Stuck In Customs

There are parts of Buenos Aires that are not too safe to walk around by yourself.  This part was not so bad, but there were several abandoned stores around, including this Harrods.  I was surprised to see such a nice store in a state of disrepair, especially after visiting its Valhalla-like anchor in London.

Out front, there was a man playing the violin alone.  It echoed around in a strange way through the acoustics of the tile, the roof, and the lonely streets.  There was a Argentine rhythm he mixed into his playing that really made me feel like I was in a different place.

On the drive back from Houston to Austin, I pulled over to a small town just outside the sprawl. One of them had a bunch of old industrial tanks, pipelines, towers, chutes, and other mysterious bits and pieces. The light was getting just about right, so I started walking around to explore it with my tripod. I set up here and fired away.

I’ve always thought that when old trucks go to die, their final drivers seem to park them in a spot that will be perfect for photography some day. That’s kind of them.

This truck was found when we were leaving the dinosaur dig in northern Montana. Sometimes it pays to get off the main road and drive around these tiny old towns like Rudyard. Small, out-of-the-way towns are always fun to drive through, but I try to get off the main street and do random zig-zagging looking for nicely composed scenes… old trucks… you know, the sorts of things that are just sitting around waiting for a photo.

Also, you may notice a new feature go live today (or soon) at some point on the site here. It’s called the Meebo Bar, and I think you’ll like it! The best feature, to me, is the ability to drag a picture and very easily share it. I think you know that I invite you all to share these works freely with your friends, and this should make it easy and fun.

This is an HDR from a single RAW file! I shot it while on an escalator inside a building… while the escalator was moving! I would have to say that one of the top three questions I get is “How do you make an HDR out of a moving subject?” Well, that is covered in page 3 of the HDR Tutorial here… Maybe some people don’t make it to page 3? I don’t know. It’s easy! 🙂

Also, I was recently interviewed on NPR for a the station WUKY. You can listen to the NPR interview here online. Enjoy!

The TSA never liked me and I didn’t expect them to start on this day.

I have a general distaste for their attitude, their silly policies where they search grannies for show, and their little uniforms meant to quell the suspicions of a doting public who will succumb to authority with nary a question.

So, I was surprised when I was able to charm a new female TSA employee into letting me onto the tarmac to take a photo of the storm. I was down at the end of one of the terminals catching a little plane to fly over the Rockies. A major storm was brewing in the middle of the sunset, and there was no good shot from inside the terminal. Anyway, I went out there, with the permission of that one gal… then started shooting until another TSA guy came over with a much more important uniform, scowling away. That was a short conversation. No worries everyone, your government is protecting you from people like me.

I don’t sleep much, even when I am home here in Texas.  I get a good 5-6 hours of sleep a night; but when I travel, I’m so charged up I get less.  These foreign city streets seem to have a romantic sense about them, so that impedes even more on my sleep since there are so many great places to shoot.

This perfect little European medieval street was in Lyon, if I am not mistaken.  Sometimes I forget here in my old age.  There’s a 10% chance it is in Paris. There’s a long path from click to final image and my memory fades betwixt.

I didn’t get enough sunsets in BA, but I tried to make the most of what I had!  This picturesque park was enormous.  And I mean enormous.  We walked for miles before finding our final destination, which we made it to just in the nick of time.  The parks of Buenos Aires were pretty much what I imagined… the Argentineans stroll around parks with a certain sense of style.  It’s hard to explain…but kinda cool.

Also, Jim Austin has written a nice article about HDR for Apogee Photo Magazine entitled “Symphony in a Moment: HDR Nature Photography from Eight Maestros”. Very nice of him to call me a maestro – not sure I deserve that! The photo he included (“A Razor to the Sky”) I have put below… of that amazing mountain range called Fitz Roy. The way to catch that orange-pink morning light was to hike up another mountain in pitch-black conditions. It was certainly worth it, traversing the icy crest, catching that glimpse of the sun coming over the horizon of the Andes.

When I went up to have an interview in the ABC Newsroom here in Austin, a gentleman there named Ed Sparks was nice enough to take me back to the inner sanctum.  Ed is a frequent here in the community (hi Ed!) and quite the camera enthusiast.  Before and after my live appearance (from a few weeks ago), he took me back into this control room so I could set up for a shot.  As usual, I’ve uploaded the full-res version so you can see all the little details in the room. To see the full-res version, just click on the photo to go to the Flickr site. Click on “All Sizes” at the top of the photo. Last, click on “Original”.

They explained to me how the room worked and how everything was customizable.  The crew can pull in whatever feeds they need and position them on the screen accordingly.  They even can save templates, since each producer that comes in and out during the day can have their own setup.  It was quite fascinating to watch these guys operate in precision…   I had to catch myself and remember to take photos, since I would sorta stare at the screens at get mesmerized for a bit!