Free $50 Credit at Gelaskins – comment to win

Did you know Gelaskins is selling some of my work as skins for your phones/laptops/tablets? Cool! I want to give away a free $50 credit to a random commenter below. Luke will make a random selection and get back to you soon!

Daily Photo – The Forbidden Wooden City

How long did this full model of the Forbidden City take to build? Can you imagine doing something like this for a school project? And it seems so… flammable!

I took this photo inside the city planning museum in Beijing. Across the street in Tiananmen Square, there were tens of thousands of people, but this museum was totally empty. If you ever do visit one of these Chinese mega-cities, I think they all have these strange “City Planning” museums – they all are filled with really cool models like this.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Video from the Great Wall

Here’s a video I took while up here!

Daily Photo – The New Garden Path Along the Great Wall of China

Just to get to this point required a long walk through a rocky forest. It wasn’t like the super-pristine part of the Great Wall (which is actually quite fake and Disney-like) — where you can drive up in a huge tour bus and park in huge parking lot. No, it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, there was a “path” that was barely discernible (much less so when I walked back in the dark alone!) that wove up through a forest along an old creekbed. I’m not sure I could find it again if I had to!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D800, Photography Tips, Travel

Watch The Show Soon!

Every Monday night at 7 PM PT, 10 PM ET is the weekly show, and tonight we have on a bunch of people from Austin to talk about the photowalk and give away the prizes! I believe we have over 80 to give away, and you’ll get a chance to see a bunch of fun photos from the event. See you soon!

Daily Photo – The Royal Guard in Beijing

The interior space and design of the Capitol Museum is absolutely amazing. I don’t know if they designed the light to do this in the middle of the day or not, but I found it rather striking! If the architects did this on purpose, then even more kudos to them.

I must admit that I do not find all museums to be equally interesting. Some are just plain boring. Others are awesome… it depends on if the subject matter is something that is up my alley. I don’t like the “pressure” of making you feel bad if you aren’t fascinated by every little thing in a museum… that is silly.

Like, for example, I found this museum a little bit boring. I know a bit about Chinese history (I played a lot of Romance of the Three Kingdoms back in the day, and I was always Gu Yu!), but I get a bit confused when it comes to the some of the more bizarre and abstract lineages. Anyway, this museum featured a lot of that. But, on the plus side, the architecture was so cool that it kept me pleasantly distracted!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Light Camera Version 1.2 Updated

Pop on over to http://lightcameraapp.com and you can grab the new version of Light Camera. We’ve completely reworked the way overlay effects operate with the interface – hope you like it!

Daily Photo – Four Bums in Beijing

I was in one of the art-studios area of Beijing when I saw this most unusual statue! As you can see, there are a lot more than four bums in a row, so it was a bum-composition-issue that I had never faced before. Notice the ears too.

Actually this kind of “Avant Garde” art in Beijing is very unusual. It’s strange to find a Chinese artist that goes way outside of the norm to try something new… most of them are traditionally trained and do traditional, predictable work.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Going Back to China Soon

I’ll be heading back to China… Now that I am in New Zealand, I need to figure out the process for getting my Chinese visa. I think I have to send it into the American consolate in Wellington, but not too sure! Getting visas is still such a pain… the cost isn’t the annoying thing as much as the time and procedures associated.

Daily Photo – Birds in the Nest

This is the famous “Bird’s Nest” building from the Olympics in Beijing. After the Olympics are over, these special buildings all seem a bit lonely. I know they still hold events in them from time to time, but that seems more like the exception than the rule. Also, this location is so far away from the center of the city that it is extremely inconvenient. Once you arrive to have a look, you are interested, but always thinking of getting back to the main part of the city… this gives it even more of a forlorn feeling… but maybe that is just me.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D800, Travel

Selling Cans of Fresh Air in China

Related to today’s post, I saw that some people have taken to selling cans of fresh air! Remember Spaceballs?

Actually, I have a fairly pragmatic view of all of this… All industrialized nations go through this pollution curve until the society becomes efficient enough to take care of its own environment. Things don’t get worse and worse. They get pretty bad, and then it ramps back down. Most western societies went through this curve already… I think it’s extra bad in China because they have 10x as many people as any Western civilization that went through the same curve.

I’ll be back in China in a few months… I’ll see if it is really worse than previous years.

Daily Photo – A moody evening at the Great Wall

One of the good things about the haze around parts of China are the moody sunset hours. You rarely get those epic cloud-sunsets, but instead things drift away into black through a myriad assortment of colors.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Reminder for the Stuck In Customs Community

If you’re looking for a place to share your photos, have discussions, get feedback, and this sort of thing, we have a wonderful Stuck In Customs Community that you can join for free. Hope to see you in there! I don’t always get a chance to comment, but I do scroll through there and see everything ! You might be surprised at the number of views you are getting there even if you are not getting many comments or +1′s. I picked a random shot with no comments and grabbed this screenshot (this photo is by Scott Stringham). You can see it has over 200 views!

Daily Photo – Random Sighting in Beijing

I was walking around the arts district in Beijing and saw this cute girl posing up against a wall for her friend. After I was sneaky and took this photo, she looked over and gave me an even bigger smile! hehe… I notice sometimes that girls over there take a lot of photos of each other and act silly. And then, whenever I swoop in and take a picture, they get even sillier. It’s a very strange phenomenon but it’s always fun.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

New updates to OnOne Software

In case you missed it, there are new updates to OnOne software that you may enjoy! It’s one of the tools in my arsenal… along with Photomatix and many more. I keep my latest, most used tools up to date inside the HDR Tutorial.

Daily Photo – The Commune, China

This is a really cool place near Beijing!

It’s an expensive resort, but really quite unique. They had a series of architects come in and create very modern “houses” that are scattered across the hilly countryside. Then, they “repeated” those designs and created many little “rooms” inside each of the houses where you can stay. One of the other great features of the resort is that you can begin a walk up an old river bed for about half a mile before reaching a forgotten, abandoned part of the Great Wall of China.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Black Friday Special and Super Duper Photomatix Coupon

Here’s some good deals for you if you’re looking to expand your photography hobby a bit! Use the discount code “BlackFriday30″ to save 30% on all of our Photography Tutorials, Lightroom Presets, and eBooks over at Flatbooks.com!

Also, have you been waiting for Photomatix Pro? They gave me a code of TREY2012 for 25% off. When this coupon expires, the normal 15% discount for the code STUCKINCUSTOMS will continue. This is the software I use in the HDR Tutorial here on the site (in case you are new!).

More from The Opposite Hotel

This is the second photo I have posted from this hotel – you can see the other one here: The Opposite Hotel.

Daily Photo – Awesome Lobbies of Beijing – The Opposite Hotel

Everything about this hotel was pretty funky. Yes, they were trying too hard to be edgy-funky, but that’s okay, because it kinda worked. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there was subtlety here in the funkiness. The decision to be bold and different was evident in every little detail of the hotel.

Even if you don’t stay at the hotel, make sure you stop by and have a look inside!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Beijing Taxi Video

Here’s a video from when I was in Beijing… trying to get to my hotel… the more I showed him the map, the more confused he got..

Daily Photo – The Internal Weather System

This is another view inside the cavernous symphony hall in Beijing. The place is so enormous that you can see the beginnings of little clouds inside when the lights move a certain way. I actually think only part of it is related to the size – the other part is related to the awful pollution all around Beijing. There is so much particulate in the air, and it fills up inside big places like this. When the distance is obscured by cloud-matter, it makes everything feel more epic and grand (albeit dirty!).

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Getting the Light Right

This is my favorite time of day to shoot. I love it when there is a little bit of light that is both natural and artificial. I always use Photomatix (see my HDR Tutorial if this is all new to you) to process my photos, but I find it is especially receptive to these sorts of lighting conditions.

Daily Photo – The Resting Egg

National Centre for the Performing Arts in China is one of the easiest AND most challenging things to photograph. This is an interesting duality, I think. Obviously, it’s a beautiful structure, and it’s easy to access and circumnavigate, but that is not the “easy” that I mean. I suppose it’s easy because it’s hard to take a bad picture of the the structure. The challenging bit is doing something very interesting. And that comes with the use of light and composition. I have hundreds of photos of this thing — and the challenging part to me is picking “the most interesting” — it’s a fun task that never gets old!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Extended Interview from Australian TV

Here’s the longer cut of the interview… actually, I think this is uncut!

Daily Photo – Chinese Lanterns

Whenever I walk around taking photos, I usually have two cameras with me. My second camera usually has a 50mm prime, or something along these lines. I capture thousands and thousands of little photos, but I hardly ever post them. I don’t know why… maybe it is sort of the one-photo-per-day thing here on the blog. I guess I could post more, but I don’t want it to get too busy… or… well, I don’t know. I don’t have a great reason. But, anyway, here is one of those little photos that I take with my walkin-around-camera from a small shop in Beijing.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel