HDR Workshop Registration Open – $999 per person – Edit – SOLD OUT

Edit: The HDR Workshop sold out in 11 minutes. Crazy! First, you guys crashed the server for 45 minutes!!! And then we went live at 12:46 AM. By 12:57, all the slots were gone.

We will have an HDR DVD of the Workshop. I think it’s gonna be really good. To stay on top of that and see when it is first avail, be sure to sign up for our free newsletter!

New York Times Article

Did you guys see the New York Times article online about Stuck In Customs and HDR Photography? Cool! John Tierney wrote a great little piece and asked if publications like the New York Times should consider using HDR Photos. They have an open commenting system over there, so pop in and give them your two cents (the newspapers need it!).

Daily Photo – Crossing the Bridge into Old Lyon

This was a pretty tough shot to get! This was a little pedestrian bridge that crossed from the new part of Lyon, France, into the older part. It swayed and buckled in the breeze. Plus, it was night, so you kind of have to leave the shutter open for a long time. I hate to crank up the ISO, but I had to so everything would stay sharp.

That night I walked around for about five hours deep past midnight. It was just me and my Russian friend… walking around… solving the world’s problems… while he gave me all kinds of hard-ass Russian advice on how to solve my own!

Crossing the Bridge into Old Lyon

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2020-07-08 18:40:13
• CameraNIKON D2Xs
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time3
• Aperture4.5
• ISO125
• Focal Length13.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+1

The inside of the grand cathedral of Notre Dame is a great place for HDR. Normally, I don’t like getting other people in the shot, but sometimes, it’s unavoidable. So, since I use a tripod, I don’t mind a bit of motion here and there… seems to give the place a sense of movement and life. Being in a big Catholic church also reminds me of the four years of Latin I had to take at my Jesuit high school back in the day. If you guys ever want to hear a dead language, just let me know!

In other news, I am collecting a few ideas for Twitter or Facebook contests that you have seen in the past. The publisher (Peachpit) and I are poking around for some of the best and most successful ideas for book giveaways when it is released. Frankly, I don’t want any of those brash contests that are “My 10,000th Follower gets a Free Book!” or “Retweet this 20 times to win!” — none of that nonsense. I want something that is fun, engaging, and works! Any and all ideas are welcome! You can send them here or via Twitter.

I don’t sleep much, even when I am home here in Texas.  I get a good 5-6 hours of sleep a night; but when I travel, I’m so charged up I get less.  These foreign city streets seem to have a romantic sense about them, so that impedes even more on my sleep since there are so many great places to shoot.

This perfect little European medieval street was in Lyon, if I am not mistaken.  Sometimes I forget here in my old age.  There’s a 10% chance it is in Paris. There’s a long path from click to final image and my memory fades betwixt.

I was on the hill in the Montmartre part of Paris just after the sun had set. I pointed the camera over the sprawl of the city just as the lights were coming on for the evening. I made it my personal mission to walk down into the city that evening, meander around, and visit at least three pastry shops and eat a silly number of desserts. I tricked myself into thinking that I might be burning a lot of calories by doing so much walking. It’s amazing how easily I was able to justify French desserts.

This is an awesome church in Paris. These places are great to photograph. I believe this one was taken inside Le Sacre Coeur up near the altar. At the PhotoWalk, I had a few questions about how to get a tripod into a church, of all things! I wrote up a 10-step guide for this sort of activity a while ago that you can view at your leisure!

I’m spending the weekend in Atlanta. It’s about 10 degrees cooler than Austin here, which means it’s still inhumanly hot! I did get a chance to do a little shooting this evening. I’ll see if I can grab the sunset tomorrow night! I don’t yet have a good Atlanta shot… I’ll hope for some good clouds!

These Parisian facades along the Seine are about as classically European as it gets. When these buildings are lit up at night, they are really beautiful in their orange hues.

I took this after leaving Notre Dame and walking across a bridge heading north. I took so many photos of scenic spots… I could hardly figure out what to process first! I actually lament not being here at sunset, but the deep dusky blue still worked out pretty good.

Thank you again for all the wonderful comments you take the time to leave on here. I do read every one of them – my apologies for not being able to leave more timely and longer responses. I started a thread over in the HDR group on Flickr and I go check it once every so often… A guy got onto me there for responding slowly! Jeezo… Anyway, thanks y’all for your patience. In the meantime, I’ll try my best to keep servin’ up new photos for you every day!

This is the Sacred Heart Church that sits high on a hill in a very artsy area of Paris. Actually, all of Paris seems artsy to me. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a “full time artist” living in Paris. Wouldn’t that be just about the coolest thing in the world? Or maybe you would become spoiled in just a short while and take it all for granted. It’s very hard to empathize or sympathize with any mystical miserables that might be in that situation.

I usually take these with a single RAW, but I kind of like the motion in these people… on occasion it seems okay to me, like here.

Last, I don’t know how real this report is, but I saw the Nikon D4X (a 30 megapixel monster) was leaked out on Nikon Rumors. I am waiting for Nikon to send me an email and hook me up! It may be the only thing that makes me get rid of the sweet lady D3X!

Lyon is one of those wonderful European cities where things look romantic and timeless from either side of the river that inevitably flows down the center.

Here is a view from one side looking across and up the hill to where the Notre Dame de Lyon resides.  I’m glad they take the trouble to light it up… it gives the city a lot of character at night I think!

This wonderful landmark is always fun, but challenging, to photograph. It’s right in the middle of a roundabout that is as dangerous as that thing Bond got stuck in to test G-forces in Moonraker.

There was a recent rain, and the Champs-Élysées was shiny and perfect in the cool dusk air. I set up and kept the f stop as high as possible so that the French passerby would fall out of the frame during the long exposure.

I had been hiking around Paris with way too much equipment for several hours. Whenever, I’m in photo-gatherin’ mode, I am fairly tireless. I go from spot to spot like a Navy SEAL… but this day, I actually planned to have lunch at Chateau Rodin, the famous estate of the great French sculptor.

I had some food in my backpack that I had picked up at a small store a few hours before… a fresh baguette, a selection of cheeses, some fruit, and few truffles for dessert. I sat down at the edge of the fountain with my tripod up, aimed, and ready to go. I relaxed for a bit, listened to some Gotan Project on my iPod, and waited for the clouds to get just right.