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January 2022 : Saturday
Jan 2022 : Saturday
Cool Kid in Bangalore
Daily Photo – Cool Kid in Bangalore
Shortly after I took this image the mom revved up the bike, popped a wheelie and sped off into the distance…
The Gardens of Bangalore
Random Tip 3/3
I’m gonna start a new tradition on 3/3 where I give you three random tips. This tradition will go swimmingly until NEXT 3/3 when I will forget all about it. First up…
How do you insert 360 metadata into a Photo
I’ve been using my Panono to make 360 photos. It works great, and when I download from the Panono site, it’s ready to upload to FB and it will recognize it as a 360 file. However, you may see in this Photo of the Baths that I went into Photoshop and erased myself. That deleted all the 360 data. So how to get it back in? My man Stu and I looked into it and here’s how you do it.
There are a few ways to inject 360 information into an image which has lost it during post processing. More technical people can use ExifTool, a command line tool. There is also http://thexifer.net/ an online service which allows you to upload an image and edit the data. By far the easiest though is a local application such as Exif Pilot ( http://www.colorpilot.com/exif.html ). Simply open Exif Pilot, navigate to/select your image and then click “Edit EXIF/ITPC.”
Click the PhotoSphere tab and set the “panorama projection type” to “Equirectangular”. Click “ok”.
Tip 3 is in Passport Section
I added a video for Passport Members but I can give you the skinny here… Tip 3 is all about Google Fi my new Mobile Phone service! Note it’s not a paid placement and I pay full price for everything… but I love it!
Google Fi Tip
And here’s Tip #3! Like I said above, this is not a paid thing from Google or anything… I just love Google Fi! What is it? It’s a new sim card/mobile service that automagically connects to the fastest mobile service in any country around the world. You only pay Google, then they turn around and pay the other services… and any “extra” data you buy that is not used through Google is refunded to you at the end of the month. What mobile phone company does that? NONE! It was not around when I went here to India (today’s photo), but I know it works now… I’ll use it when I go back!
Exclusive content for Passport members
Daily Photo – The Gardens of Bangalore
This was my first time in Bangalore, India. What a cool city… I took my family to their first Bollywood movie and then we walked through the gardens and danced around a grapefruit tree just like in the movie! Not long after this, we boarded a train for a week to explore the countryside. What an adventure!
My 2nd hot tip is if you’re in a Crazy Big City with chaos all around and you find it photographically overwhelming, find some parks. All the green and nature will calm you down… and give you a chance for some more relaxed photography.
Riding on a bus in India
Bangalore Fun
Here’s one of the highlight videos from Bangalore during our family trip there!
Daily Photo – Riding on a bus in India
I took thousands and thousands of photos on our recent family trip to India. I don’t know if you’ve been there or not, but if you’re spending any time in cities, you’ll know how crazy the traffic can be. You can literally spend hours and hours per day in traffic. So I took to taking a lot of photos out the window. I’m obsessed with photography if you can’t tell! It was a fun exercise for my mind to see how many “scenes” I could capture as the world went by.
Bottles in India
Cool Video
If you’re into astronomy, this is pretty basic stuff, but it’s a fun thing to share with your kids. I don’t think a lot of schools show this aspect of our solar system.
Daily Photo – Bottles in India
While I was in Bangalore, I began a little personal challenge to take 500 photos a day, little “studies” of objects in their space. I didn’t plan on publishing any, and I won’t publish most, but here is one of those little studies. I have so many photos that I still don’t know what to do with… I was thinking about starting another blog called “Trey’s Rejected Photos.” Maybe it would be interesting? I don’t know…
An Amazing Adventure in India, a recap
India Recap
This was my second time to India but my first time to come with my family. We chose Bangalore as our home-base for a few reasons. First, there was yet another amazing Ritz-Carlton there which was great and relaxing for the whole family. This is where my son learned to fall in love with Indian food! This is saying a lot because hitherto we had only seen him eat hamburgers and pizza! We even got an extended cooking class at Riwaz that the kids loved. And to my surprise, after the cooking class, we got to eat everything and more. I ate SO MUCH FOOD in India it was absolutely ridiculous. And they kept bringing more and more. I’ve heard you’re not supposed to eat to make yourself happy, but I don’t believe that at all!
The second reason was this is where our train trip on the Southern Splendor started and ended! It was my first long train ride like this where you live on a train for a whole week. It was an incredible way to see the country and the whole family had fun. So Much Indian Food and I think we all learned to love it even more as the week went on! You can see a lot more in the videos below 🙂
India Videos Recap
And here’s all the videos from India!
India Photos Recap
Here is a view of Bangalore at sunset. I took this from the rooftop bar on top of the Ritz-Carlton. I have another photo of this funky bar down below!
Here are my two beautiful daughters. We went out almost immediately in Bangalore to get them a few traditional Indian dresses.
Not far from the hotel was this amazing old fortress-palace that we spent a bit of time inside.
Well this is obviously not Bangalore, but I wanted to throw it in as one of my favorite photos I took while in India. This is on the very southern tip, where three seas smash together in a Game-of-Thrones scene!
And here is the amazing rooftop bar I mentioned earlier. I had a major geek-out moment here when I was all alone editing photos and there was a huge bridal party blowing up all around me.
Here’s the entrance to the Ritz-Carlton… we had so many long and adventurous days, and this was always a welcome site to see at the end of the day!
Daily Photo – The Ritz-Carlton, Bangalore, India
Here is the entrance to one of my favorite restaurants in Bangalore. This is Lantern, and it’s one of the many great places to eat inside the Ritz-Carlton. Look, it’s lined with wine on the way in! So much wine, so little time! 🙂
15
January 2016 : Friday
Jan 2016 : Friday
Traveling Ratcliff Photo Circus Around The World!
Day 16 – Quadcopter Crashing in Kerala and Farewell India
A lot of Quadcopter drama as we leave India! But I’ll get to that. BTW, check out my DJI Phantom 3 Review here on the site to see more about what I fly.
We started out in Kerala, a beautiful area of India that has thousands of little canals. We stayed on a houseboat for a while, drifting around like houseboat people. This is where Quada, which Scarlet calls the Quadacopter, had its last journey. We had countless successful flights with it… and you can see how Ethan launches it from the front of the boat… no problems there. But one time, a rotor would not turn. We got a “Rotor Obstructed” error message. Strange, because I couldn’t see anything. I did notice one rotor would make strange noises at startup, but when it started spinning, it was fine. Then it asked me to do the old 10-minute IMU calibration, which I did and was successful. We had 2 great flights, launching from the front of the boat and Ethan catching it on landing… no problems and we were smooth as silk. Then, on the next flight, It got up to about 40 meters and was only 20 meters from us and I saw the rotor lock up in the air! It tumbled down into the water for a major splashdown right by the boat. Everyone screamed and it was very dramatic! There was no recovery… it sank to the bitter depths… and all that awesome footage is lost foreva! It’s okay… the universe decided it was time for Quada to move on… So that meant I had to go to the camera store to buy another one… I just hope they let me take it to Oman next!
Okay, well, what else happened towards the end of our India trip. You can see more in the video here of course, but here’s a few things. We ended our train trip and went into the India Asha Niketan foundation, a special place here built for people with intellectual disabilities. The whole family spent some time here with the team helping out. It was especially great for the kids! Ethan played the guitar and we spent some time there together.
After that, we went back to Rivas at The Ritz-Carlton in Bangalore for an Indian cooking class from a Michelin star chef. Amazing! And not only that, but then we ate everything that we cooked… we are eating so much it is crazy… but Ethan and Isabella have really gotten into Indian food, which is great. Scarlett, not so much.
And then it was time to cap off our India experience by going full Bollywood! I actually love Bollywood movies from the first one I saw in Mumbai about 8 years ago when I saw Om Shanti Om! I had a small crush on the gal that was in that movie, and it turns out she’s in the hot new movie everyone demanded that we go see, Bajiao Mastani — so we headed off to the shopping mall in Bangalore to see if we could find it… we did and it was great, even though the whole thing was in Hindi. Scarlett and Isabella loved it. Ethan, not so much.
Anyway, a fantastic trip to India… the whole family is now boarding the plane to spend time in Oman and Qatar!
A strange sight to see these two symbols side by side.
A Final dinner on the coast of India.
Beautiful colors in Cochin.
A woman washes herself in a canal in Karela.
Five Indian Dudes that may have been a boy band.
Communist Propoganda can still be seen all over Kerala India.
Indian Beach from Above.
Houseboats in Kerala.
Last day to be on the Golden Chariot.
The awesome bar on top of the Ritz-Carlton in Bangalore called Bang.
Pulling into the Ritz-Carlton in Bangalore.
Visiting the West End ho
Daily Photo – One of the last nights on our moving hotel
Traveling Ratcliff Photo Circus Around The World!
Day 9 – Boarding the Train in India
We started out our “Train Boarding Day” with an insane breakfast where we all made some “bad” food decisions and ate too much! Then we were off to the local markets to get our girls some traditional Indian dresses which they absolutely loved. They were quite inexpensive too, under $15! Then we saw a rather unusual set of cultural dances that freaked out Ethan and me. Finally, we made it to the train station in Bangalore for a rather dramatic train boarding! Now we’re off for 8 days across the southern part of India… we’re all really excited and having a great time. Hope you enjoy the video! 🙂
Isabella and Scarlett bought some new Indian dresses and love them!
Beautiful and mysterious walls.
Daily Photo – Girl on Motorcycle…
6
January 2016 : Wednesday
Jan 2016 : Wednesday
Traveling Ratcliff Photo Circus Around The World!
Day 7 – Arrival into Bangalore, India!
Bangalore has been a real treat! We’re only here for one day before getting on the train, and we’re mostly resting and recharging. We did get a chance to go visit the palace and then Ethan got into a piano duel with a guy from Congo! I did a little bit of rooftop photography as well… The people here in Bangalore have been very warm and inviting. And the weather has been perfect! It’s been about 72 degrees all day long!
A Family in the park.
Heading to dinner at Lantern in the Ritz-Carlton in Bangalore — an amazing 3-story restaurant!
Daily Photo – A Bangalore Sunset
