Be sure to Pre-order it today! It drops in a week and you’ll be the first to get it! 🙂
Daily Photo – Queenstown after Dark
Here’s a favorite photo I took from the top of the Gondola here in Queenstown one night. I should really go up there more, you know? It’s kind of expensive… and I guess I always cheap-out a little bit because I live here. I’d actually like to go up here one night and spend the whole night, doing time-lapses and maybe seeing the Aurora. That would be epic… I wonder if I’m allowed to?
Here are four behind-the-scenes videos for Passport Members. It starts with me and the team flying out to this remote location to get some photos for a patron. And then by part 4 I am in his private home in Beverly Hills trying to figure out where to hang the final selection.
On my many trips to Earnslaw Burn while working on that project for the patron, we would always pass over this in the helicopter. I asked the pilot to bank this way and that so I could get some straight-down shots at the beautiful patterns below.
I’m planning on doing a little overnight thing here where you cross-country ski out to a little hut that’s been pre-stocked with food, cheeses, chocolates, wines, etc. After arrival, the party begins and then you sleep there, wake up the next day, and cross-country ski back out of there. Fun!
End-to End-Photo Edit
Watch me take an image from start to finish in Aurora HDR 2018. It’s super quick to edit in Aurora and great results, even for beginners, are easy to achieve.
The latest version of Aurora 2018 (for Mac and Windows) is here! I’ve been using it a ton and I think you’ll be blown away by all the new features, especially combined with all the features that you’ve come to know and love with previous versions. If you Pre-Order you’ll get a bunch of goodies as extras and a discount!
Daily Photo – The Secret Car Testing Facility
We took a helicopter over towards Wanaka one day to this place, the Snow Farm. I had never been here before. There’s all kinds of stuff going on. Dogsledding, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, etc. Anyway, one of the other special areas here is the car testing area. They have secret next-year models of Alfa Romeos, Mercedes, Audi, etc. A lot of these secret cars have strange metallic paint that is hard to photograph and more to keep them secret. Obviously, I had permission to take this one photo. See that long building back there behind it? That’s full of the new models of cars over the next few years… super secret!
Daily Photo – Derek Sivers in a Field of Fake Horses
This is kind of a strange photo haha. Derek said he had this dream about laying in tall grasses, and that was sort of his dream about moving to New Zealand. He ended up in Wellington, but wanted to lay down here to see if it was like his dreams! I was out testing the new Hasselblad at the time, so I had fun taking photos of him rolling around in the grass.
Don’t forget to check out the Hasselblad X1D Review here on the site. I’ve recently added a few more sample photos in there for your enjoyment! 🙂
Daily Photo – Lake Hayes in the Winter
This is the first photo I took with the new Hasselblad X1D. Yes, this is my replacement X1D after I lost the first one on a train in Europe. I felt a little silly about that. But I’m so used to making mistakes that it no longer surprises me, or anyone around me. I find this both alarming and comforting. But I try to be like those ducks. Not a worry in the world… just kind of wander around aimlessly, doing duck-things.
This is not a paid ad or anything… I’m just a fan and my best friend owns the place. If you’re looking to come to New Zealand, why not plan a few days here at Aro-Ha? It’s about 45 minutes outside of Queenstown, and, as you can see, it’s quite the serene and beautiful place.
Daily Photo – Aro-Ha at Sunset
Here’s my favorite little hot tub in New Zealand. This is at the yoga and meditation retreat, Aro Ha. This is where we had our photography/yoga workshop last year. This whole spa area is European clothing-optional, which some of us took full advantage of! It was a great place to unwind after a long day of hiking, yoga, and photography.
I used today’s photo from here in Queenstown, New Zealand, as part of a series of fun videos. For those of you that are Passport Members (Thanks btw – and recommend to a friend if you don’t mind!), you’ll get to see a little bit extra about the animation process in Plotagraph. By the way, here is a Facebook Link to the animated version of today’s photo.
A Beautiful Way to get rid of Noise
Here’s a video that shows an unusual technique I came up with to get rid of noise.
And then I decided to animate it also using Plotagraph. Here’s a video showing how I did that. (If you watched the other video above you can skip through the first bit of this)
So this was taken directly over my home. It was made of 4 or 5 photos with the DJI Phantom quad. I stitched them all together using Lightroom, then ran them through Aurora HDR before doing those finishing touches you see above with the noise reduction tip. It was a fun project! 🙂
This was taken with the DJI Phantom. I believe it was four different photos that I stitched together. I’ve started doing this more and more. I wish the quad could take vertical (portrait) shots that I could stitch together. I don’t always like how wiiiiiide the final shot becomes when you stitch them together. Well, I take that back. I suppose it depends on the medium. A giant print of this on a wall would look pretty sweet, I think. But it doesn’t read well on a phone or a tablet in the vertical position. I guess I shouldn’t think about the medium of display so much… but it does cross my mind.
European Highlight Video!
Here’s, probably, one of my favorite videos we’ve made around here. Thanks again to Olya and the whole team for making this video and the European tour possible!
Daily Photo – Lake Hayes with no Wind
This is Lake Hayes in Arrowtown, New Zealand. I try to come here at least once a week to have a run around the lake. It’s 8KM around and a little bit hilly. It’s always gorgeous, as you can see. Maybe half the time, there is no wind at all, so you get this incredibly glassy reflection. This was taken in the middle of winter, where the colors are the blandest… but, as you can see, “bland” colors in New Zealand are pretty electric!
If you’re an awesome Passport Member then you get to see today’s 360 video. It’s part 4, where I give a tour of my patron’s mansion in Beverly Hills and you can see where one of the works will hang. Right in the entry way, and I’m very honored. Parts 1-3 are various scenes of me flying out to the photo location under the glacier, forgetting a tent for our overnight stay, working on the photos over the project, etc. Anyway, enjoy Part 4 below ! 🙂
Here’s one of the final three works for the mysterious patron. What a fun (and tough!) project. But I’m very happy with all the final works. And, most importantly, so is he and his whole family! I like making people happy like that… kind of the purpose of creativity, right? To make yourself and others happy.
Here’s a link – the one about self confidence, to the podcast when Derek first talks to Tim Ferris. I had about 10 people tell me I should meet him, and vice-versa, so we finally made it happen.
Daily Photo – Another Walk in Glenorchy
I had my new friend Derek Sivers down to Queenstown for a visit and we went over here to Glenorchy to take a walk. You can’t ever go wrong with a walk here, talking about philosophy and life, taking photos all the way. The colors this day were particularly vibrant when the sun would bleed through the clouds.
