January 2011 - Page 3 of 4 - Stuck in Customs

January 2011 : Tuesday Jan 2011 : Tuesday

See More Photos of: Beijing, China, Nikon D3X, Travel

The Metal Ribbon and Animoto Review

Animoto Review

I wrote up a full Animoto Review here on the site. If you want to read more about it, pros and cons, and more, check out the review. Below, I have placed one of the videos I made with Animoto.

You can also use the Animoto Coupon Code of “STUCKINCUSTOMS” to get 2 months free with a pro account… thanks for the team there for providing that for us!

The music has a nice, artistic story behind it. There is a big fan of the site here named Antonis Karalis, a musician from Greece. He put together this song — did all the instruments and voice himself. If you like his song and want to support another internet artist — click here to get it in iTunes!

Daily Photo – The Metal Ribbon

Here we have another stunning example of the fanciful architecture in Beijing. The opera house is a huge, cavernous complex. On the top level towards one side, there is an immense gathering area that’s used for banquets, parties, and other such events. Luckily, my translator and assistant had set everything up ahead of time, so we were able to get in for several hours before the big concert to take some photos in peace before the crowds arrived.

January 2011 : Monday Jan 2011 : Monday

See More Photos of: Barcelona, Nikon D3S, Spain, Travel

Window of Life

Daily Photo–The Window of Life

The beautiful Bacelona is home for fanciful masterpieces of Antonio Gaudi. I thought I’d had pretty good grasp on the architectures of Gaudi’s but I didn’t anticipate the subtle interior design when I get into some of his buildings.

This is the fanciful Casa Batlló. I was surprised by every turn when I was inside, and it was always inspirational. I wonder whether you have ever played Myst? This place reminded me of Myst–except Gaudi had come up with the ideas so long ago–in 1877! And those designs were not only for beauty but large sums of functionality built-ins too. Simply moving cool air from room to room is stylish and unexpected.

I took lots of other photos in Barcelon that are coming up soon. I tried my best to take good photos at the places where I’d been but caught up by the flu. And that put my productivity into half–so that’s the bummer–yet also another good reason to go back!

January 2011 : Sunday Jan 2011 : Sunday

See More Photos of: Montana, Travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone

The Mark Nason Bag

My New Laptop Bag!

This is one of my favorite Christmas presents! For the full scoop, see my Mark Nason Bags review here on the site… You can see Mark Nason’s store on Amazon here. — it’s kind of expensive, but you can check out the pros and cons for yourself on the review page.

Here are a few images of the bag… I think I have six or so on the review page.

One aspect this image doesn't portray is how soft this thing is. It is like a soft cuddly cow crawled up and died on your lap.

The big pouch on the outside is too small for most of my guns (perhaps a small ladies' gun), but it does fit a ziplock full of pork and beans for those lonely nights on the range... This side pocket is pretty handy too for your mobile phone or 18th-century Western iPod.

The bag is big enough for me to fit my 17" Macbook Pro. It's not big enough to also hold my camera equipment, but... that's not what I use it for...

Daily Photo – Liftoff at the Ranch

I ran out into the field to capture this just as the helicopter takes off after unloading another group of guests. The lighting and angle were perfect, so I was curious to see if I could catch the helicopter blade totally still. I did! A good experiment… note that many of my experiments fail… but this one worked out.

And yes, obviously, this is an HDR from a single RAW.

January 2011 : Saturday Jan 2011 : Saturday

See More Photos of: China, Feng Huang, Nikon D3X, Travel

Boats in Ancient China

Daily Photo – Boats in Ancient China

This is the spot where I cracked a rib. I’ll tell that story in a moment… This is the ancient village of Feng Huang in distant southern China. I hired a local driver to get me there, and the ride was longer than most plane trips! And a lot less comfortable… Anyway, after arriving, I had a wonderful time exploring. One morning, the old town was covered with thick fog. And it’s that still, wet, timeless fog of China. When you are looking at it, you become convinced it will just never go away. I worked my way down one of the banks to an area where the local rivermen keep the boats to grab this shot. The morning was wet, obviously, and that was the downfall of my mishap. I stepped down onto what looked like damp, dirty concrete. I’ve done this a thousand times. I was carrying my D3X with 14-24mm lens on a tripod on my left hand and holding my D3S with 50mm 1.4 prime in my right hand. It turned out that I was stepping onto that super-slick wet clay. It was razor-thin and slicker than ice. I didn’t stand a chance. I fell right down, both cameras slamming into the ground. The D3X hit extra hard because the tripod gave it some painful torque. I landed on the D3S, it’s body caving in one of ribs… right in the middle of the man-nipple area. It was too bad because I’ve always treasured that area. I made reference to the injury when I was still unsure about it in this Part 2 China Interview.

January 2011 : Friday Jan 2011 : Friday

See More Photos of: France, Paris, Travel

The Prison of Marie Antoinette

Topaz Infocus Review

Cool! Check out my full Topaz Infocus Review. It’s the latest from that company, and you can grab it right from Topaz Software.

Finally! I think it’s been about four months since I posted a new software review. I do try tons and tons of software, but I only review stuff I actually use. It keeps things simple, and I figure you don’t have a lot of time to read reviews anyway. I could write up big reviews of all the stuff I don’t like and I don’t use (e.g. the Promote Control – I don’t like using that thing… but that’s just me… I know others do and that’s cool). Anyway, that is a bit of an aside there… a long way of saying this is why you don’t see a new review every few days!

In this photo from Notre Dame, I really wanted to accent the details of these incredible colors and shapes in one of the rear rooms. I couldn't get them right until I started experimenting with all the sliders until the right mix was achieved.

Daily Photo – The Prison of Marie Antoinette

What an amazing (and somewhat eerie) place this is! You all have heard of the famous Marie Antoinette and know of her fate… but maybe you’ve never seen her lavish French prison? It’s called the Conciergerie, and now it’s on my must-visit list! I got the hot tip from one of my workshop students in London… an unexpected find. Okay… I’ll be quiet and just let you enjoy this photo.

P.S. This was made from a single RAW… it was handheld.

January 2011 : Thursday Jan 2011 : Thursday

See More Photos of: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, United Kingdom

The London Underground – Piccadilly

#1 Question about the Camera App

Thanks for all the feedback on 100 Cameras in 1! Just wait till you see what secret stuff is coming in the NEXT version. You’ve given me amazing ideas — so thank you!

The biggest question I get is “Is it coming to Android?” The answer is YES! It’s in development right now, but it will take a while. Personally, I have an Android phone, so I’m very excited about it too. It’s actually pretty hard to develop for Android…harder than the iPhone. Actually, none of this stuff is easy or cheap (hmmm… college fund for the kids, a mid-sized German car, or an app? Let’s bet the farm honey! hehe)…

Daily Photo – The London Underground – Piccadilly

Piccadilly Circus is one of the most popular places in London for tourists. I don’t like to always hit all the obvious places, but, then again, I kind of have to hit the obvious places, yes? So, when I went to this famous spot, I tried my best to find some interesting angles and compositions.

This was a standard HDR shot – five exposures from -2 to +2. To fix the ghosting problem with the people, I did the same thing I always do! I think that’s on page 2 or 3 of the HDR Tutorial… (maybe that is the #1 Question about HDR!)

January 2011 : Wednesday Jan 2011 : Wednesday

See More Photos of: Beijing, China, Travel

My Irregular Annual Student Interview

Brain Pickings!

You guys know I only recommend stuff if I think it’s awesome. Life is too short not to focus on the awesome!

One of the accidental things I have found is called “Brain Pickings”, and you gotta see their end-of-the-year redux for 2010 — amazing stuff they found last yea!. I found them because we were both featured on FlipBoard, and it looked kinda artsy. And then I got in deeper, and saw that the woman that curates Brain Pickings is my kinda gal!

Besides the link above, also see their “10 Most Popular Articles” – it’s a good sushi sampler from the chef, Maria Popova. Also, it’s one of those sites that lives off donations — so maybe you are feelin’ internet-generous.

iPhone App Updated

Our team cranked away and put in a ton of new features and updates, so thanks to everyone! You can download 100 Cameras in 1 pronto.

Here are some of the new features and updates:

? 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
? Upload to Flickr, Facebook, Twitpic at maximum resolution for your given iPhone (in square format)
? Even more features added! See all of them on our 100 Cameras in 1 page.
? (shhhh… and many more currently in super-secret development for next update… shhh)

New Video – My One Student Interview for the Year

Hehe… well… I explain the title of this early in the interview. Here are a few things that are discussed in the video:

The business side of Stuck In Customs
What my wife does (and other personal questions… *ahem*
My thoughts on Getty licensing and what a RIP OFF model they have
My thoughts on micro-stock photography (I’m sure people won’t like what I say)
My thoughts on contests and judges and how silly contests can be
My thoughts on using a lot of lights in your photos and what happens by accident
And a bunch of other BS. But – well… all kinds of stuff… hehe.

Daily Photo – The New of Old China

I found this place near the one of the old Imperial rice barns that had been converted into an opera house. It’s a hard-to-find but charming area of the city. Not even my driver or assistant could find it, and they’ve lived in Beijing their entire lives!

To find out more about other things found amidst these hidden gems, see “Amazing Opera Discovery in Beijing“.

January 2011 : Tuesday Jan 2011 : Tuesday

See More Photos of: France, Nikon D3X, Paris, Travel

Exploring the Cathedral

HDR Tutorial – Reminder

We have the HDR Tutorial in four languages and more coming soon! I recently did some evolutionary updates on the tutorial to keep things fairly current. Enjoy!

Surfing the Categories

There are a lot of daily visitors (thanks – I appreciate you very much!) but there are also some people that only pop in a few times a week. To these people, you may like to know a navigational tip here on the site. I “tag” and categorize everything. These tags are at the bottom of the post. If you want to see some of that particular location, just click on “France” for example. It will show you the last 10-15 posts or so. For many categories, you can also click “Previous” at the bottom of the page to see even more.

Daily Photo – Exploring the Cathedral

No tripods allowed. I think maybe it said this in French. Or English. I can’t remember because I ignored it. How are you supposed to get a decent photo inside Notre Dame without a tripod?

I spent this weekend processing a bunch of photos from France, and this is one that took quite a while. People often ask me, ‘How long do you work on your photos?” My answer is always a bit strange, since any time-allotment will not seem correct. The thing is… I’ve processed so many photos over the years — I’ve gotten very fast at it. I’ve got macros, keyboard shortcuts, etc etc. I think I might look like a Korean Starcraft player… I slow it down a lot for the tutorial and stuff. But, anyway, having said that, my answer is “anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours”. This shot in particular took a little over an hour. It was a hard one… I had to take a few breaks and refill the green tea a few times to work out some issues with it.

January 2011 : Monday Jan 2011 : Monday

See More Photos of: California, Nikon D3X, San Diego, Travel

Sunset in the Hills

Painting the Monkeys

Erika Meijer, from Doetinchem, Netherlands, has taken my photograph of the monkey in the water from Japan and turned it into a painting! I get emails about this sort of thing quite a bit… rarely feature them on the website, but I should more! I think it’s great when people do this sort of thing. My work is Creative Commons Share-Alike (no commercial use), which means other artists are free to use them to do derivative works like this. Very cool!

See the Original Monkey Photo here.

Daily Photo – Sunset in the Hills

There is a long and somewhat barren road between Los Angeles and San Diego. It seems extra-barren because I was really thirsty before I entered the long-bit that had absolutely no place to stop for a drink! You know how sometimes you are driving along, kind of thirsty… not really being TOO picky, but kind of passing by places that look not-too-exciting? Well I did that one too many times then ended up having to drive for a lot longer before I found relief.

What compounded the problem (and made it better too) was that it was sunset time! That means I had to stop many times to drink the landscapes into the camera.

January 2011 : Sunday Jan 2011 : Sunday

See More Photos of: Beijing, China, Nikon D3S, Travel

On Gossamer Wings

Recap – Five Tips for Photographing People

In case you missed the piece a few months ago, you can always go back to read “Five Tips for Photographing People“. I hope they help!

Canon Giveaway

You guys know I’m a Nikon man, but I still occasionally will let myself be seen with Canon shooters like Scott Bourne. But only rarely, and if he buys dinner. Anyway, Scott is running a contest over at PhotoFocus to win a free Canon 5DMKII. Look at that picture on the page! It doesn’t even have a lens… what a cheapskate.

Daily Photo – On Gossamer Wings

I had spent most of the day inside the Forbidden City, trying my best to find little bits here and there. Tiny discoveries, you know. I was pretty tired after a day of searching, but I still had barely enough energy to keep exploring into the night. At that point, I decided to go to another, older area of the city.

There were hundreds of quaint shops, the smell of fresh food, families walking to and fro… it was all very nice. I came to cross a little raised bridge, and I saw this woman standing there. She was dressed in vintage Chinese grab and holding a delicate umbrella. While talking with her friends, the light caught her umbrella just right, so I snapped a quick photo.

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