yeti takes a swipe at your runaway train.

I also got a very nice Twitter message yesterday from a dad who was excited that his kids were getting him my Textures Tutorial for father’s day. I thought that was kind of cool and I was flattered! Of course, that means he’s going to have to use the techniques to make some memorable photos of his family… This is something that I always hear too… that I don’t take enough photos of the family, but I do I do! But I don’t think that the grandparents can ever be happy unless I have a webcam on them 24 hours a day like a non-stop grandchild Truman show.

This is an old library found in a remote temple complex in the wilds of Cambodia.

It’s hard for me to imagine what a library was like back then.  A library in the 12th century must have been very interesting.  Almost 1,000 years ago, I imagine it was probably filled with all sorts of fascinating scrolls and documents.  Without the Internet, it must have been the most interesting thing to do on a boring day.  I wonder what it would be like to rip back in time and show them the iPhone and then show them some ancient-scroll app from the App Store.  I’m pretty sure the AT&T connectivity would be about as good as it is in 2009.

We should have the first Newsletter out next week. I know it will come with links to two new reviews along with a few other cool things. It’s just getting started, and I look forward to your feedback to make it even better. You should note that the newsletter will look good on 90% of email clients out there, but there are a few where the background images and textures just won’t look quite right. It’s not a problem, though, because the plain-text version of the newsletter will link to the site where they can get a rich HTML version.

You can sign up here… it’s free and we promise not to spam you. I know your time is as valuable as mine, and you just want the cool stuff boiled down for you!

See how cool American cars used to be? And then they started getting designed by committees and focus groups and marketing experts… Did anyone see that Simpsons episode with Poochie the dog? I think about that episode a lot whenever I see a boring product flounder its way onto the scene.

Anyway, none of that has anything to do with anything… other than just as a talking point when looking back at old American cars and how much personality they used to have. This was shot at a classic car show here in Austin, which is always a great place to take the tripod for some HDR goodness…

I have not spent enough time in Boston! I really need to explore the city more, but I tried to make the most of it while I was there.

One evening, about an hour from sunset, I found one of the prettiest waterfronts and started walking along it to see what I could find. After only a few moments, I came to this nice little area of greenery, benches, and a nice place to hang out and appreciate the colors of Boston. After only spending a short amount of time there, I now see why people like it so much!

Today Altus, my good friend from Japan, came into Austin with his family. They crashed at my place and it gave us a chance to go out and do some shooting… I feel lucky to be able to go out and shoot with another great HDR photographer! I can add him to the collection! Here are some other greats I have shot with… and I’ll be sure to add Altus to the list soon.

After we went to a secret spot, we ended up at The Oasis on Lake Travis. Here is a shot of Altus leaning over one of the decks to get a shot using his famous fisheye. And here is one of his shots of his hometown of Tokyo.

This is something so many European cities seem to have… a nice cobblestoned area in an old part of the city where people just mill around from wine to dinner to gelato to aimless wandering about. I think these areas are always full of life and excellent for people-watching. Often times, this is why I don’t mind being by myself in these foreign places… it’s very nice to sit back and just analyze people as they come and go.

This was shot in the middle of Dresden when there was just a few degrees of sunlight left behind the old church. Once things get too black in the sky, I usually pack up the tripod and then head to the best looking gelato place I had surveyed earlier in the day.

Thanks again for all the feedback on the newsletter yesterday! We should get all of this cleaned up and ready for the first release sometime within the next two weeks or so… I hope your expectations aren’t TOO high… although I’ll do my best of course. Right now I think we’ll have links to two new reviews that the newsletter crowd can check out for a few days before they are publicly linked.

Angkor Wat was built to honor the god Vishnu and his shrines fill many of the hallways and crossroads within the temple complex.  This was shot in the inner part of the temple, where the walls came together to form a quincunx.  The symmetry of this place was wonderful, as you can tell, so it was a real joy to move around and get a bunch of compositions that made good mathematical sense.  This is something I think about a lot when I shoot…  taking the entropy of the world and reducing it something that is mathematically idealized inside of the frame dimensions.

In other news, we have two Stuck in Customs Newsletter (sign up here – it’s free) styles for you to choose from!  We have Choice 1 and Choice 2.  Which do you like better?  I’m curious to know your thoughts…

I think it’s really nice how one part of the world can go through a season while the other hemisphere is going through the opposite. The waxing and waning of the nature of things is a nice cycle. And then, just as you are getting used to the extreme loneliness of one cycle or the next, the equinox begins to approach again as everything betwixt the hemispheres comes back together.

This was shot down in Argentina, near the coast of Chile, on a glacial river that streams away from Andes, before a long journey to the lake.

And now, for something unrelated, and I mean completely unrelated, I received an email recently that someone has opened a gallery inside Second Life of my work. I don’t play Second Life. I tried it once for a few minutes before I committed digital suicide because of the horrible GUI. But, regardless, the virtual world still a popular thing, and I guess it’s kinda cool to have a gallery in there. I just hope there are no furries inside.

This is a cool Japanese restaurant in the MGM Grand in Vegas called Shibuya. These hibachi tables can’t really be seen from the front, but they are worth a trip inside if you ever get the chance. As far as I know, approximately 100% of the population likes to see their food cooked in front of them with death-defying knife moves.

And that onion volcano trick is always a winner. The egg shell on the hat never gets old. Flipping the last bit of fried rice at the least suspecting person is another classic.