Stuck In Customs

Video Interview on Splashmedia

Have you all heard of Renay San Miguel? He was an anchor on CNN, CBS, and CNBC… You’ll probably recognize him in the interview!

Thanks to Chris Kraft and the team over at Splash Media for the interview! I hope you enjoy it…

New Prints – The Adventure Tree and The Falls of Yellowstone

We release one new print a week, and I’ve been a bit remiss in mentioning them with all the travel. My bad. I can remedy that right now…

You can click on each print to go over and get details. As always, each one is part of a numbered limited edition series. Enjoy!

Join me in the Peachpit Photo Club!

Register now (Free!) for the Peachput Photo Club event!

If everything works out, I’ll be coming to you live from Beijing in a few days and we’ll have a nice gathering! There is a fabulous prize and I hope you all can come! All you need is your internet browser and, perhaps, a good cup of coffee or other edgy beverage.

The event is on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 from 8 to 9 p.m. ET (5 to 6 p.m. PT). See you there!

Daily Photo – Another Summer Day in Paris

I’m having an amazing time in Paris. As usual, it’s off-the-rails perfect. The weather has been remarkable, the sunsets amazing, and the chocolate flows like mana from heaven. I made it over to the Eiffel Tower for a big night of shooting, and arrived there just as the sun was setting. I have a few little special spots I like to visit around the tower that are not full of tourists and the like.

This shot looks much more delicate, perhaps, than I did while achieving it. Unfortunately, this was one of those tricky ones where the tripod legs were splayed out like a flattened armadillo. I looked beyond redonkulous while taking it… but I felt pretty good the result would work out well. As opposed to most shots, when I go into the sun and only use +3 to -3, this one was 9 exposures from +4 to -4. This helped to get some of the gentle colors under the flowers.

Assistant in Beijing?

I’ll be spending a bit of time in Beijing in the next few weeks. If we have any likely assistants that want to help me out there for a bit, contact us at business at stuckincustoms.com. You’ll have to carry a lot of stuff and do various mundane tasks. Being my assistant is not as much fun as it might seem… I assure you. I’m just setting low expectations.

Daily Photo(s) – A World Away at Burning Man

I asked my workshop class in London, “Who has heard of Burning Man?” Less than half the class raised their hands, so maybe it requires a bit of explanation!

Burning Man is a gathering in the desert of Nevada every year that attracts tens of thousands of artists, geeks, hippies, and everyone in between. People stay in costume all week, prepare fabulous art pieces, build extreme camps, drive outrageous art cars, and more.

I wore goggles most of the week to combat the frequent sand storms that come out of nowhere. They bathe the entire landscape in an orange scouring sand that exacerbates the post-apocalyptic scene. Because I became so used to seeing Burning Man through my goggles, I wanted to bring the experience to you as well. Below are a selection of photos with captions underneath.

My steampunk goggles that came in handy when the desert storms ripped through the landscape.

Putting on the goggles near The Thunderdome, one of the many camps and fighting arenas that spontaneously appear in the impromptu city.

The googles fully on... and now you can see what I see...

A traveler rests in front of a massive art structure. The art piece in the back has a hollow trunk that allows people to climb up to the spherical cage on top.

A ranger stands guard in front of the Burning Man tower during a sandstorm on the evening of the burn.

Keeping up…. Live from Paris

Sometimes, if I have a few extra seconds, I’ll take little cellphone pics and upload them to Twitter. If you are not on Twitter, and want to see them, just click the little “Tweets” button/tab thing over on the right. It can give you the latest scoop in case you want to see what is live. For example, I am now in Paris, and I put up a few things over the day. None of these are great shots btw… just little slices of life I am capturing. I’ll repost them here below.

• http://twitpic.com/2ovq7r on the train from London to Paris … First time through the Chunnel…. exciting !
• http://twitpic.com/2owunj taking the metro to central Paris
• http://twitpic.com/2oyzuk now visiting more impressionists at the musee d’orsay… just visiting my collection…
• http://twitpic.com/2ozv6a and here I am with my nikons… all systems go for magic sunset….
• And this is right out of the Android cam… no adjustments… just wait for the big nikon show! http://twitpic.com/2p124h

New Video – The Parachute Jump

Here is the video that I edited together of the big jump I made with the Golden Knights!  Enjoy!

Revisiting Photos

While I was at this hallowed landscape spot in Wyoming, I took a ton of photos. I’d move a little, shoot. Then move a bit more, shoot. Etc. I made many different compositions with small and big changes. These all ended up there in my Lightroom for later processing. I started processing them about 3 years ago, and this is one of my most recent results.

Personally, I think it is better than my previous versions of the Tetons. I don’t realize how I make little improvements in tiny areas of refinement. But, in looking at photos from many years ago, i can detect a difference… so that makes me feel better about the way things are going. I know we get a lot of positive comments on here… that is great… negative ones don’t bother me. I’m already hard enough on myself.

Daily Photo – The Tetons, Revisited

This area is not too far from Yellowstone. Just outside of the south exit, there is a fairly short drive to this area of Wyoming. It’s on the way to Jackson Hole. This is also an amazing place if you are into Bison. There are hundreds and hundred of bison in this area. A free one was roaming about while I took this. They’re actually quite dangerous for something that looks like a giant silly stuffed animal.

About the Site

We have quite a nice team here that have helped out with the site. Down at the bottom of the page, we have a new footer that came with the new design. In there, I put a link to “About the Site“, where you can get some scoop on people that help us out. We have a few freelancers that you might need in the future too!

That “About This Site” page is sort of a work-in-progress… but I believe in getting some things up early and then refining over time.

HDR on the iPhone

I was recently on Leo Laporte’s show The Tech Guy — we talked all about HDR on the iPhone. I’ll link over to that podcast when it comes available. My friend Brian Matiash wrote up a little analysis on his blog that you might enjoy as well.

Daily Photo – Rainbow over the London Eye

Today I am taking a train from London to Paris, and going through the chunnel (under the English Channel) for my first time. I’m very excited about this… I love the idea of rail travel in Europe. I don’t know why this is… I do look around at the other passengers and they often seem Euro-melancholy. Maybe you know what I mean…

So, today’s shot is of the newly famous London Eye. It’s more than just a ferris wheel. I can understand why it was so controversial when it was being built. What proper city would want a carnival-esque attraction right in the middle of it all? Well, this is no regular ferris wheel. It’s at least four times bigger than most, and each capsule is like a tiny plane. Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to go inside for a ride… this was for many reasons:

• They put a bunch of people in with you, and I fear they would all crowd to the window
• I want to go up at exactly sunset and take an amazing photo, which would really require me to be by myself or with an assistant
• I saw there was a special “ride” you can get that has gourmet chocolate on board. That sounded good and I wanted to plan that for a future trip!

Twitter and Photography

Twitter has turned out to be a great tool for photography!  Not only did I help use it to organize the London PhotoWalk, but I also send out tweets to places like @WickedLondon and @Tate to get inside scoops on photography and whatnot.  Since these places are obviously into social media, they are often likely to respond.

Daily Photo – Wicked London

So, I just got finished watching Wicked in London.  It was a very cool experience.  I would have enjoyed getting a few more shots of the environs and actors/actresses — maybe next time!

The stage was wonderfully elaborate and fantasy-steampunk.  I didn’t expect so much steampunk stuff in my life lately…  speaking of that, I’ll have more of these sorts of photos coming from Burning Man in coming days.  When traveling on the road, it’s hard for me to get new shots up right away, but I know people enjoy seeing “live” shots that show what I am seeing on a timely basis.  It takes a lot of energy to be out shooting all day, come back, post-process, and then upload everything to the blog — but I will try to do it from time to time.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see Wicked in London, I certainly recommend it.  I won’t ruin the story for you if you haven’t seen it, but there is a surprise appearance at the end from Jar Jar Binks that is totally unexpected.

London PhotoWalk Links

Thanks again to the massive group that came out!  It was a ton of fun, as you know!  Here are some links for you to follow to post your photos and give comments/review:

• Flickr Group
• Facebook Event

Video of the PhotoWalk

Stephen Graham put up a video of the event on his site too. He grabbed some informal footage while were all walking around… Jump over to his site iboogaloo.com to see it.

Pics of the event

Sadly, I’ve been too busy to process many photos, but I will soon!  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the photos of others on the walk.  There are some very talented and passionate photographers in London… very exciting stuff!

And below are a few more photos from the event that came out kinda cool… so you can see what these things are like in case you want to join the next one. I stop a few times along the walk to describe the shot, give tips, and this sort of thing. Everyone gets along great, and people usually make many new friends, since most come alone! 🙂

Many people took many “behind the scenes shots of the event”. Some interesting ones from Gergio Amiti (5ERG10) and KBTimages.co.uk(uk_photo_art). Just click on the photos below to jump over to their photostreams to see more!

Back to China

I’m going back to China for quite a while.   This will be a fun trip, and I’m getting access to all kinds of incredible places. I’m not totally sure about the details of my adventure, but I’ll be sure to share them with you here.

I’ve also recently gone through the trouble of getting another Chinese Visa. These things are not terribly easy or cheap to get! The first thing that is horribly unnerving is the requirement to send my actual passport through the mail. It’s a major worry to do this! Furthermore, it’s not cheap — in order to get everything back and forth to me as quickly as possible, fees + Fedex costs over $300.

I like the “softcore Visas”, where you stand in line after arrival and then pay some shifty-eyed Indonesian customs worker $20 US cash and he stamps you through right away.

Daily Photo – The Wormhole

Shanghai has this incredible tunnel that goes under the river to the Bund. It’s just wild inside!

They have a series of robotic trains that shuttle people back and forth. Robotic doors whir open then shut again. The front of the capsule has a bubble-window that allows for a stunning view as you dip below the river and back up again. Colored lights in every lighting configuration fly by in beautiful colors. This is an amazing experience that I recommend if you ever get to Shanghai!

Great PhotoWalk in London

We had about 75 people show up and had an amazing time. Thanks everyone who came out! We totally overwhelmed security at Westminster, Parliament, and The London Eye — they had no choice but to leave us be! 🙂

Before the walk, I gave explicit instructions to the crowd on what to yell in case they are accosted by the police: “Help Help! I’m being repressed!” Then, we would all work together to tweet it out and make a big deal of it… but, in the end, no one was bothered… it’s intimidating to see 75 tripods coming your way!

Below is a shot from Steve Graham (iboogaloo on Flickr).  You can visit his blog here.

Reminder about Categories and Previous Pages

There is a lot of content here on the site! I wanted to remind you that I do “categorize” every photo. At the bottom of this one, you will see it says things like “California” and “Hearst”. Clicking on any of those will take you to more of the same.

Also, the blog is only set up to show about 10-15 of the latest posts. With many categories, there are a lot more than that! So you can click “Previous” at the bottom to see more.

Daily Photo – The Grand Pool

I’ve already posted a few photos of the fabulous Hearst Castle indoor pool. This is the one that it is nearby, just outdoors. The thing is enormous and perfect.

I wonder if it ever gets used. So sad. Maybe they put on little pool parties here and there for the elite. Or maybe rappers rent it out and bring in a bunch of rap-video-girls to gyrate around the edges. I don’t know.