The book is “Officially” out

“A World in HDR” is officially released! I’d like to thank all of YOU for your inspiration, your support, and being with us all this time. I truly appreciate it.

I understand warehouses are filling up and orders should be shipping any time! For sure, I stayed up all night signing things for the pre-orders that went through this site. My signatures are all real… and not fake stamps like so many others. I walked into a Barnes & Noble tonight here in New York to see if they had my book yet… They say any minute! But, on the way out, I saw Alton Brown’s cookbook that was an “Autographed Copy”. It was so obviously a stamp that was infused into the jacket! Anyway, I am sorry if they got a little messy around 6 AM, but at least you know they are real! I wanted to make sure we got these out to everyone ASAP… it’s important to you, I know, so it’s important to me.

Peachpit is putting the press release out today, so everything is official. You can visit the HDR Book page to order it from all the popular spots. It’s a mass-market distribution, so your favorite bookseller should have it. And, if you already have gotten in and enjoy it, why not pop over to Amazon and give the book a review? We now live in a world that is powered by people like you and your opinions — and I would appreciate that very much!

Daily Photo:  A Morning at the Secret Lake

This was shot in the Andes of Southern Argentina just near the border of Chile.

I spent several hours of hiking in the dark just so I could get to this spot at sunrise. All the darkness in the lower half is the shadow of the mountain behind me as the morning sun rose above it. I was so thirsty from the hike, and had not brought any water with me. Looking on Google Earth beforehand, I knew there was a lake up here and I could fill up… so I got down on my hands and knees and drank like a horse… oh boy that was some good fresh water… You can see my little footprints in the snow there on the left.

Kiva and Stuck In Customs

Today, I am announcing that a percentage of all book profits for “A World in HDR” will go to Kiva. I have written a little bit about Kiva on the Charity page here on the site. Also, I made this little video to tell you what the heck Kiva is. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s probably not what you expect!

To get started, come join Team Stuck In Customs on Kiva and let me know your experiences! You can either put it here or on the Charity page.

I’d like to thank Sloane, who runs the Causemopolotan.com blog, who I met through Michelle Greer, who runs MichellesBlog.net (that links to a recent article she wrote after getting some notions from my reading list! – cool!)

Live Interview Today, Nov 9, on TWIP (This Week in Photography)

Watch LIVE HERE!

At 11 AM PST (1 PM CST), tune in live to the video at Leo Laporte’s TWIT cottage here on live.twit.tv. I won’t be talking about HDR today… I think that is being saved for a future interview when the book comes out. However, I will be talking about that video method I used to make the “Moments Between” video.

Come tune in Live and send Tweets along the way to @frederickvan! If you miss it, you’ll have to wait for it to be released on Wednesday! Don’t let that happen!

Today’s Photo

Our daily photo today comes from deep in the Andes. Getting to this position was not as long a hike as the others around Patagonia, but it was no cakewalk! It was one of those strange river-rock strewn areas where the rocks seemed to be the perfect size for spraining your ankles. I had the tripod extended to act like a walking stick, although it’s not the most handy walking stick with a giant Nikon on one end of it!

We started the hike before the sun came up. It was really cold, so I was dressed in layers. People always give you very silly advice. Actually, whenever anyone tells me to “dress in layers”, I always find it very condescending! Why is that? I don’t know why that bothers me. I mean, OF COURSE dress in layers. Oh, you mean, if I get too hot, I can just take off a layer? Oh, brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Well… This is a concept everyone is already familiar with, so whenever anyone tells you to “dress in layers”, try not to let it annoy you as much as it does me.

Anyway, after removing many layers, since I was burning hot after the first five minutes from carrying 50 lbs of camera equipment over the Andes, we stopped at this mountain lake to relax and have a quick lunch. It was a good chance to drop off the bag, put together my camera and tripod, then break it all down again, repack, and get back on the hike.

Also, we have a fun new features opening today on the site. It’s a great and simple way for you to share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Email, or IM. You can probably see it when you mouseover a photo… I think it will be a good way for regular viewers to easily share the photos with their friends and family! Below is a short video showing how to use it (even though it’s pretty dang simple!). Again, the more you share, the better it is for the site… so thanks again, very much!

This is the Perito Moreno Glacier that empties into Lago Argentina. It was simply awesome to be there, as you can plainly see.

I was there with a bunch of Russians who had brought an insane amount of cognac. Between shots, they would all drink cognac, yell, and try to bring down the next ice wall. We were the only ones there, and we stayed until the last moments of dark to eek out every last bit of light from the sky.

Also, I wanted to point you to an article over at Abduzeedo yesterday about the new book. It was written by good man Paulo Canabarro (his Twitter account here). You can also follow @Abduzeedo if you are looking for another good set of Tweets. I notice that people that complain about Twitter always have the same sort of complaints: “I don’t want to know when everyone is standing in line at Starbucks!” Well, then, I say, you are following the wrong people! Once you get 50-100+ people to follow, it becomes a nice source for information, fun, and inspiration. It might take a while to build your personalized list, but then you will be hooked. (I am @TreyRatcliff, in case ya didn’t know).

After we set up camp in a little wooded area, we headed off to see if we could get to one of the glaciers by sunset.  This is near Cerro Torre, a region that is disputed between Argentina and Chile.  I didn’t see much of a dispute while I was there — no armies or anything.  I did see some wayward Guanacas, but I was not sure which side they were on.

I walked along the river until I got to a stopping point, where I got stuck.  I couldn’t cross because it was too sketchy, even for me.  So I set up here to prepare for the sunset.  This was shot about two hours prior to the sunset while I was exploring the area.  I’ll be sure to edit the other photos soon (ish) and get them up!

On one of the mornings when we woke up in Patagonia, I came out of the tent to find everything covered in a soft blanket of snow. It was the middle of the autumn there, so the rich deep colors on the trees stood out in sharp contrast to white snow.

I grabbed this shot as quickly as I could before the snow started to cover everything up too much, which can tend make for a somewhat washed-out shot. I believe this photo was at f/2.8 with the 24-70 lens. That aperture helped the most interesting tree in the foreground to stay sharp while everything else stayed foggy and snowy (which it kinda was anyway).

I know some of you remember Natalia from El Chalten on the southern tip of Argentina, so I thought I would add another photo of her.

When we were walking back from the shoot, it got a little chilly, so she covered up a bit. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this or not… but she’s one of those gals that always seems to be posin’. Kinda like Angelina, I suppose, where you get the sense that she is always aware of the presence of a camera. So, since I had on the 50mm 1.4, I took a few quick ones like this while walking down the trail.

Here are two of my Russian friends frolicking in the snowy forest one morning. When you have a group of photographers tromping about the edge of the world, you end up taking photos of one another quite a bit.

This is the very deep-thinking Vova (I mistakenly called him Vulva) taking a photo of Irina, who is looking quite elf-like and innocent in the snow. Irina was responsible for making me borscht every single day and night of the hike. I ate more borscht than all the czars combined, although I can’t complain because a nice hot meal was always a welcome treat.

You can see Vova is using a Canon there. I didn’t hold that against him. These guys are currently on another photo expedition. I was invited, but I’m too covered up right now to join them… and it saddens me… Maybe I will have some borscht tomorrow in photographic mourning.

During the hike through the Andes, I would vacillate between sweating hot and frigid cold. Sometimes, things would be just about perfect and an idyllic waterfall like this one would emerge from the Eden-like trail. It was the perfect place to take a load off in the cool water for a break.

Well, there was enough negative feedback yesterday that I have decided to remove the ads. There were little ads that would appear whenever you “mouse over’ the photo. But some people found them annoying, and I have taken them off. The rates seemed to be better than google adwords and they were projected to bring in several hundred per month. But, alas, it’s not worth making the site ugly or upsetting the readers.

We do have a new Newsletter! I invite you to sign up for it. It’s free and should be something fun for your inbox.

Here is what we are aiming for the newsletter to contain.

• Any upcoming news, events, or plans about Stuck In Customs, so you can be the FIRST to know!
• A collection of fun links that I find/post on Twitter, neat finds, and other things to inspire you.
• Advanced secret links to upcoming reviews so you can be the first to see and provide feedback! !! This is a cool one, eh?
• A review of the latest, most interesting photos.
• A nice, compact, beautiful email that you can share with your family and friends. These are just the sort of pretty emails that can make you popular in your email circle o’ friends.

I thought this mountain and cloud formation was too perfect to ignore. Clouds always do strange things when they pass over mountains, but this one seemed particularly violent and unexpected.

This is not actually a volcano. it’s just a regular old mountain in the Andes that had a nice little volcanic shape. I skirted around it for a while (skirting is quite a trek at this radius), until the angle seemed about right… although I had to skirt fast before the clouds changed. I have always wanted to take a photo of a volcano that is erupting. I climbed up part of a volcano that was erupting in Costa Rica, and you could see the red rocks, but I got absolutely zero good shots. Oh well… some day!

I was in Patagonia as the leaves were turning colors for the fall, and on the edge of the glacial zone of the Andes, it could snow at any time.

I had camped in a very picturesque little forest to get away from the wind and the elements. We were pretty close to a river, which was nice to listen to while I slept. Note that I wasn’t in a tent since I had removed myself from Yuri’s tent for the sake of sanity and sleep. Luckily my sleeping bag was rated for negative 10 degrees, so I stayed snug.

The next morning when I woke up, a gentle snow was falling all around. The inner sanctum of the forest was green and warm while snow started piling up on the edges of the trees. It all looked too perfect, so of course I had to set up for a shot to bring it home to y’all!

As is the case with every day here, I have also included a photo. This is of the indomitable Fitz Roy at sunrise buried deep in the Andes, in the hinterland between Argentina and Chile. To get this shot, it was none too easy! First, I “woke” up after a sleepless night in a two-man tent with Yuri. It was perhaps the worst night of my life and I’ve never had a panic attack before, but I honestly felt like I was pretty close. The smell combined with the pitch black, the snoring, the freezing cold, and the tiny tent was almost more than I could bear!

I woke up around 4:30 AM with -7 Celsius temperatures. It was bitter cold. I got dressed QUICKLY in the pitch black cold and then headed off with two of my Russian friends to begin scaling the mountain. They had lights on their hats; I did not. I walked between them, trying not to slip on the icy “trail” between the dodging shadows cast by their headlights. I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life. We ascended 1,500 feet in less than 45 minutes so we could catch the pink rays of sunrise just as they hit the peaks.

Last, I have been interviewed about photography and more on the Pro Photo Show. It’s a free podcast that you can listen to if you want to know more about the process or just hear me ramble on about stuff you may or may not find interesting!

A Razor to the Sky

Patagonia in Autumn from Trey Ratcliff on Vimeo.