That’s not the official name of this cool rock structure in Skipper’s Canyon near Queenstown, but that’s what I call it. This road around the canyon has many little turnouts and stops where you can see cool formations. This one is right in the beginning, just as you are beginning your downward crawl into the canyon.
This weekend, join me for a live panel discussion on this most esoteric of subjects! (Oh, and there are a whole bunch of other photography speakers/topics which you might enjoy too! 😀 )
Are there any bad photos of this area? I don’t think so. If you ever have a chance to fly in a helicopter, one thing to notice is the reflections. Sometimes you’ll have totally clean shots and other times the reflection will be too much to remove in Photoshop. One thing I’ve noticed about helicopter pilots is they like a bit of direction. So, if you want one shot or another, feel free to tell them over the headphones the kind of angle you are trying to get. They’re happy to do it… otherwise, they are just kind of on rails, going from one place to the next.
Today for Passport Members there will be new tutorial on how I did today’s image! Enjoy!
This one shows the amazing ability of Aurora HDR to Auto Align images as well as getting rid of some of the gnarly ghosting from this handheld bracketing series.
I usually don’t go to downtown Queenstown so early in the morning, but I had a TV interview down by the docks. I got there a little early and the sky was going crazy, so I quickly ran out to grab the sunrise!
For those of you interested in the fun world of NFTs, the latest drop closes in a few hours on Makersplace. Check it out here.
There’s a huge area here between Queenstown and Arrowtown with rolling hills, lakes, little streams, and tons of different trees that change color in the Autumn. (Autumn is happening now in the southern hemisphere, btw – I know that’s always confusing to all you “others” in the northern hemisphere!) – The mornings are crisp and cool but the sun comes out in the middle of the day to warm everything up and help the colors to really glow.
For Passport Members today you’ll see the How To of today’s photo. It was a fun one to edit from my 50th birthday partay!
In today’s video, you’ll see how I combined three images and then removed the ghosting. In a final step, I do some things to make the lighting a bit more dramatic and focused on Matt.
Here’s my friend Matt Bowden who is always up for a photo or two. He stood right outside the little awning that we built outside of the mobile sauna for the party. This is before dozens of us stripped down to jump inside the heat! Those photos will come later!
I took this on a little walk I do a few times a week from my home. It’s really hilly around here and every hilltop has a new view of The Remarkables. This one is a favorite angle that peeks out over all the Autumn trees. This is a panorama of 5 different photos combined into one using Lightroom.
Sending you a message from my digital nomad bunker here in New Zealand. 🙂
Anyway, not to bury the lead, which I’ll get to in detail later, but here is the new Burning Man NFT called ‘Awakening to what Is’. You can also see the brand new Machine Elf animated NFTs on Foundation.
Well, the first Burning Man NFT (Non-Fungible Token – think “Bitcoin for digital art”) went great and for about 7 Ethereum and you can see how it progressed at https://foundation.app/treyratcliff/burning-embrace-10493 . All the proceeds went to charity, split between 3, with my nomination being a local organization here in Queenstown run by my friend Dr. Rigg called Southern Wellbeing Trust with the tagline “Delivering evidence based innovative community level solutions for Mental health and wellbeing.” Cool stuff… I may have to take all the donations back for my own mental health. Just kidding… fun mental-health humor. Keeping it light, you know… I do wonder how people can get through chaos without a sense of humor. Anyway, it may be clear to you now that I’m not a mental health professional, so it’s probably better to leave that to the experts and support them 🙂
The other donations went to MakeSoil.org and the Mountain Cloud Zen Center, which was chosen by Kevin Rose… who btw has a cool new podcast called Modern Finance.
And now there is a new animated Burning Man NFT at Foundation – it’s one of my favorites. Here’ the official description I put on there for this piece entitled “Awakening to what Is”:
“There’s quite an exciting time when one awakens into consciousness, albeit it may indeed be ironically solipsistic. As you ride out into the deep playa of Burning Man, fascinating art pops out of the ground to inspire you while you’re on your own grueling Joseph Campbellesque type quest. “Awakening” by Geurts/Elmendorf makes for the perfect meditation of serenity. As with all my Burning Man works, a percentage goes back to the creator of the sculpture. For the 4K 30s file, contact after auction.”
Also, I have made a new video that describes the weird world of digital art and NFTs. I currently am only working with Foundation, but soon, I’ll be doing drops on Makersplace. I’m also interested in working with Nifty Gateway and OpenSea, but I don’t really know anyone there… so, if you do, hook me up! 🙂
Oh, and we’ve started a 2nd account for Machine Elf animated NFTs on Foundation Check those out…They are quite visually appealing along with the amazing music. Here is a short preview from Machine Elf 36 – Open Heart. Click here to see it in full with original music from Sam Wave.
Stay awesome! 🙂
I have a small hike I do from my home here that takes me to this place. I usually listen to podcasts or audiobooks while I walk and look at nature. I walk up this fairly big hill, and along the way, there are little ponds. I stopped to grab this photo… I feel like just having a little reflection in the shot gives it a little pizzazz.
If you’re a Passport Sunday Member then you’ll see some selects from the recent photo shoot and how I processed them. Enjoy
You’ll see that I had incredibly challenging lighting conditions for this shoot… but I did the best with what I had. I was maybe being a bit hard on myself, as I like the way the photos turned out.
Here are Monni and Sue hanging out just looking awesome and stuff in front of The Remarkables. This was a shoot for her clothing label at Monni.co just in case you want some silky clothes or something. Full disclosure, I get 0.0001% of every sale.
The best place to take this photo is from the top of Coronet Peak. It’s also a good place to find magic mushrooms. There are rumors that cops are around and they will arrest you for picking the mushrooms… so silly. Luckily there are more and more places around the world that are legalizing these perfectly fine natural substances.
A few days ago, we hiked up to the top of the Remarkables to see Lake Alta, but that was in autumn where there is no snow. Here’s one I got in the wintertime when the ski field was active… and no, I did not hike up here. I hate hiking mountains in the snow so I took a snowmobile instead!
