Final Prints for 2011

[UPDATE – Sold Out] – Speaking of today’s photo… I should let you know there are only a few Prints left for this Limited Annum series 2011. There are 12 days remaining!

Daily Photo – Zuck In Customs

I was able to have a bit of personal time with Mark Zuckerberg, who turns out to be a fan! I could not believe it when I saw a kind email from him… I had to look a few different times to see if one of my friends was playing a practical joke on me… Anyway, we meet this week here in California at the FB HQ and had a bit of personal time. I won’t go into the nature of the conversation because it was, well, personal — but I really had a nice time.

Obviously, I’m a fan of Facebook too, and these things tend to be a digital manifestation of somebody’s spirit. So, from that aspect before we met, I had attempted to reverse-engineer the man behind the product as sort of a mental exercise. And then when I met him, it was interesting to see all the various aspects of a person and how they differ from their magnum opus.

Here is Mark holding his rare print…

As for this photo below, I grabbed it when we left his office to go down to join in the fun of the Hackathon.

Live Hangout Tonight!

Join us on Thursday!

Time: Thursday 7 PM PT (Your World Time)

Where to watch: www.Vidcastnetwork.com

Topic: Gear Talk! The new Nikon Mirrorless and beyond…  There’s a new breed of cameras out there, and we’ll talk about what they can do…

Want to see more? See other hangouts on my YouTube Channel.

Who’s coming to the partay? +Gordon Laing, ? +Frederick Van Johnson, ?+Al Ebnereza,?+Eden Brackstone, and maybe even the great +RC Concepcion will do a sweet Latino-slide to join us at the last minute…

Newsletter Away!

We sent off a new newsletter this morning… did you miss it?  Come sign up here for free!

Daily Photo – Alcatraz in the Dusk

Today’s photo was taken recently in San Francisco.  That tower you see there in the mid-distance is Coit Tower.  Just beyond that, in the middle of the bay, you can see Alcatraz.

I’ve never made it out to Alcatraz to take photos, but it is on my list.  I wonder how much freedom (!) I would have out there to roam around with my tripod.  Have any of you gotten out there?

Reminder for Support

We have a bunch of people buy stuff here all the time – from Flatbooks.com to the HDR Video Tutorial. Remember, if you have ANY trouble at all, contact our real humans at support at stuckincustoms.com — we have 24-hour support, and they’ll email you back pretty darn quick. Ask them anything – big or small 🙂

Daily Photo – The Private Pool at Hearst

This is the second photo of this pool I have published. It’s from the other side — the wider side. How cool would it be to have a little party in here. Let’s set that up!

The Private Pool at Hearst

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2010-01-30 01:25:11
• CameraNIKON D3X
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time4
• Aperture8
• ISO100
• Focal Length14.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+2

Get on Deck?

I just wanted to put this out there… that I’d love to be invited to land on a carrier… take photos… see awesome things… okay, I have put that out there 🙂 You can always contact wildcard at stuckincustoms.com 🙂

Daily Photo – The Carrier

I’ve been wanting to process this photo forever — I love carriers.

This one is open to the public, but I arrived too late to get up on the deck… So I was stuck on the ground level — but then a sweet fog rolled in to cover part of the carrier.

Google Ripples

The analysis side of my brain loves this thing. Yesterday, I decided to share the work of a photographer named Jaime Ibarra. And then, this visualization of the information spread was created. Very cool!

With that chart, you can drag the timeline along the bottom to watch how things grow and spread over time. Cool! Also, you can zoom in and click on various bubbles.

Google+ Hangout Live Tonight!

It’s a late one, starting at 11 PM ET, 8 PM PT (Your World Time)
Where: Tune in Live on my Google+ Stream for a live link, so you can watch the video even if you are not one of the 10 that gets in.

Daily Photo – The Tattoo Shop

Speaking of Google, I did a Google+ hangout last night where I worked on this photo. I took it just recently at the San Francisco PhotoWalk with Thomas Hawk. It was a great night… so many sights to be seen there.

As usual, I had two cameras with me. One was for quick street shots with a 50mm prime. The other had my 14-24mm (see Nikon 14-24mm Review) on for these sorts of shots. I find that if I want to be on the sidewalk and take a photo of the store in front of me, I really need this kind of lens to squeeze it all in!

Sorry about the Apple Talk Broadcast

We tried to do a live Google+ hangout from the Apple event, but there were problems. It kinda worked, but didn’t really have all the ooomph that I was hoping for. Oh well, at least we tried. And I know what went wrong… I’m still figuring this stuff out, and we’ll get it better next time.

Daily Photo – Beautiful San Francisco

I just got back from a crazy three days in San Francisco. The trip included everything from visits to Google, YouTube, Facebook, breakfast with Scoble, Smugmug, Microsoft at a Calacanis event (where the upcoming app WON Audience Choice!), then finally a PhotoWalk in SF with Thomas Hawk. It was completely exhausting, but very fun. After the Facebook talk, I headed to downtown San Francisco with Tom Anderson to get this photo. It was a great night!

Beautiful San Francisco

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2011-10-20 21:04:53
• CameraNIKON D3X
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time20
• Aperture8
• ISO200
• Focal Length28.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+1

5000 Beautiful Sunsets Every Day

Sometimes I feel pressure to get every sunset… Not a bad kind of pressure – just a soft sort of pressure. But then, I forgive myself a little if I don’t get it by knowing that every minute there is a beautiful sunset SOMEWHERE on Earth. I think it would be cool to have a website or app that shows you were the most beautiful sunset is RIGHT NOW… and it shows it to you – wouldn’t that be awesome?

Daily Photo – PCH Sunset

Driving down Highway 1 in California gives you a front stage to the sunset. There’s no bad place to stop, so you can just pull out at the right moment, take a shot, and hop back in the car. It’s so easy — it almost feels like cheating!

I’m thinking about a much longer California trip soon. I may start up in Seattle then drive all the way down to LA, taking my time along the way to explore places for photography. Any spots I should not miss?

Daily Photo – Superquad

Towards the end of the PhotoWalk, we ended up in this amazing area… here is my photo that I took… I think it was one of my last of the evening. Thanks again to everyone that came along 🙂

I think we can do all of that!  I’ll talk to the SmugMug guys about sending Anton out to meet me at some exotic spots… these things take a while to execute and plan, but I am on it!

Daily Photo – Big Sur Sunset

Last week I promised I would reveal the photo today that I took during the video above, and here it is.

I guess you can get the sense from that video how windy it was! What a crazy day… I spent all afternoon and evening getting ready for this. There was a decent amount of hiking, preparation, and walking-around to figure out the best place to stand.

Maybe the bad thing about that video is showing how easy it all appears to be… in future videos, you may see some more of the problems that I face and how I deal with them. In some ways, I think that is more real than something that appears to fairy-book perfect!

http://stuckincustoms.smugmug.com/Portfolio-The-Best/your-favorites/10668747_AuyBk/1380714825_rqpSX54/

SmugMug Review

You guys know that I’ve been using SmugMug for years. If you want to try it out, they gave me a discount code of STUCKINCUSTOMS to save you money. To really get the full scoop and compare to Flickr etc etc, see the full SmugMug Review here on the site.

Want to see more behind-the-scenes videos???

So, even though this video below is obviously a promo for SmugMug (they didn’t pay me btw), I thought it was SO COOL that I wanted to share it. The guy that filmed it, Anton Lorimer, is absolutely fantastic.

So, I liked it so much, that I was thinking about bringing him with me on a photo adventure and have him grab a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff. I’d like them to be both scenic and technical. What do you think of this?

I’m sure I could get SmugMug to spring for the cost of sending Anton along with me (I’ll pay for myself as usual.. I never accept paid trips or free hotels, even though I get offers all the time).

Photo Reveal – 1 week from Today

In the video below, you’ll see me in the Big Sur area of California. You’ll see me taking a photo of the surf and rocks at sunset… want to see how it turned out? I’ll publish it here a week from today!

New Video – SmugMug Pro Promo

Well, this is obviously an ad for SmugMug pro (didn’t pay for my appearance in the ad OR me putting it on the website, since you may be wondering)… but, besides the commercial side, it’s also amazingly cool footage. Anton followed me around a double-wicked evening of wind and skin-ripping sand on the beach here in Big Sur. I assumed he knew what he was doing, but when I ended up seeing the footage, I was really blown away!

If you like this “look”, we’ll assemble a lot more behind-the-scenes stuff. In future ones, I’ll focus on the technical details of the shoot, how I compose, how my camera is set up, and these sorts of matters… again, let me know if you want to see this, and I’ll put together a formal plan.