Tinychat Video Interview

Yesterday, we did a little video interview with @Peachpit, the book publisher. It went pretty well, except for the Porn Spam. But…. that drifts away after a few minutes. Special thanks to Pat O’Brien who uploaded a recording here.

Daily Photo – The Forgotten

This was brought up in the chat session yesterday — Black and White HDRs! Yes, they are possible, and they are a lot of fun!  I don’t do it that much because I am so in love with vibrant colors.. but sometimes, on a lark, I’ll do it.  The one below, of a forgotten temple in Cambodia, is a simple black and white with a bit of a sepia tone.  Enjoy!

One morning when I was walking around Angkor Wat, I saw this monk there, chatting away on his mobile phone. I thought it was just all so unusual — I had to take a shot! Many monks from all over Asia come here on pilgrimage. I suppose he could have been talking to someone in his home precinct. Are they called precincts? I don’t know.

Also, if any of you have read the new Neal Stephenson book, you will get the “Jeejah” reference. It’s a very interesting book about, well… I am not ruining anything here, but it starts out with the tale of a monk. They are not familiar with all the technologies used by the outside (extramuros) world, and they call mobile phones “jeejahs”. There is a whole array of new words in there for the new world he has created… his books are thought provoking as always.

These places were a joy to explore. My friend Ben Willmore is heading to the temples of Angkor soon, so I am hooking him up with some of the locals there that helped get me around. I’m sure he’ll have as much fun exploring these places as I did. While it was fun, there was sometimes not a stable place to step. I don’t have the strongest ankles in the world (thanks to a bunch of soccer injuries), so it got a little sketchy in spots! When you see some of those distant mysterious doorways, it’s hard not to want to trample over to have a closer look.

This was my driver in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He’s a heck of a nice guy. We had a growing retinue as the weekend wore on, and he was always there to help out! First it started out with just my guide, Ratanak (who recently set up his own Cambodia Tour Guide site here – I recommend him!), and then we added one monk and then another. By the end, we had five us piled into his car and we were having a great time.

He was there every morning at 4:30 AM to pick me up for first light and there every night until sunset. We kind of bonded because of the one-eye thing… (I also only see from one eye). I asked about it and he said it happened when he was a young boy. It’s been gradual, but he has gotten used to it; He seemed to be at as much ease as the monks in the backseat with me. Below are a few of the places he took me… thanks again mate!

Morning at Angkor Wat was a very cool experience. It was very muggy — the kind of muggy that makes you just give up and give in to being covered in sweat. I wasn’t going to any dinner parties, so I figured it was okay. Moving around the complex to get photos from many perspectives was a lot of fun… this place was a treat to compose.

In vaguely related news, a friend of mine in Shanghai just opened a new spa and used my images throughout. The one that is linked here at “Spa City 5.5” is another from this area of Cambodia. It’s not the highest quality photo of a high quality photo, but you kinda get the gist… If you want to see the original of that photo of the Angkor Wat Temple, just clicky click there!

The temples sprawl all around Cambodia. This is quite the holy spot for Buddhists who travel here from locations all around the world. You can tell what sect they are from based on their robes. I was able to sit with one for a few hours and we watched dozens of monks walk by and he could tell me exactly where each one was from based on the slight color variation in their robes and the way it was folded.

Also, if you all want to see some of the behind-the-scenes activity here and see the book-cover selection process for “A World in HDR“, visit the Stuck In Customs Facebook Fan Page, where we have a discussion forum. Once you are in there, just click on “Discussions”, and you can see the four images we were considering for the cover. Feel free to give your opinions in there… I put one of the other favorites here below!  These were all designed by the great Fabian Barral, who I feel very lucky to work with on the book.

That FB Fan Page is also a good place to have “General Discussions”. The only bad thing about the blog is that each discussion is tied to a single post. That’s great, and people always seem to have interesting ideas and experiences to share. But I wanted you to know that you are more than welcome to start up any discussion you wish inside the FB Fan Page Discussions area…

This is an old library found in a remote temple complex in the wilds of Cambodia.

It’s hard for me to imagine what a library was like back then.  A library in the 12th century must have been very interesting.  Almost 1,000 years ago, I imagine it was probably filled with all sorts of fascinating scrolls and documents.  Without the Internet, it must have been the most interesting thing to do on a boring day.  I wonder what it would be like to rip back in time and show them the iPhone and then show them some ancient-scroll app from the App Store.  I’m pretty sure the AT&T connectivity would be about as good as it is in 2009.

Angkor Wat was built to honor the god Vishnu and his shrines fill many of the hallways and crossroads within the temple complex.  This was shot in the inner part of the temple, where the walls came together to form a quincunx.  The symmetry of this place was wonderful, as you can tell, so it was a real joy to move around and get a bunch of compositions that made good mathematical sense.  This is something I think about a lot when I shoot…  taking the entropy of the world and reducing it something that is mathematically idealized inside of the frame dimensions.

In other news, we have two Stuck in Customs Newsletter (sign up here – it’s free) styles for you to choose from!  We have Choice 1 and Choice 2.  Which do you like better?  I’m curious to know your thoughts…

These are the kinds of places that are too cool to be true. I think these are called “banyan trees” (no doubt one of my smart readers will correct me if I’m wrong!), and their seeds fell centuries ago on top of these old tombs. Although not part of the main complex, the temple of Ta Prohm is still considered part of Angkor Wat. It’s a distance away, but, in many ways, cooler than the main temple.

Maybe I was lucky, the the days I spent there hardly had any tourists around. There were a few monks, but most of them were not Cambiodian and had traveled there from other monasteries all over the world.

Probably the coolest thing about the place was the ability to go anywhere and do anything. No little chamber, passageway, doorway, or underground mystery was off limits. It was definitely one of the best places for spontaneous adventure that I have ever been.

Note this was made with Lucis Pro 6.0… a few months ago, I did Lucis Tutorial, in case you want to know more.

It’s sort of hard to find time to meditate nowadays, eh?  I mean, there is a lot of stuff going on.  I wonder if the old-school Buddhists would be as good at meditating if they had broadband.  It’s quite easy to distract yourself online.  By the way, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for distracting yourself with the blog!  I guess I’m happy to be a source of distraction for you.

And, should you find the inspiration to meditate a little, maybe this shot from Siem Reap, Cambodia will help.