Stuck In Customs

Here is a photo from a crisp and cool morning in Glacier National Park. This river empties from a icy clear lake. I was running back and forth between here and the lake as quickly as I could to get the light as it crept over the horizon.

Late next week I’ll be taking a little photo-trip down the PCH (famous Highway 1 in California). There’s a Real-Time Web Summit in Mountain View; after that, I’m driving down to San Diego. If any of you are going to be at the conference too, be sure to drop me a note or a tweet! 🙂

Here is a wonderful scene from India. I am sure that people here find these women to be rather commonplace and uninteresting, but I thought all their little movements were photo-worthy. I’m sure they thought I was a nut following them around, so I tried to remain fairly clandestine, so as to not to interrupt their natural behavior. I sort of felt like I was tracking wild animals in their native habitat. That sounds strange, I’m sure!

Yes, I used a texture on this one from one of the texture tutorial packages. Note that I won’t do this for everyone, but I wanted to point you to my friend Scotty Graham’s blog in Indonesia, who is re-selling these textures. If you buy from there, he is donating his profits to children that suffered from the earthquakes in Sumatra. Anyway, as you can tell, he’s a nice guy, and his site is certainly worth a visit!

This is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto, so of course I had to go. It’s sort of like going to the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Rudy’s BBQ in Austin.

It was originally built back in 1397 and has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The building itself is as meticulous as the gardens around it. The Japanese really know how to tend a garden! There was a fleet of workers all over the grounds, sweeping up and rearranging little bits here and there. It was all very quaint and wonderful.

Kuala Lumpur has one of the best Airport-to-city train systems in the world. It’s fast, efficient, and comfy. It stops here at this train station which is always a nice spot for all kinds of activity. All of the girders, struts, and light makes it a good spot for HDR Photography.

Speaking of that, I heard that many of you are over checking out www.HDRSpotting.com. This site has not been officially announced yet, and it’s still in early testing. Many are asking me personally for access, but I don’t control that list of who gets early private invites… (anyway I am indirectly asking that you don’t email me to “get you in”!) hehe… You can sign up, however, and I know they are keeping track of a list. When the formal announcement comes, I’ll describe more in detail what it’s about. Essentially, it’s a new, eye-candy rich gallery that is designed to drive traffic and attention to YOUR website, YOUR portfolio, or whatever site you might wish.

Hey everyone! I am busy putting together the next Newsletter. It will be a good one and I have something special planned for this next one. Maybe I can get it out in the next week or so? I have an upcoming photo trip down Highway 1 in California, so I’d like to get it out before then. As usual, the newsletter is free and we promise not to spam you… just to fill your inbox with pretty things and artistic inspiration.

I hope this new experiment will take hold. I think it’s very cool and different. I’m calling it “Japan: The Moments Between”. I know… very mysterious… well, just wait and see. I’ll include an advance link in the newsletter.

In other news, we were highly ranked over at BootsnAll Travel in their listing of the top 15 Travel Blogs. Go over and have a looksee… their website looks pretty sharp too.

Also, here is a link to an interview I did a while back and I forgot to mention! It is a “Flickr Photographer Profile” and it’s over at Robert Scott Photography.

Last, we are working on a new site for HDR Photographers, It’s been designed to drive more traffic to other HDR Photographers’ websites, blogs, portfolios, and the like. Right now, it’s in private alpha/beta testing and we are still adding many more features. But you can go have a quick preview over at HDR Spotting.

To complete the theme of mysteriousness for today, I’ll include a few mysterious photos here from various spots around the world:

I’m just finishing up almost two weeks in Japan, and it has been an amazing trip! Usually I try not to start posting shots until the trip is at its close, and this is the first.

While there, I spent time all over the country. I got a rail pass and just jumped on the bullet train to take me from one remote spot to another. I ended up with a few days in Tokyo to do my best to capture the city. I’ll be posting photos from the trip throughout the next few weeks, months, and years, as usual. I hope this is a new line of photographs that will be interesting to you.

Photographed here is the Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto. The city is known for its traditional Japanese architecture, slower-paced life, natural beauty, graceful geishas, and zen peacefulness. I probably could have stayed in Kyoto capturing scenes the entire trip. I remained here until the sky turned black, and then I headed back down some winding streets to find an old small restaurant where the food was mysterious and every course was served with a gentle bow.

While in Argentina, I wish I had more days in Buenos Aires, but I made the most of what i could. This usually involves waking up very early and going to sleep very late. It gets a little hard after a few days, but I get into “content acquisition mode”, and I try not to make excuses for sleep!

Many parts of Buenos Aires are very colorful and fun. I’m not sure how all these individual tenants get together to decide on colors, but they end up looking kinda cool, even with minimal coordination. I guess the guy on the left there just thought, “I’ll paint my wall orange”, and then he did it, and it just looks cool. It kind of reminds me of how rappers can put on the craziest hat in the world and it still looks pretty cool on them. I don’t get it. I only look cool in one kind of hat – a baseball cap (with a mild tone).

This is from an awesome monument in Indonesia called Borobudur. There are about five ways to spell this temple, at least when I spell it. But, you get the general idea.

I’ve re-mastered this one by using the textures from the Textures Tutorial. This one is actually featured in the video. I have a non-textured version of this which is also interesting… and I think I explain in the video that the use of these textures doesn’t necessarily make something “better”, but what it does do is make something else that is equally satisfying in a different way. So then, at the end, you have two photos, rather than one, each one different and nice in its own way (if that makes sense!).

One morning when I was walking around Angkor Wat, I saw this monk there, chatting away on his mobile phone. I thought it was just all so unusual — I had to take a shot! Many monks from all over Asia come here on pilgrimage. I suppose he could have been talking to someone in his home precinct. Are they called precincts? I don’t know.

Also, if any of you have read the new Neal Stephenson book, you will get the “Jeejah” reference. It’s a very interesting book about, well… I am not ruining anything here, but it starts out with the tale of a monk. They are not familiar with all the technologies used by the outside (extramuros) world, and they call mobile phones “jeejahs”. There is a whole array of new words in there for the new world he has created… his books are thought provoking as always.

Sorry about the long gap in posting! You know my promise to you is a photo every day, 365 days a year. This is a promise I break several times a year, so it’s hardly a promise. But, yesterday just happened to be one of those days.

Whenever I don’t post, it usually means I am traveling somewhere EXTREMELY remote that has no hint of internet. Those places are fewer and farther between nowadays! …but at least I’m getting some good stuff for y’all!

Today’s photo is from a forgotten field in the south of Argentina, not too far from Ushuaia. There was a housing community near here that was built then abandoned when the lake level started to rise. It was full of old husks of structures that were still beautiful in their own way (and doubly so at sunset).