I was over on Treasure Island one evening taking photos when I saw the sun sinking through a lot of moisture in the air. I also saw Alcatraz out in the water, so I jumped in a car to drive around and find a spot where everything lined up together. Turned out not too bad and ended up being a great night too!
I spend a lot of time in San Francisco trying to work out how to get into the higher buildings, sometimes it’s as easy as just booking a hotel room, usually though it involves a lot of persuasion with the staff in a lobby. Always a fun challenge. 🙂
Hey awesome blog reader… you’ll probably be aware that I’ve been delving into the world of NFTs in the past few months. So far, it’s been both a success and an interesting adventure. That continues today with my 2nd drop on OpenSea. This set of NFTs is based around 50 of my favorite cities spanning all seven continents. There are a wide range of configurations (and prices) available and I’d love it if you’d check them out. If you thought an NFT mixed with physical art was odd last time then how about several NFTs, wrapped in an NFT… mixed with some Aave tokens which should appreciate over time??!
The first drop on OpenSea did better than expected and broke $100,000USD in the first three days. This second one already has a lot of interest as more and more collectors are getting into the NFT world. Jump on in! I’ll make a detailed video soon that talks more about what I’ve learned, mistakes I’ve made, some new ideas, and other interesting stuff from this wild wild west of cryptofun.
Also, if you’re an NFT curious artist, be sure to sign up for Passport where I’ve been sharing videos about my NFT experience so far. If you’re thinking about listing your own, you may find those helpful. Speaking of your own NFTs, I’m now starting to invest back into other projects so if you launch something cool tag me on Twitter and I’ll be sure to take a look. 🙂
If you’re a Passport Member then you’ll see a fun sneak peek of an upcoming drop over there. I have a new strategy that will either be awesome or crash and burn. We’ll see! 🙂
Here’s a sneak preview of the drop and a little bit about the pricing strategy. I don’t really know if it will work or not. I have very low expectations… so I guess we will see!
Continuing with the best-of situation, here are some of my favorite photos of San Francisco!
Sam and I are excited to release our newest creation: Machine Elf 34: Master Owl.
The owl knows everything and is often the one who allows you to see it. Graced by the owls presence, Machine Elf 34 takes us on an unpredictable adventure that delves inside the alien mind to see what hides within. This is our most mathematically complex fractal so far and is a combination of the Xenodreambuie in a hybrid with Atan2Power 2. As with all the others, watch in full screen with the volume up and allow yourself to fall away into the world.
These are also available in 360 for a cool VR app called TRIPP. If you have an Oculus Quest, Go or Rift, you can download TRIPP which features guiding experiences to make you happier, calmer and more focused. Grab that here: https://the-machine-elf.com/TRIPP
For more Machine Elf creations, including physical installations, check out the website: https://the-machine-elf.com/
Made in the Mountains of Queenstown, New Zealand.
Here’s a fun trip down memory lane when I spent an entire day at the Pinterest HQ in San Francisco. This is just when they are getting started so everyone looks a bit younger! 🙂
This is a really good deep fake. It’s really to the point now where you can’t believe anything you see! This is Robert Downey Jr and Tom Holland in Back to the Future.
This is an older photo that I recently re-worked for a show I am doing in LA. There were a few cities they wanted to be represented, and this was one of my favorites from San Francisco. I think a lot of people think you get fog every day there, but you definitely do not, so it requires quite a bit of patience.
I made a bunch of changes over to the “bio” area of the About Me page here on the site. I never quite know what to say there… now I have a bullet point list of all kinds of stuff.
Man, I really loved that Robin Williams guy. I just watched a documentary about him on the plane that was super sad for some reason. There’s not a lot of guys like that out there. We need more of them! It’s interesting too how a lot of these extreme creatives end up committing suicide. I am not nearly that creative, but I am, objectively, kind of creative. But I’ve never even had the slightest suicidal feelings, which turns out to be a rather good thing for me and people around me!
I got the Mavic 2 Pro Zoom (see it on my Kit.com) for one main reason: It has a cool feature where it zooms into 48mm and then takes 9 photos in a grid so you can stitch them together later as a panorama. In my first test, which you’ll see below:
1) I did a regular photo, which came out to about 4,000 pixels across (3992 to be exact)
2) Then I did the zoom-pano, stitched it together in Lightroom, and ended up with a photo that was about 9,500 pixels (9486 to be exact).
I find this to be incredibly exciting!
Compare it to my Sony A7r Mark III. It takes 42-megapixel photos, which translates to about 8,000 pixels across (7952 to be exact). This means that, effectively, the Mavic 2 Pro Zoom takes higher-rez photos than the Sony A7r Mark III.
Here is a single photo (24mm) taken from the same spot as today’s Daily Photo in the bottom of this post. I haven’t made any enhancements to it or anything…
I’m not 100% sure this is the stairway, as I ended up here by accident! If I am wrong, feel free to correct me.
This was my first test of the new 9-photo panorama. I have done a bit of touch-up to it using Aurora HDR and some other tools. Also, I did some fixes to the horizon. If you look at the first image above, you’ll see the horizon seems off. I think it’s actually correct, but the way the land slopes to the left makes it look like the camera was askew a bit. Anyway, I made an adjustment using the perspective cropping tool in Photoshop.
I’ll be heading out to San Francisco tomorrow for about a week to attend this Burning Man Art Auction – The Artumnal! It should be a great event, and I have a few pieces in the auction. I think there are still some tickets available – see you there! All the money goes to Burning Man artists (none for me).
How cool is this gal? This picture doesn’t even illustrate how graceful she was. I guess I haven’t seen a lot of longboarding, but there is almost kind of a dance that takes place while they are rolling from place to place with an occasional stunt thrown in. There were probably over 100 longboarders out. In the background, you may notice the famous “Bird’s Nest” from the Olympic Games.
