Communities and New Badges

Want to join the community and share your photos? Here’s some links for you! 🙂 Google+ turned 2 years old, and they announced a new Badge Maker that you can use for your website. I thought I’d use the new badges below to re-invite you to a few of the communities we started there! These are good places for you to share your work, if you so desire. Also, as always, I am happy for you to share your work here in the comments on the blog too! 🙂

Daily Photo – Peaceful Evening in Wanaka

I had a peaceful evening in Wanaka.

There is this tree that sits out in the middle of the lake. It’s so unusual. I love the way it reflects back on itself in the smooth water. I was by myself, listening to music on my iPod, and just watching the water as it would calm down then get excited, then calm down again. I swapped out lenses a few times and kept moving around to admire it from different angles. This one was one of my favorites.

Peaceful Evening in Wanaka

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2013-06-27 01:21:44
• CameraNEX-7
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/50
• Aperture13
• ISO100
• Focal Length55.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+1

Upcoming Photography Workshops

I really don’t do these very often, but it was getting confusing so we made a page that showed what, when, and where! It’s over on the Photography Workshops page, and I have pasted it below for you. Maybe we should have a punch-card like Subway where you get a free cookie if you come to 10 events! Hehe… we do have one gentleman that has appeared at a few of them and we may see him again! 🙂

Photography Workshops

Burning Man 2012

Here are a bunch of photos I took at Burning Man a few weeks ago. I put little captions below each one so you can read more about the situation there.

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Interview on Australian TV

I was on Channel 7 a few days ago in Australia – here is the clip 🙂

Backup Camera for Burning Man

My main camera I use nowadays is the Nikon D800, and I was a bit afraid to take that out into the desert. Instead, I took out my Nikon D3S to get some of these shots. It’s one of the six different cameras I used at Burning Man this year. I didn’t get much dust at all inside the camera… but I also never changed the lens or used it too much in sandstorms…

Invite to the Variety Hour

Over on Google+, I’ve started doing these weekly invites to the Variety Hour. You can accept over there, and it automatically shows up in your calendar… I think it’s a pretty cool feature.

As always, watch here on the blog too. The upcoming show has several cool and secret prizes to hand out! 🙂

Daily Photo – Musician at the Chinese Opera

It was my second visit to this particular opera and my third visit to a Chinese opera. I was fortunate enough to be able to move freely around the venue, as long as I did not get in the way of the performers. That wasn’t very easy, since the performers would often just start running down and around the aisles! They would dart this way and that, run around columns come in and out of random doors and re-use the same pathways that I was navigating. So I had to be on constant alert!

There was one girl that was playing a very unusual Chinese instrument. I’ll never get the name of it right, so I won’t even try… but she had this most unusual hat that I thought was quite nice…

Musician at the Chinese Opera

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2011-09-16 00:00:00
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/250
• Aperture2.5
• ISO14368
• Focal Length85.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias-4/3

And… speaking of funny YouTube videos

My kids and I love watching funny animal-related YouTube videos… the more the better!  Any you want to share with me?  I promise, I’ll click on any YouTube link that has some possible destination of animal hilarity!

Daily Photo – Suspicious Chipmunk

Why is the chipmunk so suspicious?  How much intrigue and backstabbing can there be in the world of the woodland creature?  What are the other unexpected emotional states of chipmunks?  Mildly-surprised-chipmunk?  Angst-ridden-chipmunk?  Walk-of-shame- chipmunk?  Only the internet knows…

And the internet DOES know… go do a Google video search for “Dramatic Chipmunk” – you’ll never forget it 🙂

Camera on Horseback

Have you ever carried a bunch of camera equipment while on the back of a horse?  I don’t recommend it.

Daily Photo – The Horse and Carriage

I stayed in an amazing place when I was in the south of China, and every morning this horse and carriage would pull up in front.  And, like any good model, the horse didn’t complain while I went around and took a bunch of shots while fiddling with my camera.

This photo was taken with my 50mm lens at ISO 200 f/1.4 and the shutter was 1/8000.  I don’t know why I just told you all that… I guess some people really like to know.  BTW, all that info is avail if you click through to the SmugMug version.

Behind-the-Scenes Video

William Beem (frequent community commenter here on the blog… you know him… you love him…) recorded a video of the situation below.  See it here on YouTube.

Missed our Cruise!

We were supposed to get on a cruise for Disney today and we missed it because of flight problems!  Oh no… so now we are scrambling to get down to Grand Cayman to meet the boat.

Daily Photo – Where the Princess Dwells at Night…

But, while in the middle of all this drama, I happened to already be Orlando, so why not make the most of it?

I called for a little PhotoWalk at Disney! It was really really really fun — and getting this shot was tough! I think +William Beem +Gilmar Smith +Keith Barrett or perhaps +Ali Elhajj got a video of me trying to convince half a dozen Disney workers to “sweep water” in front of my camera, which was splayed on the ground. At first, one guy didn’t want to do it because he might get in trouble… then the other acquiesced… and then, before they knew it, they were all being controlled like crystal farmers in Starcraft… we eventually got all the water in the right place!

I had to go over and whip out my sweet Android phone to show them some photos from Google+ — I found the one from Paris with the puddle — I said I needed a puddle about thiiiiis big … and eventually we got it all engineered out. They were all very helpful and nice… I convinced them all to come onto Google+ to see the final result — so I hope they are here! Hi guys – Y muchas gracias!

Where the Princess Dwells at Night…

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2012-03-31 03:06:38
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time15
• Aperture8
• ISO100
• Focal Length19.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+1

Facebook Interest Lists

I decided to do something different when I curated some Interest Lists over at Facebook.  Come see and subscribe!

• People that make you DREAM
• People that make you LAUGH
• People that make you HUNGRY
• People that make you THINK
• People that make you FEEL FAT

Keynote at Kent State

Are you in the Ohio area and want to come to a great event?  The admission is free and I’ll be talking a bit about the future of photography, sharing, and the internet.  I think.  Actually, I like to throw in a bunch of wildcards that I’m not even fully aware of until a few hours before the talk.

• More Info on the Talk
• March 29
• 7 PM
• Cartwright Hall is located at 650 Hilltop Drive in Kent.

Daily Photo – Chinaman’s Hat

Also known as Mokolii, this distinctive island seems to stay in your view for a few hours as you go along the coast of Oahu.

EXIF-hunters will notice that I used my D3S to take this photo instead of my D3X.  I had to give that D3X a rest after getting it too wet over the previous four days of rainfall.  In fact, this was the first opening of the skies after an endless torrent of water and storm.  I was so happy to see some dynamic skies and be in the perfect spot when it happened…

Patrick Rothfuss, Charity, The Show

So, regular friends around here will know that my inspiration comes from the world outside of photography.  I read like a madman.  And look, I’m not bragging when I say I’m very well-read in Fantasy.  That’s just a fact.  And so, maybe it carries a lot of weight when I say that Patrick Rothfuss is teaching us all.

Now, before I tell you more about that bit, first let me point you to Pat’s charity team at Worldbuilders.  I’ve donated, and you might like to also.  There are all kinds of rare signed books that will be given away as part of the fund-raising effort.

And…. Patrick will be joining me for Trey’s Variety Hour #22 on Monday night.  How cool is that?

What Do You See?

And… which eyes are mine?  Yes, I’ll be back at EG in Monterey this year…

Daily Photo – The Mysterious Creatures Among Us

While in the southern town of Lixiang, I came upon this creature in the evening.  Maybe you know the legend of this…  maybe it is better to make up your own legend than to have me tell you everything about it… or, perhaps one of you intrepid explorers in the community can tell us all what is going on here!

No I don’t…

It seems like every day I get a question about whether or not people pay me to post about things. People think I do this because my Klout (meaningless) is 83 and I have over 750,000 followers on Google+ and another 100K or so on Twitter + Facebook, but no, I do not:

• …do paid posts from Nikon for money
• …do paid posts from Sony for money
• …do paid posts from Apple for money
• …do paid posts from Google for money
• …do paid posts from Facebook for money
• …do paid posts from … you name it… SmugMug, American Airlines, Four Seasons, Banyan Tree, Fuji, American Express, etc etc… for money

The thing is… I can’t be bought. The blog is already profitable and we have a healthy and happy team of employees here at StuckInCustoms that I appreciate very much. This means I don’t have to accept money to post on the blog or various social networks to artificially “plug” something. If you ever see me mention a product or service, it’s simply because I wanted to… because it fits in with the story or it is a product or service I recommend.

When people see me write an article that is critical of future Nikon DSLRs and says that I am Sony-curious, some assume that Sony is paying me to say this. That is absurd. I am totally independent.

So, with me, you can be assured you’ll always get my pure opinion.

There are always behind-the-scenes stuff happening that we reject all the time. I’ll listen to any proposal, as long as it does not include me being disingenuous to you, my gentle reader.  If you’d like to read more about this policy and all the ins and outs on the website, visit my Ethics Statement.

There are continually confusing situations that I try to avoid. For example, Lytro offered to send me a free camera in exchange for me sending them my Lytro photos to be featured on their website. That would be seen as an official “endorsement” of sorts by me. Anyway, I told those jokers no way. Even though I would not be actively posting about it, the association could be seen as disruptive and not respectful of you.

Daily Photo – The Lonely Woods, Forever

Here is another photo from our recent Yosemite PhotoWalk last week. The valley floor is full of dense forests that can go on for an eternity. I had a wonderful time exploring these with all my fellow PhotoWalkers. I can’t wait to do it all again soon.