Thanks Again Community!

(BTW, it sounds strange calling us a “community”.  I never really liked that word… it’s like we meet for Bingo at the sad community center that smells like old tapioca pudding or something…  maybe you know a better word?)

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you again for all the support, encouragement, and enthusiasm! I really enjoy reading your comments, getting your emails, tweets, FB comments and more. I feel bad I can’t respond to all of them, but I still do read them all. There is a lot, but the reading is not yet overwhelming. The responding is. Something maybe people don’t realize is that comments appear all over the site every day, even on posts that are several years old. For example, someone just dropped a note on a 2-year-old post “Girl in Qatar” looking for a penpal.

I also quite like it when people post links to their websites, their photos, or whatever they find interesting. I encourage it, and it helps YOU get to know OTHER nice people here in the community here too. I know my mom will track you down (like she did Gail) whenever you suddenly stop leaving comments. She gets worried (she called me one day and said, “Do you think Gail is sick or something?”)

If you have more ideas on things you’d like to see around here to help this process, let me know!

Daily Photo – Isabella’s Jewel Box

Up high, in one of the tallest towers of all the land, in the highest castle by the sea, sits a perfect bedroom, and it shines like the inside of a floating jewel box.

This amazing place is in one of the two peak towers atop Hearst Castle. Getting up into these rooms via tiny, twisting stairways is not the easiest thing in the world. The paths in and out of these bedrooms are almost so serpentine that they seem secret. When I was inside, I felt like I was one of the few people in the world to ever experience it.

Relapse Photo – The Castle From Below

I’ve included a second photo from the outside of the castle. Towards the top, you can see the two towers, each of which contains one of these little slices of fantasy.

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, LA, Nikon D3X, Travel

Great Photo Contest!

There is a great new photo contest I encourage all of you to join!  Get the details on the OpenCa.mp page!

The prize is a fantastic metal print from Image Wizards.  I’ve had many things printed there, and you will be amazed.  Really.  I’ll be one of the judges along with Frederick Van Johnson.  So, if you don’t like the choice in the winners, please blame Frederick Van Johnson.

Daily Photo – Slipping into the Pool

This vast indoor pool at Hearst Castle is just about perfect.  The only thing that would have been more perfect is if I was actually inside of it!  If I wasn’t such an honorable guy, I would have stripped down and jumped in for a bit.  It would have taken at least 15 minutes for security to get me out of there.  But it would have been a sweet sweet 15 minutes.  I could just say that I lost my mind for a bit…  like Hearst Castle was Shutter Island and I was a bit loopy because of the drugs.

A friend was looking at my other photo of this pool (You can access it by clicking on the Hearst Castle category below.  He remarked that he thought it was a slick, reflective floor and not a pool!  I had never thought of it like that, but then I noticed… and I could also see it like that.  A bit like a Necker cube!

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, LA, Nikon D3X, Travel

New Book on Book List!

As some of you know, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Matt Ridley and his wife, Anya Hurlbert. I knew of Matt previously because I’ve always been a fan of his unique science/genetics books; these have delightful and unexpected hooks into economics, anthropology, history, and critical thinking. And then I found out his wife was also of a different sort of scientist, with a concentration in Visual Neuroscience. If you saw my Google Talk, then you’ll know that is also a big interest area for me! Follow her link above if you want to read more.

Matt has a new book that just came out called “The Rational Optimist“. If you want a taste of it, read Matt’s recent Wall Street Journal article.

Anyway, here on the site, I have “Trey’s Book List“, that has all sorts of suggestions. There is surely something for everyone in there!

Bonus Book Suggestion!

I just finished listening to the Audio Book of Daemon. You gotta get it! I haven’t heard anything this good in a while… and, as opposed to most books, I really do recommend the audio version. Jeff Gurner does an amazing job with the voices, and hearing the computer voices talk is more than entertaining! The author, Daniel Suarez, really knows his stuff. And, I would not be surprised if he has read some of Matt Ridley’s books — particularly “The Red Queen”.

Daily Photo – Sunset at Hearst Castle

Maybe people in California get spoiled by good sunsets. Not living there, I don’t know! But, when you are sitting up high on a mountain, in a castle-mansion, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, how could you not get spoiled?

And this isn’t even the main castle. This is just one of the guest-houses. Hearst had several guest houses there, each one as stunning as the next.

If you are enjoying these Hearst photos, I’ve now published six so far. You can see all the Hearst Castle Photos. Note: These are also accessible via the “Categories” down on the right side of the page.

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, LA, Nikon D3X, Travel

Any Problems with New Server?

We’ve recently moved over the entire website to the Rackspace Cloud.  This was done because our traffic is growing like crazy, and we wanted things to be nice and speedy for everyone.  Also, from time to time, Twitter can cause big surges in traffic that brought the whole thing to a grinding halt.

Let me know if you see anything is awry.  It’s hard for me to test anything, and there are always niggling little problems…  Like, for example, I found out that Firefox didn’t work because of some silly Facebook <iframe> code that still broke it even though it was commented out!

I’ll put together a full review on Rackspace soon enough… along with a whole list of all the backend stuff that keeps the site humming along.  I know we have lots of technical people that come to the site, and we all like geeking out about the specs and “how things work”!

Daily Photo – Hearst Castle in San Simeon

Did you know that Hearst Castle is only a few hours north of LA? If you ever end up in LA for a trip, be sure to set aside a few hours for a trip up to see this place. After you get out of the LA city-scape-area, the terrain totally changes – so does the “feeling”.

Towards the end of the day, all the tourists had left. I had an escort with me for most of the day. This gentleman was a retired LAPD officer who spends a few days per week working up at Hearst Castle. There are several of these guys and gals that help keep the place secure. They take the job pretty seriously, as you would expect from any LAPD-type. After a few hours, I was able to wear them down with humor. I found they responded very well to anti-lawyer humor, btw. So keep that one in mind in case you ever get in a pinch.

Everyone there was extremely nice, and I loved the opportunity to capture Hearst as it is meant to be captured. I kept returning to this fountain time and time again — until the skies and light was just right…

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, LA, Nikon D3X, Travel

Yet another Book Contest!

Michael over at PetaPixel (he is a good Tweeter – I rewet a lot of his stuff @PetaPixel) is running a contest to give away the book. Head over there to see how to enter!

Continue Discovering New Photographers and Artists!

Be sure to look at the Smugmug Portfolio Contest to see some of the nice entries there. I think you will see some stuff that appeals to you… and it will be a good way to discover some new photographers!

The Great Room at Hearst

I was able to get up through a somewhat secret door into the upper area of this room. It was a little sketchy up there with a sharp dropoff, so I had to keep my wits about me!

The greatest challenge at Hearst is getting set up, composing, and executing all the shots before the next wave of tourists come through. I was usually able to get this done, and there was always a gentle pressure to shoot fast and then move on! One time, however, I just could not finish in time.

They strode in and began randomly shooting away. I think it is so interesting (and somewhat depressing) to watch how tourists take pictures. Really, they are just “documenting” and “collecting”. Why? This is an interesting question! These people are not dumb or vapid… They are not doing it because everyone else is doing it. But I do think people like to softly record their lives. They do the best they can, and I guess that is okay. I do get flummoxed that people don’t go out of their way to take “better” pictures. They seem satisfied with lackluster, predictable, “scientific-documentary” shots that are just not interesting. Not that every photo has to be a work of art, but why not try a little? Why not do a few things here and there to improve your personal photography. It’s not that hard to improve, and anyone can improve! I suppose I just get bummed out that people don’t even try to improve… they just expect and then become satisfied with mediocrity.

Also at Hearst there is a “no flash” rule. Thank goodness! Of course, they do it to protect the works of art there, but I am happy that people do not use their flash because I normally see people do it in silly conditions. As far as I know, this “no flash” in Hearst Castle (and other museums) is a good policy. I always hear that flashes can damage paintings and whatnot — is this scientifically true? Maybe it is. I know if you leave art in bright light all day that it can become discolored… but are a bunch of instantaneous flashes the same thing? I don’t know… I’d love to see a full study on it if anyone has a link. As with all things, the policy certainly sounds solid, but I am skeptical about “common wisdom”.

Personally, I would institute a “no Dumb Use of Flash” rule, which would tell people not to use their flash to take photos of things that are over 15 feet away. Like, for example, did you see the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Thousands and thousands of clueless people using their flashes! Aren’t any of those thousands of people somewhat curious — wondering if the flash actually does anything? Or maybe this mass flash-delusion is only negatively reinforced by seeing all the other flashes going off? I don’t know…. but it is interesting to think about.

Filed under the categories: Big Sur, California, Hearst Castle, Nikon D3X, Travel

Google Buzz is great for photography and friends!

Follow me on Google Buzz here. And, if you are a Photographer, come add a sample photo to this Buzz Thread – so that people can follow you too if they like what they see!  For the first photo I released on Buzz, I decided to add a brand new unpublished work of boats at sunset at the Portofino Hotel.

Here is why Google Buzz is great for photography and conversation and friends:

• The photos go Full Screen and can be viewed in their proper glory
• I get to see people’s photos as soon as they go up and scroll through them in a nice lightbox
• It’s very simple and built right into the GMail interface
• Conversations are real-time and it has all the “fun” of a chat room without the pressure

What do you think about Google Buzz?

Book Giveaway on Abudzeedo!

The editors over at Abduzeedo (who, by the way, attended my talk at the Google HQ) launched a book contest to give away a free copy of “A World in HDR“.  Even before I mentioned it, there are already over 300 entries, so pop over there and leave a quick comment to enter.  Easy and fast!

Daily Photo – So Many Wonderful Things at Hearst, So Little Time

Hearst Castle is indeed one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s just a trafficless hour north of LA, but it seems a world apart. It worked out as a perfect stopping-point for my little road trip from Hans Zimmer to Google!

I grabbed a lot of photos of this pool. And I mean a lot. I had great trouble in choosing the “best”, and there are many winners that I will be sure to include in coming weeks, months, and years!

I wonder if WF Hearst ever had one of those crazy house parties with rap video girls dancing and grinding all around the edges of the pool? I can’t imagine college girls doing jello shots and big floatees that have beer-holders. This is all just a tad too classy for that…

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, Nikon D3X, Travel

Stanford Walk

I’ll meet you all at The Oval on Thursday at 4 PM. There is ONE bit of bad news. There was going to be a talk afterward at 5:30 PM, but it looks like the auditorium at Stanford fell through. This was a surprise to me too – so, my apologies… however, the walk is still on and I look forward to meeting y’all.

As a bonus, I’ll be giving away a lot of Smugmug goodies! So be sure to come with room to take home something special!

Topaz Detail Review

Topaz Detail just upgraded their cool software. I have written a quick Topaz Detail Review, which I will add to more in coming weeks. It’s a really nice and fun program – I invite you to check it out!

Daily Photo – The Gothic Study

Note this is the “small” library. I’ll post the main library in a few weeks!

As always, you can zoom in to see the details by clicking through. The details are quite incredible, and I am sure you will delight in seeing the closeups of the hand-carved wooden arches and the painted Spanish ceilings… it was all amazing! If you look closely at the full res version towards the middle, you can see a portrait of WR Hearst when he was 31-years-old.

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, Nikon D3X, Travel

See you all today at Google!

I’m excited to meet a lot of my Google friends in person!  The talk is today, and I’ve got everything ready for it.  For reference, here are a few links I will mention during the talk:

• HDR Tutorial – Free tutorial here on the site – you’ll be up and running with a pretty pic in an hour!
• Jill Bolte Taylor – about the Right and Left Brain on TED
• HDR Spotting – a site with the Attention Distribution Engine to drive more traffic to other HDR Artists sites (still in beta – you have to get an invite code from existing member)
• Textures Tutorial - The textures and a video showing how I got those textured-photos
• Videos – A collection of free videos showing how I take HDR Photos in the field…
• Twitter and Human Evolution – A longer treatise on what it suggests…

Daily Photo – The Azure Blue Indoor Pool at Hearst Castle

I mentioned yesterday that I was able to get a private tour throughout Hearst.  It was a long and great day!  Thank goodness I had a mass of memory cards… I got so much footage it was crazy!

I could have picked a bunch of shots to be the “first”, but I thought this one was particularly wonderful.  There are two enormous pools at Hearst Castle, and this is the indoor one.  This is a nice vantage point because this spot is actually quite difficult to reach!  There is no door behind me… so I had to “shimmy” along that edge you see… It was NARROW… the shimmy was like a video game, except while holding a $10,000 camera!  Sketchy!  But I just had to get over here because I could visualize the shot before it happened…

Here’s a cool fact about this pool.  Nearby, there is a huge room that was intended for a gymnasium that Hearst never constructed. The State then made it usable for IT and Archive area, so the water cools the computers…  wild, eh?

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, Nikon D3X, Travel