Awesome App – Hotel Tonight

I’ve been using this app, Hotel Tonight, for a while now. It’s a really neat concept – every day at noon, hotels from all over the US release their unsold inventory for sale in this app at rock-bottom prices. If you’re able to wait until the last minute to book, you can get some amazing deals… it really saved the day during my recent trip to NYC. New York hotels can get quite expensive, but I got a great price using the app.

Chinese People Love Them Some Apple

So I don’t know if I ever mentioned this on the blog or not. I don’t think I have. But whenever I walk into coffee shops or these sorts of places in China, a good 50% of the crowd has out their Apple devices. They proudly work/play along on them, having a grand old time. It’s so mega-trendy there that I can see this is just the beginning there…

Daily Photo – Shopping Scene from Beijing

Speaking of parallel universes (the question from yesterday), I often imagine I have side-stepped into one when I travel to other cities, especially as global commerce becomes more homogenized. For example, maybe you can see the Apple store in the background there. When you walk in, everything is exactly the same except for the language and all the Chinese people (of course). Now, this may seem like a totally obvious thing, but it is one of those other universes that is right in the middle of our own.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Back on Schedule

When I was getting moved into my new place in NZ, my posts became a little irregular. I never missed a day, but sometimes I was a little late rather than my normal midnight-central-time schedule! Anyway, things should be back to normal now… I was burning the candle at both ends… (not that I’m doing any less now… I just got that bit of my life under control!)

Daily Photo – The Opera Scene

The Chinese Opera almost has more photo opportunities than Burning Man. There are at least half-as-intense in their costumes, and every pose they get into seems like it is ready for a photo!

I took a great many photos that evening, and I still have many more to process. As I scrubbed through in Lightroom, this one really jumped out!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Beginner Class Giant Success!

Thanks again everyone for jumping into the New Training Course we announced a few days ago. It’s been a huge success and I really want to thank you all for all the support. It was a lot of fun to make, and I’m glad you’re getting a lot out of it!

Daily Photo – The Great Wall Stretches Across the Sunset

Beautiful China! Isn’t the Great Wall an awesome thing? It’s so epic in every way. I do what I can to make it feel as epic as it deserves. On one of my nights there, the sun dipped halfway behind a hill. I saw it happening while I was walking along the wall by myself, so I set up for this shot…

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

New York PhotoWalk!

It’s very soon! Thanks for all the feedback when I asked the other day…

See PhotoWalk Details Here – and see you soon! I’m packing now for the trip from New Zealand! It’s a long trip… ! No worries, I have a good book…

Daily Photo – Dark and Light in Lijiang

Here’s a photo that I edited live during the class a few days ago. The motions I went through are also inside of one those “Trey’s Lightroom Presets” I mentioned a few days ago… you can do so much in Lightroom nowadays that it is kind of scary!

This is one of the main streets in the city of Lijiang. During the day, it looks quite traditional, but at night, everything lights up and becomes wonderfully alive.

Filed under the categories: China, Lijiang, Travel

Invite to the Variety Hour

Over on Google+, I’ve started doing these weekly invites to the Variety Hour. You can accept over there, and it automatically shows up in your calendar… I think it’s a pretty cool feature.

As always, watch here on the blog too. The upcoming show has several cool and secret prizes to hand out!

Daily Photo – Musician at the Chinese Opera

It was my second visit to this particular opera and my third visit to a Chinese opera. I was fortunate enough to be able to move freely around the venue, as long as I did not get in the way of the performers. That wasn’t very easy, since the performers would often just start running down and around the aisles! They would dart this way and that, run around columns come in and out of random doors and re-use the same pathways that I was navigating. So I had to be on constant alert!

There was one girl that was playing a very unusual Chinese instrument. I’ll never get the name of it right, so I won’t even try… but she had this most unusual hat that I thought was quite nice…

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D3S

Never to be seen again

I processed this live last night during the Art of Photography class during the Q&A period. Even though we will be selling the videos in the future, none of the live Q&A will be seen again, except for people that registered. During the final session last night, I decided to edit this photo and show everyone the entire process. I had never processed it before, and I was so pleased. I decided to post it today! But, alas, only people that have already registered for the class will get to see the full video…

Did you enjoy the class?

Pop over to the Art of Photography and leave a comment, or maybe record a little YouTube video and give us a link. I’d love to see what you think! Thanks again for joining me – that was fun!

Daily Photo – The Nameless Pagoda Sleeps

Tom and I visited this Pagoda late one evening in Li Jiang. There was zero wind, so the perfect reflection made us happy. The thing that did not make us happy was having to get on the ground with our tripods in the lowest position. I do try to avoid getting on the ground as often as possible… but when the scene is right, I guess I have no choice!

Filed under the categories: China, Lijiang, Travel

Flight of the Conchords

I’m excited to go see the Flight of the Conchords here in Queenstown on Sunday night. It should be a great time… I don’t know if I can grab photos or not, but I’ll take my camera(s) just in case.

If Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have a problem with me taking photos, I’ll just explain that, in real life, I’m not that different than Jemaine’s character in Dinner With Schmucks.

Daily Photo – The Black Void of Couches

This is the amazing little restaurant that was attached to the opera in Beijing. It was built inside of an ancient farmhouse that has been converted into one of these ultra-stylish modern restaurants.

By the way, this is one of my strangest photo titles ever… I was feeling a little weird.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Live on Stage at the Google+ Photographers Conference!

Watch me tonight at 8 PM PT (11 PM ET) live on the stage at the Yerba Buena Center. Jump into my Google+ stream around that time to watch See you soon!

People and Landscapes

If you are primarily into taking photos of landscapes, like me, I encourage you to also take lots of photos of people.  It’s a good way to keep a different kind of memory of the place.  I take MANY photos of people, but I don’t share a lot…  Maybe I should do it more… but in this one-photo-per-day system I set up on the blog, I usually choose to share landscapes instead of people.

Daily Photo - Man in Hutong

These are some of the most off-the-map areas in and around the cities of China.  These Houtongs originally meant “water wells” and were established during China’s dynastic period.  They still exist today as little cultural centers where old families live and work and sit on the steps and watch the world go by…

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

100 Cameras in 1 now on Windows!

100 Cameras in 1 recently passed over 1 million downloads. I’m so glad you all like it! We’re working hard to bring the app to every popular platform. I’m excited to let you know that 100 Cameras in 1 is now available on Windows. You can download it today via the Intel AppUp store!

On TV in China

I don’t think I ever posted this ridiculous behind-the-scenes scene when I was interviewed for Chinese TV.  It was filmed by my assistant with an iPhone, so it is awfully shaky.  Also, I talked a little extra-slow for the translator…  not that it helped me be more understandable or anything…

Daily Photo – Private Gardens in the Forbidden City

On a recent trip to China, I was invited to a private residence inside the Forbidden City.  I had a two-hour tea service that was pleasant and relaxing.  After this, I was allowed to wander the private gardens and inner cloisters for a while.  I took as many photos as I could, and here is one of them.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

Museum Photography

Do you like to take photos in museums?  It’s very challenging…  To me, I like to try to take a photo of the actual museum or a photo of some art and its relation to the museum.  I find taking photos just of the art itself to be a little boring. It seems so obvious… and it seems like kind of a disservice to the art itself, unless you are adding something new or seeing it in a new light. It depends on the art, of course. A photo of a painting always falls flat, but a photo of a statue can be interesting.

Daily Photo – He Watches

And so it was with the emperor here in the Capital Museum in Beijing.

Do you know how hard it was to get permission to use a tripod in here? It was very very hard. And, the permission part had to be in Chinese, which adds a whole new layer of complexity to the permission-gaining-process. But, luckily I had a little team there helping me out with this stuff, and that made life a lot easier. After all the paperwork was squared away and three redundant layers of government officials were satisfied, the light was perfect for this shot. I rushed over to take it before the ink was dry!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D3X, Travel

YouTube Reminder

You can visit youtube.com/stuckincustoms and click “Subscribe” at the top.  Also, while there, you can dig around and find some older videos you might have missed.  Hope you have fun!

Daily Photo - Selling Flowers in South China

It was a wet, humid, but cool night when I was walking through Feng Huang.  It was one of those nights where you are not sure if you want to wear a sweatshirt or just something light.  Wearing something heavy holds the threat of getting moist and making you more uncomfortable… wearing something light holds the threat of keeping you too cold.

I saw this lady selling flowers on the side of the road.

Filed under the categories: China, Feng Huang, Travel

iPad for Photos

I remember when I was in this spot, I saw two different people using their iPads to take photos.  They were not Americans — they were Chinese people.  And then, after that, I started noticing this more and more.  I think Americans are more “embarrassed” (for lack of a better word) to use their iPads for photography, but this is just anecdotal… I’ll have to look around more to see if this trend is consistant across cultures!

Daily Photo - Along the River in Lijiang

While I walked along one of the many little streams that flowed through the village, restaurants, cafes, shops, and homes lined the sides.  Each one was decorated a little bit differently with unique lanterns, fauna, decor, windows, furniture, and flowers.  You could stop almost anywhere to take a photo!  So, well, I did.

Switching lenses is still a bit of a pain.  The two lenses I used the most there were the 14-24 and the 28-300.  But many shots were kind of right around that 20-35mm zone, which menat I was never really sure of which lens to use… so I would end up swapping back and forth a lot until it felt right!

Filed under the categories: China, Lijiang, Travel