48 Hours Left At Early Bird Pricing

The cleverly named Trey Ratcliff’s Photography Webinar will increase in price on Thursday to $247 for the 9-day course. Even though it is live, you can still download the sessions later if you miss it.  Sorry the early pricing is ending so soon, but the big event itself starts on Sunday.  It’s gonna be a blast, and you’ll learn some great skills.

Join me today Live

I’ll be on Live today at with Dane Sanders. Check the website for the countdown!

Daily Photo – Exploring the Peninsula at Sunrise

I weaved in and out of these little roads as the sun was coming up in Iceland. I was trying to find a certain rock formation off in the ocean, which I never found. But that’s okay. These roads are very windy, and that makes setting up for a shot very difficult. Every curve of the road is a new geometry, and this causes endless possibilities and problems! When you come across a nice old farmhouse like this, you hope the road is curving the right way so that you get a nice setup with the composition.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

You guys are insane – Thanks!

Wow I didn’t think yesterday’s post about the Photoshop Giveaway to announce the Webinar would generate so much traffic. It shows how many “lurkers” there are on here. You know, guys, you don’t have to wait until I give something away to leave a comment! hehe… no problemo… I already know from the stats that less than 1% ever comment. That’s cool… if you’re quiet, I’ll just assume that everything is a-ok. I’m kind of a quiet person too, really…

A great bootleg video from EG

Daily Photo – The Best Fish Evar

I have a restaurant suggestion!

The best fish I have ever had is in that little viking-house there to the right. You have to duck to get through the door. Once inside, you emerge into a darkened viking-style dining hall (imagine the great hall where Gríma Wormtongue held powah over King Théoden of Rohan).

This spot is pretty well-known restaurant called Tjöruhúsið in the little town of Isafjordur. There is a little window in the back where the fishermen come every morning to deliver the fresh fish in exchange for getting to eat there for free. They bring you the food inside giant iron-clad pans… it was so awesome. I’m going back in a few months and I’m going to gorge myself here with giant dinners before heading out for all-night shooting.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Isafjordur, Nikon D3X, Travel

Peter Lik Update

A few weeks ago I ran a story about Peter Lik using one of my images in a promotional way on is Facebook Fan Page. I pointed out that I thought this was bad-internet-behavior.

I’ve since received countless emails, tweets, FB messages, and more about the subject, so I wanted to give an update. I also updated the original post, but I realize that people don’t always go back and read what happened.

Here is a quick history and the resolution.

Peter’s Facebook Fan Page showed my New York Times Square image and underneath it said, “Peter Takes Times Square”. Also, along the top, it says, “Peter Lik Fine Art Photography’s Photos”, which is both wrong and facebooky-grammatically-incorrect. Once I found out from multiple sources, of course I was a little upset and confused. After all, Peter is an accomplished photographer and there is no need to use someone else’s photos.

After people complained, they finally took down the image. Peter never apologized, but someone from his social media team did come to my Facebook Page and left a wall post (which I found a while later after it had scrolled to page 2). I have posted that exchange on the right.

And, just to be clear, since everyone is not familiar with Creative Commons Non-Commercial, I’m happy to explain it again for the thousands of artists out there that subscribe to it like me. It is simple. People are allowed to use my photos in non-commercial ways for personal use, for blogs, for wallpapers, for fun, as the basis for new paintings, and this sort of thing. Simple. If people are going to use it in this manner, they must give credit to Trey Ratcliff and link back here to http://www.StuckInCustoms.com. Simple. In this case, even giving credit alone would not have been enough, since this was clearly for a commercial purpose.

In a sense, Creative Commons Non-Commercial just puts plain language around common sense.

Daily Photo – The Simplicity of Life

A delicate photo for you today.

There was a silent lake in the north of Iceland around 1 AM where I stopped for a stroll. I had bathed myself in this light for over a week, and this non-stop dream of solstice nights was getting deep into my mind. There is that strange moment between sleep and wake – you know the one – but that moment was elongated to hours on end as the elements drifted around me. Certain feelings around this are hard to explain, but perhaps you know what I mean.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

Monterey PhotoWalk

We have the Monterey PhotoWalk group up now on Flickr! Thanks again for coming out.. that was a lot of fun… enjoyed the conversations and the chance to shoot with you guys!

Daily Photo – Flowers and Carved Stone

I kept driving and driving and driving and weaved my way up past a town in the far northwest fjords. I saw this strangely (and nicely) shaped mountain with that strange early-morning lighting. Then, I spent another hour or so hiking around until I found this special kind of blue flower (EDIT thanks to commenters Scott & Guðjón – it is called the lupine or lúpína in Icelandic). Just when I was about to give up, I found a giant patch of them, so I selected the right lens and set up for this shot.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X

The Webinar Approaches!

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X

Special Photos – Dinner in Akureyri

Normally, I do one new photo a day, but today I wanted to do ten of them! Something a bit different to keep things fresh, perhaps!

So, when I was in Iceland, I went to visit my friend Helga Kvam who lives on a fjord in the far north near a town called Akureyri. She lives in a farmhouse right up against the water. Helga was with her long-time boyfriend Völundur Jónsson, who is also a photographer. Even though they live in a beautiful place, I don’t think they ever take it for granted… this is a nice side-benefit of being a photographer. You can read more about them on their About page on their website.

I slept in their basement one day, and woke up in time for dinner time (I stay awake all night to take photos and sleep during the day). Völundur and Helga were hard at work making a fantastic meal! I pulled out my camera and took some photos of the evening, so I can share it with here below.

If you’d like to see some other photos I took in and around this area, check the Iceland category!

Völundur is outside getting the grill ready. The weather was perfect and Helga opened the windows so we could smell everything. You can see the fjord behind Völundur...	Helga, for being a photographer, is very shy about having her photo taken! So I took this one of her sitting with her nephew in the window sill, as they watched the food cook outside.
While dinner is cooking, Helga's nephew goes outside to play and shows me where he built his tree house earlier in the day.	He prepared a ton of amazing and fresh food. I think the only time they get to cook outside is the summer, and they take full advantage of it.
Helga was telling me about what things have been like after the economic crisis in Iceland recently. She said people have gotten back to the basics, and she knitted these gloves for herself. I tried to convince her to make finger-flapped knit gloves for photographers and I would help her promote on the website! But I don't think I convinced her...	Her house has all sorts of nice details and colors. Even before I met her, I knew she was very into rich textures and colors.
Helga and Völundur go into her kitchen to make last-minute preparations for dinner.	This meat was incredibly tasty and tender. I won't tell you what it was... since people often seem overly judgmental (or stuck in customs, the second meaning of the blog that few people ever get).
Fresh vegetables on skewers. They tasted as good as they look.	And for dessert, we had these insane bacon-wrapped dates. These things are amazing. I did find them one other place -- at a tapas restaurant in San Antonio. But anyway, stay on the lookout for these things!

Also, I just got a note from Helga that her mom has started an Icelandic skin care company called Urtasmidjan. So there you go… you can vist to get some Icelandic products… looks like a girly thing

Filed under the categories: Akureyri, Iceland, Nikon D3S, Travel

iPad 2 in Austin?

Are you one of those hardcore stand-in-line-super-early-at-Apple iPad 2 kinda people? Are you here in Austin? Then let’s talk! I need two of those things… email me at wildcard (at) stuckincustoms.com — if you can grab some for me, that would be cool. I’ll pay you back of course, and I’ll even throw in an autographed book.

Beta List Complete

We had a bunch of comments on the announcement for the iPad version of 100 Cameras in 1. Our beta-list is complete, and you should hear soon if you are on the list. We can’t get (and don’t need) everyone in… so it is a very small selection, I’m afraid. Anyway, no worries, full version will be out soon enough!

Daily Photo – Where They Dry the Fish (Ósvör in Bolungarvík)

I ate a lot of fish in Iceland. I even had rotten shark. You’ve heard of this? They bury shark and let it rot until it ferments. And then you eat it. And then you have to drink this Icelandic vodka called Brennavin or something like this. It’s lethal. I remember because I was sitting by a couple of Irish girls that were traveling flamenco dancers and they were laughing at me while I powered through this one-two combination. I don’t drink… but, it was part of the shark experience. And I think of it more as a healing potion than whatever the hell it really was.

While in the northwest fjords, I came across these little huts with intermittent slats. This is where the fisherman hang the fish to dry in the incessant sea-winds that blow up the coast. Pretty cool, eh?

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel

Update – Available Now!

Go Get it Now in iTunes!

Update 2 – Testing Closed

Now that the app is out, all the beta testing has closed off – thanks again!

Join our private testing group!

100 Cameras in 1 for the iPhone has been a huge success, so it gave us the chance to redesign everything from the ground up to take the experience to a new level for the iPad. And, well, with the upcoming iPad 2, it’s gonna be even more awesome (even though it will also work on the existing iPads, especially since we notice a lot of people enjoy re-processing existing photos). I won’t say more than that now, but you can get a hint as to some of the varied goodies in the screenshots below.

Want to join the testing with us? Just leave a comment below, and I’ll randomly select people and contact you via the email you used (or FB) when leaving the comment. So, it’s just not all fun and games… you need to crank hard on the app, try to break it, send us feedback, bugs, and all that sort of thing to be a good tester.

Good luck!

The Week of HDR Tips continues!

Today is Tip #4: Let the Time Flow. It’s been a great week so far, yes? Yes. Rick Sammon and I are each providing a good tip to help you take your photography to the next level… I hope you are getting something out of it. I enjoyed putting these together!

I thought it was interesting that yesterday, people discovered inside the tip that the object in the middle of the arena was a dirt-zamboni. I guess I looked at it so long, that I figured everyone would get to that conclusion.. but interesting that the mystery worked even better than I suspected!

Daily Photo – Icelandic boy after building treehouse

When I stayed at Helga’s delightful farmhouse near a northern fjord in Iceland, her brother came over and brought his son. They built a treehouse in the backyard and filled it with all kinds of goodies — all in one day! The sun was low, as it always is there that time of year. He was running around, silently playing in the back yard. I thought his eyes were so other-worldly blue that I just had to take a photo.

This area was very close to the little town of Akureyri.  It took me about three visits to this place before I was able to pronounce it correctly.  I feel like a damned fool trying to say some of those Icelandic words!

Filed under the categories: Akureyri, Iceland, Photography Tips, Travel

Daily Photo & daily photos

I’m still committed to one new photo a day, every day of the year. It’s tough! Even though I thew a good 8,000 of them at you yesterday, that won’t slow me down… I’ve got a lot of cool projects and ideas that excite me, but the daily photo is still the main ship…

Making-of video

I got a lot of questions yesterday about how I made that video… so I will put together a making-of video soon. I’ll show you how I did everything so you can try the same thing on your next adventure. It’s kind of a fun idea, and I’m glad it worked out.

Updated Tutorials

We are making some upgrades to the French tutorial, and the Italian one is almost done. It is in the final stages of getting up on the site… this is yet another thing on my to-do list. You should see my to-do list… it’s never-ending, I tell you.

Daily Photo – Ducks on a Foggy Morning

There is a soft silence that covers still waters in the early morning. If you’ve ever been by a slow-moving river before the sun is over the horizon, maybe you know what I mean. It reminds me a bit of the name of the wind, in that it folds one silence into another.

When driving across the southern part of Iceland towards Wik, I went through an area of several miles where there was a sudden fog. I felt like it might not last long, so I went on a quick hike over near a slow-flowing river. Some ducks were having a morning swim off towards the misty horizon.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel

24 Hours till the new video!

Usually, I just release the video on the day of… with no prior announcement. This time I’m trying something different… a bit of a lead-up to the event. I don’t know if it’s better or worse… just different. So maybe you have something to look forward to on Sunday, besides being the best sleep-in day ever unless your parents wake you up to go to church and you say moooohooommm nooooo…

Daily Photo – Red Fields on the Tundra

Across the middle of Iceland, there are all sorts of terrain. I don’t know if this is specifically Tundra. All my expertise in Tundra comes from Civilization where I know you can only grow one wheat, and sometimes there is a fur resource because of the seals.

When the sun is very low on the horizon, my normal temptation is to point the camera in that direction. But in the opposite direction, when the light and terrain is right, it casts a faint reddish glow across the ground. It’s a very nice effect and I did my best to capture it.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

First in App Store for Photography!

Thank you guys and gals very much for the support – it wouldn’t have happened without you!

This last weekend, 100 Cameras in 1 (iTunes link), got into the first place spot in the hotly contested photography category for the iPhone. We’re also in the top 10 in 40 different countries – insane (see stats). I never expected any of that… It’s all very exciting and the whole team here is ecstatic.

We’ve heard all sorts of good suggestions, and a great update is coming up soon. The update will be free as always. Besides several new features, we also have some new achievements that we’ve been mulling over. With some good prompting from guys like Charlie Sorrel and Mike Schramm, we’re going to push them through. I don’t think this app will ever be done, but we’ll continue to evolve it as better and better ideas are folded into the mix.

Below are a few of my recent creations with the app… I put them out on Twitter and FB on occasion, but thought I might share them in the main blog here.

Created by mixing together two different effects via the new "Add Effect" button on the My Creation screen.

To make this, I first used the black & white effect in the Zen Effects group before adding two other effects to give it both light leak and some color.

Daily Photo – The Icelandic Phallus

I’ve probably just accidentally offended the fine Icelandic people with that name. Sorry about that… but I don’t know what it is. Most old cultures have statues with some kind of phallus, so it was a good guess. It’s a doubly-good-guess since Iceland is the home to the famous “Icelandic Phallological Museum” (wikipedia link, but don’t click on it), which sounds like a pretty happening place.  I told you not to click on it.

I found this in the middle of another one of those 6-hour sunsets. I had spent the first part of the day in a far northern fjord, at the farmhouse of a good friend.  About 200 km later, I found this spot near a crook in the road, standing up like cairn stones against time.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel

Woopra Review

I still use Woopra quite a bit to make sure the site is nice, spiffy, and fun to everyone. It’s hard for me to tell what works and what doesn’t work unless I measure. I put this new video below on the Woopra Review page. It’s free for all the basic services (which is all most people need).

Daily Photo – Remote Farmhouse with Waterfall

On one of my first nights in Iceland, I was driving along the southern coast. Pristine farms are plopped along the side of the road every few miles. As I began to approach one of the volcanic areas, the terrain changed enough so there were huge waterfalls in many of the vistas. This one was nestled deep behind the farmhouse, and it seemed like a nice little spot for a photo.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel, Vik, Wik