Over 50 Million Views!

I started on SmugMug in Dec of 2009. We

I am always shocked when I look at these numbers.  I’m very hard on myself when it comes to photography, and I feel like I rarely ever reach that “nirvana” point in a photo.  But I do like to try — and I enjoy sharing and getting your thoughts.  It helps give me energy to keep on trying!

These stats are a good indication of how much energy you are giving me!  We just passed 50 million views — at least this is the official number that we can count through SmugMug and Flickr.  The photos are spread far and wide beyond that, but I can’t include them in the official count.

I find it remarkable that I started hosting photos on SmugMug (see SmugMug Review) in December of 2009, and we already have about 30 million views.  It’s been about five years on Flickr and we are at 22 million views.  I still post my photos over there, but I just don’t link there from the blog — and so many of my friends are still on Flickr.  I wish I had more time to surf around and see their work!  This is just too hard for me sometimes with a busy schedule, family, and this sort of thing.

It took about five years to break 20 million on Flickr. I still enjoy Flickr and use it daily, however!

Anyway, thank you so much!

Prints on Paper, Canvas, or Metal!

Our print sales did pretty well over the holidays! Maybe I should have mentioned them beforehand… I don’t think I’ve talked about them in about two months. Anyway, we just did a printing of this work below. It was sent to a good friend for a special Christmas gift. We had it done up on High White Gloss Aluminum. They are super-expensive, frankly, but they are beyond belief…. they look like giant 40″ LCD screens! There’s something about the white base of the metal that helps everything glow.

Daily Photo – Time in London

I had many highlights of the year… one of them was certainly that amazing huge photowalk in London.  I enjoyed meeting so many people… it’s amazing how many “lurkers” there are out there!  You guys and gals are too shy on the Internet!

A pretty good example (and what I’ve grown to expect) is gents like Andy Bird.  I find that generally interesting and awesome people just end up enjoying this sort of thing!  He came up to me, wearing a Joss Whedon t-shirt, so I knew there was something of interest in the works.  And then I found out it was long-time commenter Andy Bird!  What a cool guy…  and, I’m always impressed (and not surprised) when I end up meeting frequent (or infrequent!) members of the community.  Anyway, while I was looking at this photo, I came to think of that nice photowalk in London.

Speaking of that, when I set up for this shot in particular, I spent some time talking about the composition… Big Ben, the lights, the bridge, etc etc.  And then, right when I was taking the shot, another photographer got right in front of me!  hehe… well, these things happen.  But, it helped me decide on a nice treatment for the photo — to keep the emphasis on the shapes rather than the interloper.

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK

Tips for Foreign Travel

1) Prepare way in advance with your paperwork. If you’ve traveled around Europe or Canada or Mexico or a lot of these easy-in-easy-out places, you don’t have to worry about visas. But getting a visa is kind a pain in the butt… it takes a while, and you have to mail off your passport to parts unknown. This always makes me very nervous! I pay extra to get the Fed-ex service to minimize errors! Also, it may surprise you, but you never know what countries require a visa! Like, for example, I wanted to leave the Sydney airport for 4-5 hours during a long layover, and they would not let me out of the airport! I didn’t know I needed a visa… how annoying! I thought that Australia was just kind of like a floating Canada where people are even more laid back. I was wrong.

2) Go with the flow. The more you get into a distant land, the more different everything becomes. Schedules, food, drivers, basic communication, and more can seem at odds with your customs. (BTW, that is a secondary meaning of “Stuck In Customs” — but that is an element that no one ever gets… that’s okay I can see why it’s kinda out-there). Anyway, if you stop thinking about how “different” it is in terms of “better/worse” — and start thinking about it in terms of a “different” way of doing things that is not necessarily better or worse… then that makes everything easier. Imagine you are on a Star Trek away mission — studying the culture like a scientist. And, well, you better just stick to the prime directive since they may not have yet discovered warp technology.

3) Don’t worry so much about speaking the local language. Don’t let your lack of knowing the language scare you into not going or staying in the hotel room! When you travel to a lot of different countries, it’s just impossible to know all the languages. For example, I know barely enough French to get around, but that doesn’t help me anywhere else in the world! And it barely helps in France! There is an international language, actually. If you just open yourself up to a conversation, you can communicate almost anything. It takes a lot longer than usual, but it’s certainly possible.

4) (If you are American) don’t be an annoying loud American. I know I may catch flak for this one… but it is kind of a big thing to me. Earlier this year, I was on a train from Montpellier, France to Barcelona, Spain. I was sitting with my wife towards the front of the train. There were a lot of empty spots, but we were sitting in assigned seats. The other passengers in the car were from Germany, Japan, Thailand, and a few other countries. Anyway, a loud, obnoxious American woman came in and said, “Oh my God! Look at all these empty seats! I talked to that woman at the ticket counter and she said there are no seats!” Then, one of the Germans (who understand trains very well, mind you), said, calmly, in English, “The train makes many stops, and people get on and off, so these seats will probably be full by the time we reach Barcelona.” To this the American woman said, in a rather shrill way, “Well there are seats available right now! Well that’s the French for ya!” My wife and I just buried our heads in our hands…

5) Plan loosely. Don’t Griswald-up your schedule. It’s really hard to hit exact timetables and fit a lot of stuff in… just be calm and leave plenty of “getting-lost” time! When you get dropped off at a destination, have them drop you off “near” the destination, then find the rest of your way there on foot. You’ll see all kinds of unexpected things. If you’re feeling stressed… just channel me and my favorite Buddha quote: “It’s better to travel well than to arrive.”

Daily Photo – Her Tears Flowed

Today we have a new one from Beijing. I’m happy to say the art movement is alive and well in Beijing! There are still issues here and there, to be sure. For example, I heard that there was one artist in particular who had his studio torched by the government in Shanghai. That really sucks! But, despite that nonsense, there are still plenty of areas of artistic expression. It’s not as wide-open as the west, but it’s better than ever (and only going in one direction).

One afternoon in Beijing, I went to a huge artistic area, much like SoHo. It’s called the 798 Art Zone. 50 years ago, it was a huge military factory, but it’s been converted to about a hundred funky art studios, galleries, quirky restaurants, and more. Very cool! Inside one of the larger exhibition halls, I found this interesting piece. Water worked its way up through tubes and would slowly leak out of the eyes of the statues.

More from China

And, sticking with the theme of this week, here are some favorites from China!

Hong Kong from the Peak

The Wormhole (Shanghai)

Lonely Boats in Hangzhou

Tron (Beijing)

Cartier in Shanghai

The Bund

Shanghai in the Morning

Morning Fisherman on the Li River

Red Bridge in Late Afternoon

I Found Pandora from Avatar

Filed under the categories: China, Travel

HDR Video Tutorial – End of Year Goodies

We’ve been having a lot of activity with the HDR Video Tutorial this week! Newsletter subscribers got a cool discount that expires at the end of the year. Even though the newsletter went out, the welcome email still has a link to #20. Enjoy!

New New Zealand

It’s no huge surprise that I’m enamored with the landscapes in New Zealand. So, today, I’m posting a new photo from the South Island.

There is a gondola ride that goes to the top of one of the mountains in Queenstown. It’s not one of the ski areas — just an area for hanging out, seeing the sites, the luge, dinner, and this sort of thing. But it’s always stunning. I went up there a few times.

They have one of those giant buffet dinners up there where I took the family. It’s one of those high-end ones where you try a little bit of everything and then realize that you are way too full and bloated… I tried to shake off the guilt by running outside at dusk to take this photo!

And here are bunch of other favorites from New Zealand, sticking with the “retrospective” theme of this week.

The Franz Josef Glacier

Tasman Sea at Dusk

The Silent Tree

The Lonely Church

Fields of New Zealand

Spray

From My Forest Home

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

THe Old House

The Tolkien Bridge

Filed under the categories: New Zealand

Thanks SmugMug!

You guys know I love SmugMug, and we’ve sent thousands of people over there to share their photos online. If you want to learn more, see my SmugMug Review here on the site. They are great, even if they have that not-so-great Comic Sans font in their logo. Let’s all talk them into upgrading their logo! hehe…

So, I’ve been putting up a lot of images this week, and the SmugMug servers have been cranking away. We are up to 29 million views this year, all served up from SmugMug. Here is a little SmugMug trick for you:

This website is wide, yes? Yes. I did this on purpose since I think a lot of people that love looking at art online have good resolution and good bandwidth. It cuts some people out, which is too bad, but it is a decision I went forward with. Anyway, the blog portion of this is 900 pixels across. Now, when images come in, I can bring them in at a higher resolution and then put width=”900″ in the HTML. However, this is bad because it makes the browser do all the recalculation AND it is a waste of bandwidth since we are sending down a version that is too big.

So something you can do with SmugMug is make their servers do the work of resizing. I change the JPG address from

http://stuckincustoms.smugmug.com/Portfolio-The-Best/your-favorites/267567676784ab64209bo/742621320_wMyz5-XL.jpg

to

http://stuckincustoms.smugmug.com/Portfolio-The-Best/your-favorites/267567676784ab64209bo/742621320_wMyz5-900×900.jpg

And that ensures that the image will be 900 pixels across (or tall). It helps everything load quickly!

Yellowstone Through the Years

The first photo below is a new one from just on the north side of Yellowstone. I took it just after one of those afternoon thunderstorms that sometimes pass across the countryside. This path was made by many years of horse-drawn wagons. There’s a ranch out this way, and motorized cars are forbidden… so it took a long time to make these tracks.

And here are some of my favorites from Yellowstone from over the years.

Below: The Stable

Below: A Storm Brewing in the Valley

Below:Sun Through the Trees

Below: Horses Wild

Below: Wall of Fog

Below: Horses of Yellowstone

Below: Morning. Coffee.  Yellowstone.

Below: The Particolored Stream

Below:  The Atomic Mushroom Cloud

Below: The Falls of Yellowstone

A Painting of Yellowstone

In case you missed this earlier in the year – I did a painting of Yellowstone that I put below. If you want to see more, see “Yellowstone on Fire“.

Filed under the categories: Montana, Travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone

A Tokyo Retrospective and Flipboard

Today we have a new photo from downtown Tokyo. By now, you have probably figured out that I just can’t get enough of these downtown shots. Each angle is nice and different in its own way. Sometimes I like to freeze the action, and sometimes I like to let it flow. It totally depends on my mood when I am shooting.

While I am there, I usually have a pretty good idea of how I want to execute the post-processing. It changes the way I take the shots. For example, if I want the action frozen, I’ll crank up the ISO so that the people don’t drag across the shutter too much. I have my 5 exposures so that the +2 (the longest) fires first. So I know if the middle exposure (the anchor, I call it) has a shutter that is open too long. I can just hear it. If it feels too long, I double the ISO and it halves the shutter speed of the anchor. This is always my action/reaction when shooting in aperture priority.

So, after the new photo of downtown Tokyo, I have a little surprise from Flipboard!

Featured on Flipboard

So, this week we are featured on Flipboard! How cool is that? If you don’t know what Flipboard is, and you have an iPad, well then you need to know! It’s amazing living magazine that alters and flexes as Twitter feeds change the shape and content of the magazine. It’s totally free, and so is the Stuck In Customs channel on there! Enjoy!

Japan Retrospective

And now, here are a bunch of other favorites from around Japan!

Filed under the categories: Japan, Travel

Glad you Enjoyed the Newsletter!

We had a huge response to the last free newsletter! It went out on Christmas Eve and was full of cool stuff. You can still get it if you sign up (it’s free). The welcome email has a link to all the newsletters, including the most recent, #20. Looking at the stats, our newsletter is opened up by well over 125% of the people to which it is sent! That means that many people forward to friends and family… that’s great! It’s helped us grow well beyond expectations!

Today, we’re showing a new photo from Indonesia – the unique temple of Borobudur. This was taken prior to sunrise, when a thick layer of damp fog covered the mountain lowlands, where this temple is located outside of Jogjakarta. It was one of those very wet mornings when there is really no appropriate attire. It’s not too cool and not too hot – but just “uncomfortable.” I was listening to my music to make me forget about that nonsense though… it helped quite a bit!

And then, sticking to the theme of this week, I included a whole raft of photos I shot while in Indonesia… it just reminds me of how much I want to go back and explore more of that country!

Filed under the categories: Borobudur, Indonesia, Jogjakarta, Travel

Merry Christmas!

Well a big merry Christmas to you! I hope you all are having a good holiday week!

We’ll continue with our country-by-country week o’ photos. Today… let’s do… France! It’s a good one, oui?

I’ll begin today with a new photo from Montpellier, in the south of France. We stayed there with a wonderful family (my friends Jacques and Marie) and had an amazing time. One evening, they took us out for dinner at a perfect little place on a quiet side-street. Along the way, Jacques, who is also a photographer, took me to this amazing castle-cathedral. He said, “I think this is probably a good area for photography.” He said this with eyebrows raised and a serious expression. He didn’t need to say any more than that!

The rest of these photos are some of my favorites from around this beautiful country. Enjoy!

Filed under the categories: France

Daily Photo – My Russian Bedmate Is Actually a Nice Guy

By the way, in a few hours, we have our amazing free Newsletter going out, all over the world. Are you signed up? We’ve got all kinds of goodies, first looks, and information in this one. It’s my goal to make sure you get the prettiest emails ever!

Some of you remember me mentioning Yuri, the Russian guy that ended up being my roommate and tentmate in Argentina. At night, I would practice taking photos of glaciers by setting up my tripod to take photos of his sleeping, huge, naked, white body that was full of cracks and made cleaving sounds. Practice makes perfect.

The first time I met him, he was in his underwear in the first 30 seconds after walking into my room. He didn’t speak any English, nor does one need to in that situation. My other Russian friend dropped him off with a wry smile. I heard him laughing some evil James-Bond-villian-Russian-laugh echo as he went down the hallway. And then Yuri and I were stuck together for the next few weeks. I don’t want to say he smelled bad about 20 KM into the hike, but people from Chernobyl won’t even go near him.

I’ve never had a panic attack in my life, and, in fact, I didn’t really believe in them. That is, until that one night in the low-slung tent with Yuri. We were way deep in Patagonia, about half a km from the first photo you see below. It was freezing cold outside, and the tent was so low that when you turned over, your shoulder rubbed against the top.  It was one of those special tents that mountain climbers use to minimize the whipping wind.  Yuri came to the tent rather late, after drinking yet another bottle of cognac he produced from yet another pocket. He was like a circus clown who could, at any time, produce a sizable bottle of cognac from any given opening. About two minutes after he passed out, the level of toxicity skyrocketed in that little tent. And then I had my first panic attack. I was zipped into this little two-man job with this two-man-sized guy. It was pitch black. I could barely breathe, but I knew that getting outside the tent would give me about 10 minutes of freedom before I froze to death. So, I stayed in the tent and tried to think of little cute kitties or some crap, which totally didn’t work. My mind went into a recursive death-loop where I was sure my re-circulated toxic air was getting me closer to death with each stilted breath. Oh man, I’ll never forget that night.

So, people have always wondered, “What does this Yuri look like?” Well, I’m finally showing my first photo of him… it’s at the bottom of my “Favorites from Argentina” photo set here.

And here is Yuri, sober (sort of). One morning we went on another hike down one of the rivers that was fed by a glacier system. We stopped to get some water on the way, and I grabbed a photo of him. I know I know… he’s just a big old Russian teddy bear, right?

Filed under the categories: Argentina, Nikon D3X, Travel

Fish Out the Window…

If you’ve done a lot of fishing, maybe you know this trick. If you flip the fish upside down, it goes totally inert and just kind of stares off into space. It’s such an unusual position for that creature, that it just gets wonderfully confused. Anyway, I was thinking about this the other day as I was staring out of an airplane window. This is the same feeling I have at those times…

Daily Photo – The Old Shed (and Iceland on my mind!)

For this next week, I’m going to do something a little different. I’ll keep up the tradition of a NEW photo every day. But I’ll also throw in a grouping of my favorites from that particular location. We’ve recently grown to half a million pageviews per month in the past year or so, and I know there are many newcomers who might have missed some of the most unique spots in the world. I’m happy to reshare some of these favorites while still showing the new stuff!

This first shot below is from one of the fjords in the far Northwest of Iceland. It was a long and desolate morning when I arrived here. I had been driving all night, after the 2 AM sunrise, weaving back and forth on dirt roads up and down fjords. Little farmhouses are scattered here and there — many of them abandoned. I decided to get out and stretch my legs (and my tripod legs!) to grab this one.

And now, some of my favorites from Iceland. I’ve gone there for many summers and winters. I look forward to another long, lonely, and wonderful week there this summer around the solstice.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

Number 5 in the App Store

On launch day! It is amazing! Thanks for getting 100 Cameras in 1 into the Top 5 in the Photography category!

Thanks VERY MUCH everyone… you guys and gals are awesome!  See that #3 app up there?  That’s Camera+ from my friend Lisa Bettany — I’ve recommended that one before and I still do. Give it a try for the holiday season too.

Update Submitted to App Store!

We’ve already submitted an update to the app store… so we are just waiting on approval from Apple! We’ve been seeing photos and comments from all over the world. People in dozens of countries around the world are creating fun and fresh photos… it’s all more exciting than I even expected.

Photo by @Simply_Mo from Basel, Switzerland. I saw this on Twitter with the #100CamerasIn1 tag!

Anyway, for the update, here is a list of new features / fun stuff / changes:

➤ Option to disable sound & music
➤ Adding option to dramatically increase resolution in cropping phase for each iPhone model (e.g. for iPhone 4, which is 2592×1936 pixels — the square is cropped to 1936×1936)
➤ Added ability to turn on/off cropping after you take the photo or select from Library
➤ Increased hit-size on the Save/Share buttons
➤ Upload to Flickr at maximum resolution for your given iPhone (in square format)
➤ No more character limits for Facebook/Flickr
➤ Max possible resolution photo now uploaded to Facebook
➤ Fixed a low-level system problem with crashing
➤ Fixed a rogue sound library problem that was causing crashes
➤ Optimized TwitPic upload size
➤ Memory and speed optimizations

Daily Photo – Gateway to the Temple of Heaven

I had an amazing opportunity in Beijing to get private access into the Temple of Heaven one morning. Well-costumed officials from the government met me before sunrise just outside the gates, where hundreds of early risers were already outside doing exercises and preparing for a national holiday. The nice men pulled out ornate keys and opened up the private doors to let me in. I had about 90 minutes to take photos of everything as the sun rose. It was a great day of shooting!

This is one of those places that has many perfect lines, shapes, and other interesting angles for composing photos. It’s almost impossible to take a bad shot! There were nice clouds and nice light on this cool morning, so I considered myself very lucky in many regards!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D3X, Travel

100 Cameras in 1, Now Available!

You can download the app (iTunes store link) now!

Wow has it been hard to keep this a secret! There is so much to say! To get the full story, see sample photos, and more, you can visit the 100 Cameras in 1 page here on the site.

Also, we’ve already submitted a feature-laden update to the app store.  Scroll to the bottom to see more upcoming goodies!  If you’re a HARDCORE photographer, this isn’t for you.  It’s been designed for people that want a lot of power and flexibility without being overwhelmed with dozens of controls.

Sample Results with 100 Cameras in 1

This is a small sampling. To see even more, visit the 100 Cameras in 1 page.

How are the effects achieved?

We used 100 unique textures and combined these with different versions of the photo mixing with itself in overlay, hardlight, luminosity, and other blends while combining with various amounts of the texture, depending on the effect.

Want to try something even more bold?

Try saving one of the black and white versions that is using a luminosity + overlay filter. Something like “It was never quite like that to me”, for example. Save it, then re-process that image using another effect that also uses an overlay or hardlight on itself. As you try out more effects, you’ll see what I mean.

Next Version – Live now!

We’ve already added a bunch of new stuff to the app:

➤ Option to disable sound & music
➤ Added option to dramatically increase resolution in cropping phase for each iPhone model (e.g. for iPhone 4, which is 2592×1936 pixels — the square is cropped to 1936×1936)
➤ Added ability to turn on/off cropping after you take the photo or select from Library
➤ Three new Achievements
➤ Increased hit-size on the Save/Share buttons
➤ Upload to Flickr at maximum resolution for your given iPhone (in square format)
➤ Max possible resolution photo now uploaded to Facebook
➤ No more character limits for Facebook/Flickr
➤ If you cancel Gamecenter login three times in a row, it will never ask you again
➤ Sounds are now respectful of the ringer switch
➤ Fixed a low-level system problem with crashing
➤ Fixed a rogue sound library problem that was causing crashes
➤ Optimized TwitPic upload size
➤ Memory and speed optimizations
➤ (and even more secret stuff in development for the NEXT version, which will also be a free update)

Filed under the categories: Travel

The International HDR Tutorial!

We have just added the Czech language! Thanks to Filip for the translation!

More languages are being added all the time! Speaking of today’s photo, where is our French translation from a savvy reader??? hehe… Now, the top of the HDR Tutorial reads:

• Fala Português? Confira o Tutorial HDR em Português.
• Hablas Español? Clic Tutorial HDR en Español.
• Mluvíte česky? Pokračujte zde! HDR Tutoriál v českém jazyce.
• Speak English?  Howdy! You’re in the right spot!

Daily Photo – Paris HDR

I think this was my fifth trip to Paris, and the first time I actually got some Eiffel Tower shots that I find satisfactory!  I literally had to take thousands of shots of this thing before I found something that feels right to me.

The gardens that surround the Eiffel Tower are surprisingly empty.  Around dusk and sunset, it’s usually not too hard to find a nice bench to drink in the sights.  Or, barring that, there are plenty of spots in the grass where you can lay out a blanket and enjoy some amazing cheese and pastries…  and what is more wonderful than that?

Filed under the categories: France, Nikon D3X, Paris, Travel