What I Like

I have this new bit there at the top with some menu options. You can see one of them is “What I Like“. I get questions from time to time about what inspires me, what kind of music I listen to when taking and processing photos, and this sort of thing. I don’t have much on that page now, but I’ll add more stuff over time (when I get some).

Daily Photo – Over the Top of Iceland

When I am by myself for weeks on end, I think I probably make bad decisions. I lose all sense of perspective and what is “normal”. I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing… I guess some of both.

Anyway, I was driving along the coast in NE Iceland along the fjords. It was about 11 PM and the sun was setting. I was about to lose it behind the mountains, and then I saw a dirt road that went right up one of the mountains. So, I decided to take it for a bit to see if I could get a good photo of the sun.

So, I went up a few miles, and then a few more, and then even more. I could not stop and was chasing the sun across the highlands. I was getting higher and higher into the ice layer.  And then I found this little snowy river and stopped over to take this photo a few minutes after midnight.  What did I find next?  You’ll find out in the next few Iceland shots perhaps!

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel

eBook – Top 10 HDR Mistakes in HDR Processing and How to Fix Them

It’s finally available! I think you will love it… as with everything around here, if you don’t like it, we get you a 100% money back deal. So, no risk at all.

You can nab it here, or on our growing eBook page.

$9.97- Top 10 Mistakes in HDR Processing, and How to Fix Them How to spot and correct the most common mistakes in HDR processing 37 pages long To show the 10 most common mistakes, I use 10 of my very fist photos in which I made horrible mistakes Will save you years of headaches and searching for answers! As always, full money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied

More Sample Pages

Filed under the categories: Travel

Recap – Twitter and Human Evolution

I thought it time to resurrect my “Twitter and Human Evolution” article for people that are new to the site in the last year or so!

I’m back at an amazing conference in Yellowstone. Actually, it’s not really a conference… it’s an eclectic gathering of a few dozen scientists, economists, artists, and all sorts of other people. It’s at a private ranch that you have to hike 11 miles to reach. Days are filled with exploration, horse-riding, fishing, photography, art, discussions, etc. Nights are filled with a fabulous dinner with servants followed by several TED-like talks in the Great Room.

Matt Ridley is here and recently gave a talk about his new book “The Rational Optimist”. I have it up on “Trey’s Book List“, in case you are interested in something entirely different to read.

New eBook on HDR Mistakes Tomorrow

I plan on releasing this within the next 24 hours, if all goes according to plan. I’ll have it up on the eBook page, so get ready… I know you’ll love it!

That little preview page there on the right is somewhat of a table of contents, I suppose! I have used one of my worst photos ever to show off many of mistakes & solutions presented in the book!

As for the eBook Giveaway Contest, the random winners are commenter #40 Nora, #61 Gordon Brown, and #407 Lauren Blackwell! Congrats!

Daily Photo – Driving to Akaroa

Akaroa is a little French town on the coast of the south island of New Zealand. While in Christchurch, this was the #1 spot people told me I had to visit! It’s not a long drive at all, and it was a great destination for sure.

Along the way, we passed these perfect little hills and water inlets. Many people told me that the middle of the summer is not really the best time for this area because the grass is not green. But that’s okay with me… I think the golden hues of the grass and the green of the trees go nicely together.

Also, I got a nice email from Robert Peper, who wanted to inform people here of a New Zealand photography newsletter. You can sign up there on the bottom of that linked page.

Filed under the categories: Akaroa, New Zealand, Nikon D3X, Travel

Interview on PetaPixel

Good man Michael Zhang from PetaPixel interviewed me recently. Pop over there and check it out. Also, look around PetaPixel for a while… Michael has done an extraordinary job with that site.

We Computer Science majors need to stick together! So I’m happy to send traffic over his way!

A Silent Evening in Kyoto under the Cherry Blossoms

The beautiful white cherry blossoms were in full bloom and their gentle petals would fall down like snow, collecting on the ground.

To get here to Kyoto, I took the bus from Osaka — and this was not the most simple thing in the world. I’m used to traveling in strange places and getting around confusing transport systems, but that doesn’t mean it is always easy! The Japanese transportation system is particularly perplexing. The train system is the easiest to figure out. The bus system is second. The subway is last — dead last.

Many of these places I end up have no one that speaks English, so there’s a bit of guesswork involved. After I’m on a bus for 5-10 minutes, I start to have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps I am on the wrong one! With no one to ask or no one to call, it’s a bit more uncertain than I prefer it!

Filed under the categories: Japan, Kyoto, Nikon D3X, Travel

Daily Photo – Landing in the Air & Space Museum

I love this place! This was about the only place I was allowed to use my tripod (on the outside), so I spent a bit of time hunting about for best ways to capture the amazing building.

I sent the Air and Space Museum a tweet to ask if I could use my tripod.  They responded and sent me to a FAQ.  I didn’t even have to go to the FAQ to know what it should say.  I think, frankly, it would have just been easier if they had tweeted back a “no”.

So, as you can see in the collection below, I did the best I could with a few handheld HDRs.

There are a few handheld tricks I employ:

• Lock your elbows inward, on top of your abdomen.
• Hold your breath like a sniper
• Increase your ISO so it takes the multiple exposures as fast as possible
• Pray

The Inner Sanctum of the Cavernous Museum

The following photos were all previously published here on the site, but I thought it might be fun to put them all here in the same post.

Filed under the categories: Nikon D3S, Nikon D3X, Travel, Washington DC

The New eBook Cometh Sooneth!

When I was working on this new eBook, I was faced with quite a problem. I know all the common mistakes, but I did not feel like going out to grab random images off Flickr to critique them. As I point out the mistakes, it might be thought of as too mean-spirited as I rip apart other people’s hard work.

So, instead, I decided to grab 10 of my very first HDR images where I made all the same mistakes! It was a lot of fun, actually, to back trough all my old photos and point out everything I did wrong, and what I do now to correct these problems. Even though it is quite embarrassing to fill an eBook with so many awful photos, I am doing it for the good of the world!

I hope to get it out in the next few days… been working on it at night for the finishing touches!

Daily Photo – The Silent Horse in the Fog

Every night around 2 AM in Iceland was like a dream.

I’m always enjoyed staying up late… As Sarah McLachlan says, “Night is my companion.”

Sometimes, after midnight is when things really start to flow, so my two-week sleep reversal of staying up all night to drive around Iceland was a trippy experience. The weather was always strange. Sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy — but always with a tinge of the surreal.

On this night, I was driving along the south of Island about 100 km from the recent volcano eruption. I could see bits of ash here and there when the light was good, but then a nightfog rolled in and covered the ground. Streaming past countless little farms, the horses floated about while the mists swirled underneath them.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel, Vik

More TED Talks

I added a few new TED talks to my list that I keep here on the site. If you all have some suggestions, be sure to drop them in… I do my best to scour the web to find the most inspirational stuff, and I always appreciate your input.

Daily Photo – The Mighty Castle

The beautiful castle shifts and changes its color every few minutes. The way the light cycles and changes on it is mysterious. If you just watch it steadily, the light never seems to change, but after a short while, upon reflection, you’ll realize there is a whole new color splashed onto the surface. It’s quite mesmerizing!

I set up here at the base with a 12-24 lens. I felt sorry for everyone else with their cell phone cameras that were trying to get a proper shot of the place from nearby! Whenever I set up and take a while, sometimes it draws a smallish crowd. This crowd, in turn, pulls out cameras and starts shooting from my same perspective. I often turn about and give people a knowing nod.

Filed under the categories: Disney World, Florida, Nikon D3X, Travel

Leave a comment to Win My New eBook in celebration of the New Website Design!

Update: the random winners are commenter #40 Nora, #61 Gordon Brown, and #407 Lauren Blackwell! Congrats!

I have a new eBook that will pop sometime soon.  It’s called “Top 10 Mistakes in HDR Processing, and How to Fix Them“.  It’s 37 pages long and filled with all kinds of great info.  To win, just leave a comment here and I’ll pick three random people the day before release. Good luck!

All of this is in honor of the new site design!  Here’s a little rundown of what you are seeing:

• New site design by the world-famous French designer Fabien Barral and coding by Bill Erickson
  • Visit his site at FabienBarral.com and see his famous movie posters, packaging designs, and other innovative works.
  • Bill Erickson is quite the WordPress genius – find out more about him at BillErickson.net
• The site is exactly as wide as before, optimized for people with big monitors and high resolution.
  • It is important to me that the daily photo is shown at 900 pixels across
  • Although this cuts out some people, according to Google Analytics, over 80% of people view this site at least over 1280×800 resolution – Wow!
• We have a new rotating ad section there on the right, where I will be rotating in fresh stuff from time to time
• A full new “Footer” area that contains some of the most common business/licensing questions we get
• A new smart top nav bar that contains links to the most important bits
• Site optimized to load 40-50% faster
  • Images more efficiently loaded
  • “Double-page-loading” problem fixed (some of you may remember this annoying one!)
  • Upgraded Apache to Lighttpd, which is a faster solution that is used by Wikipedia and many other sites
• And, last but not least, The Biggest Header Ever On Any Website.  Hey, it’s a scrolling website anyway, right?  hehe….

New Video – Behind the Scenes in Iceland

Here is a bit of footage I took a few days ago.  I hope you enjoy it… and let me know if you’d like to see even more behind-the-scenes stuff.

Daily Photo – The Lonely Fishing Hut

Most of the details behind this photo can be ascertained from the photo below.  This place really was in the middle of nowhere…  It was my goal to make it look as lonely as it felt.  As hinted at in the video, I have a full how-to video inside The Clubhouse.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

Newsletter Growing Like Crazy!

Our newsletter (which is FREE) subscribers are off-the-chart lately. It’s very cool.

The company that we use for the newsletter software is called AWeber, and they have asked to feature our newsletter as one of their best.

We send out a newsletter about once a month or so… I make sure that newsletter subscribers get early looks at things, sneak previews, and the best of the month, all wrapped into a pretty little package.

Daily Photo – My Nymph in the River

Nestled deep inside this landscape is Irina. She is getting some fresh water for our camp. Irina took care of me night and day, making me all sorts of food, snacks, and drinks along the way. Over the entire trek, we went about 40km through the Andes, so I’m quite sure she helped keep me alive!

This beautiful location was near one of the many glacial rivers that flows out of the mountains. The air was cool and crisp, but not frigidly cold. You can see Irina has a little hoodie up to keep her nymph-ears warm. The air was just about perfect for the strenuous hike, because I ended up generating quite a bit of heat while carrying so much photography equipment.

Filed under the categories: Argentina, El Chalten, Nikon D3X, Patagonia, Travel

Two Worlds in HDR – National HDR Day!

Rick Sammon launched something big and fun over at his website. It’s called “Two Worlds in HDR“. Pop on over to that link to take a look!

There is a fun contest too where you can win a free print of the winning images. Good luck to you!

Daily Photo – The Horse of Sagas

I was in the middle of a beautiful drive in Northern Iceland just past midnight. The sun was about to dip below the horizon, and I was in the last hour of a five-hour sunset. Unbelievable!

I passed a perfect grassy farm filled with perfect Icelandic horses. They are all super hairy and very friendly. The horses have no fear of humans or elves. So I walked right into a group of them and started taking photos. I waited a bit until this fine horse got into position with the setting sun just behind him.

This was taken with a Nikon D3S (Nikon D3S Review) with a 50mm prime lens (Nikon 50mm Review), shot at F/2.8. The ISO was 800 and the shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second. The focus was at 1.1 meters from the lens. Usually I don’t put this information in the post, as it is readily available on SmugMug. But, I figured a lot of people would want to know the specifics on this shot immediately. And yes, this is an HDR — a single exposure HDR from a RAW file.

For more info, see my free HDR Tutorial or get the scoop on the upcoming HDR DVD!

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3S, Travel

Father’s Day Tweets

I know the vast majority of you all are not on Twitter, but I thought I would show this little interchange I had yesterday.

@TreyRatcliff At Isabella’s dance recital. They said you can’t take photos. They can pry my 70-200mm from my cold dead fingers.

Among various responses, I received this one, which I thought was touching.

@oceanshaman What’s a dance recital w/ NO PHOTOS?!? I still have photo my dad took of me in my pink tutu! ~@TreyRatcliff

@oceanshaman [Tomorrow] is #FathersDay. My dad died young. Photo he took of me in pink tutu on my bedside table today. Thx Dad! @TreyRatcliff

Common-Sense Photography

A related issue is the silly treatment of parents by these kid-function-authorities. Who are these people that won’t let me take photos of my daughter or record the dance recital? It’s a crazy world… From my observation, there are three causes, all of which are silly:

• Attorneys and the legal system – Often times, organizations arm themselves with attorneys who defy reason in order to set up situations in which they can make money.
• Hyper-Scared Busy-body Committees – These do-gooder committees decide that anyone with a big camera must be some kind of child molester.  These people spend a lot of time watching prime-time TV and news reports that help reinforce their largely irrational fear. There is a reason that there is never a statue of a committee.
• Professional Photographers – I know that many times, there is a professional photographer or video company there, creating products to sell. I don’t know how they get the operation to agree to “banning” photos and video, but somehow they do. Their motivations are obvious and insidious. That organizations actually agree to it – well that’s just insulting to their customers.

What do you think?  Have you run into these issues?  I’ve heard that it’s even worse in the UK than the US. I would wager that the countries that have a more robust legal system are those same countries that make common-sense photography more difficult.

Daily Photo – The Wines of New Zealand

I’m afraid I’m not much of a wine aficionado.  I will not deny that I am always envious of those that are (or, appear to be) quite knowledgeable about the subject matter.  Although I’ve been on about 10 different winery tours, I think I retain very little since I am not a wine drinker.

It’s all very interesting scientifically, of course, the growing and wine-making process.  I’m can’t appreciate any of the end-result, but I do like to listen to people prattle on about it.  I occasionally find myself in small social groups where 90% of the conversation revolves around the consumption of alcohol.  I listen attentively, but can’t contribute…

We stopped at a huge winery in New Zealand, which is becoming quite famous this sort of thing.  After having a great lunch, I walked around the vineyards for a bit to find interesting bits here and there…

Filed under the categories: New Zealand, Nikon D3X, Travel

The Geothermal Genie on Boing Boing

Xeni Jardin and Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing have always been supportive of the site here and are big proponents of Creative Commons. I’m speaking about this subject and more at Wordca.mp in Dallas in a few months, in fact.

Xeni recently ran a story about Iceland being a safe haven for new media, and they used this photo of the genie below.

Daily Photo – Prismatic Steam in Yellowstone

The photo above reminded me very much of this one below, which I had yet to release. This is the beautiful grand prismatic spring, which you have probably seen featured here before. This is the same scene from ground level.

Getting to this exact spot is not easy. There is about a one-mile hike to get to this area. The little trail is surrounded by trees, and there is no way to get a clear shot through the trees. So I had to bushwack to get through and then stand on fallen trees that jut out into this broiling lake.

Filed under the categories: Wyoming, Yellowstone