Travel – Page 359 – Stuck in Customs
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Feb 2014 : Friday
filed under  Bryce Canyon, Photography Tips, Travel, Utah

Walking Along the Edge of Utah

Renting RVs

I feel like I’ve accidentally become kind of an expert in renting RVs for photo adventures! I never thought I’d be one of those RV-kinda-guys, and I don’t really see myself like that yet. But I guess I’m moving a bit in that direction. I must admit that it is very very nice to have a ton of space to hold all my camera gear and a fridge full of goodies always at the ready!

Daily Photo – Walking Along the Edge of Utah

Bryce Canyon is an unbelievable place. The drive is a bit daunting to get here, and here is a tiny tip that I hope doesn’t kill you upon arrival.

Like most National Parks, there are many places to park and then walk up to a railing for some view spots. But if you just walk around the end a bit, you can get even more amazing shots. Note you don’t have to go up to the very edge, and I don’t recommend that. I never do that. I usually hang back a little or make sure there is actually a gentle slope or something along these lines. Nothing too scary! But, anyway, don’t be afraid to do a little bit of scouting. All the fences make it seem like you’re surely gonna die if you don’t stay beside them, but that’s not true if you’re smart and have your head screwed on straight!

Walking Along the Edge of Utah

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2013-08-20 02:15:40
  • CameraNEX-7
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/4
  • Aperture10
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length10.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
6
Feb 2014 : Thursday
filed under  France, Paris

The Crystal Forever in Sainte Chapelle

HDR Tutorial

The text version of the HDR Tutorial is looking pretty good here on the site now! Be sure to give it a quick visit if you haven’t been in a while!

Daily Photo – The Crystal Forever in Sainte Chapelle

I decided to have a little fun with this shot!

It’s one of my favorite photos from France inside the Sainte Chapelle. When I was there, I managed to sneakily get my tripod into position, much to my wife’s chagrin. Oh, and the chagrin of security once they finally discovered my rouse (which is very difficult to hide, btw). Anyway, I got my shots before getting in trouble… and then I decided to make the most interesting bit and reflect it downwards upon itself to give it more of a feeling of infinite crystal.

The Crystal Forever in Sainte Chapelle

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2011-07-21 06:28:39
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time0.7
  • Aperture4
  • ISO250
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias+3

Comments
4
Feb 2014 : Tuesday
filed under  New Zealand, Queenstown

The Bathroom Selfie for Charity

Anything for Patrick and Worldbuilders!

There is less than a day left to raise money at Worldbuilders.org, and we all just passed $600,000! Great! 🙂

I told Patrick Rothfuss (as many of you know, he is one of my favorite authors who wrote “The Name of the Wind”) that I would do a stretch goal of an “ill-advised bathroom selfie” — which I just delivered on. You can see the redonkulous “making-of” video below and the final shot below that. I think I have both traumatised my son and that fake sheep.

Here is an update with more info on Pat’s Blog!

When Trey told us he’d take a selfie for his stretch goal, we thought it was a brilliant idea. After all, he’s a world-famous photographer. Seven million people follow him on Google+ to look at his pictures.

Then we saw what he did, and it was so much better than what we’d imagined.

Comments
4
Feb 2014 : Tuesday
filed under  Glenorchy, New Zealand

Perfect Horse in Field

Equine Therapy

I just heard about a woman that went to a new-agey spa (this is a serious story — just want to say this parenthetically right now!) and she opted to get one of the optional therapy-treatments. It was called equine-therapy, and she got about one inch from the eye of a horse for half an hour and they just stared at one another. This sounds like an absolutely off-the-reservation treatment — has anyone heard of this?

Personally, I would have opted for the massage-treatment (non-equine

Daily Photo – Perfect Horse in Field

Right after another amazing 15km hike a few days ago, we saw this perfect horse just standing in a field. It held this pose the entire time. In fact, and honestly, I was not entirely sure it wasn’t a fake horse. This was very confusing to me, because I couldn’t figure out why anyone would put a fake horse in their yard when real ones were so readily available. I started thinking about all those wonderful scenes from the PKD book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

Perfect Horse in Field

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-01-17 12:19:53
  • CameraILCE-7R
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/6400
  • Aperture1.8
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length55.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias-0.7

Comments
3
Feb 2014 : Monday
filed under  Crater Lake, Oregon

Crater Lake

Behind-the-scenes — Waking up Early

Here’s a video from this scene below! 🙂

Daily Photo – Crater Lake

Do mornings get easier over time? Maybe, and I Don’t Know are my two answers. It’s such a relative thing, I guess. And whenever I wake up from sleeping, there is a feeling of a tear between worlds! I absolutely love sleeping, so to undo this with volition seems strange. It’s like taking one sip from a good hot chocolate but not finishing it. It just doesn’t make any sense!

Anyway, I need to get a better attitude about waking up so I can see more stuff like this!

Crater Lake

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2011-08-28 08:48:18
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/60
  • Aperture6.7
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias+3

Comments
2
Feb 2014 : Sunday
filed under  Arrowtown, New Zealand

Road Through The Hills

New Category Location

If you want to see more photos from a certain category — say today and “Arrowtown” for example, just click on the little link above, and you’ll see photos from just that category

Daily Photo – Road Through The Hills

On Thursday nights they have a curry night here at The Hills in Arrowtown. Here in the middle of the summer, the sun doesn’t actually go down until 9 or 10 PM, so there is plenty of light. I usually jump into a golf cart and roll around to try to find interesting shots! Around this time of the year, the grasses start to fold into every color from yellow to red. They wave in the breeze like a slow ocean.

Road Through The Hills

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-01-02 18:31:05
  • CameraILCE-7R
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/200
  • Aperture8
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
1
Feb 2014 : Saturday
filed under  New Zealand, Wanaka

Ducks and Tree and Snow

ND Filters

Does anyone know of a Variable ND filter that fits on these new Sony lenses? That might be a handy thing to have… I never ended up getting one for my old Nikon 14-24mm because it was just too honking big!

Daily Photo – Ducks and Tree and Snow

I need to pop over to Wanaka more often! I don’t have an excuse, as it is just an hour away. The mountains and lake and everything there is so different than Queenstown. Even though I “know” this in my brain, every time I go there is a little burst of surprise about how different it is!

There is a cool tree that grows out of the water here. When things are calm, sometimes there are these nice little ripples that come by while the ducks swim around… so serene!

Ducks and Tree and Snow

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2013-06-27 01:30:41
  • CameraNEX-7
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/40
  • Aperture13
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length18.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias+1

Comments
31
Jan 2014 : Friday
filed under  Arizona, Travel

Horseshoe Bend

The Arcanum Photo Critique and Make-Over

Here is the Event Date and Time. This thing is kind of a special event where Lisa Bettany, Rick Sammon, Dave Cross, and I will critique some photos on video.

As we march toward opening the doors to TheArcanum.com, you’re invited to participate in this special event just for our community! Through participating in this event our community will get a taste of The Arcanum Experience – learning through constructive critiques, which is just one of the many things that happen inside the hallowed magical doors!

The Arcanum Photo Critique and Make-Over event is a Google+ Hangout On Air, open to the public, scheduled for Monday February 10th at 7pm.

To Participate:
You must submit a single candidate photo by Sunday, February 9th to be considered for the random selection. You can submit any photo to The Arcanum Google+ page.

Since you already applied to The Arcanum – we truly hope you’ll submit a photo to be critiqued. If not, no worries at all! Either way, you can watch the live event! 🙂

And if you’re wondering when the doors will officially open for The Arcanum, the answer is as soon as magically possible! We’re doing a test run right now with all the Masters to work out any kinks. Also, we are a bit (!!) overloaded with Apprentice applications, so it will take a while to ramp up. It may be a good opportunity for you to pop over and update your application!

Daily Photo – Horseshoe Bend

This place is amazing, but quite scary. It was very hard for me to be here. I am not personally scared of heights, although I would not say that I’m a big risk-taker. I don’t get super-close to the edge, and if I do, I make sure that there is at least a smaller dropoff so I don’t go all the way to my death quickly.

But the other people here would just walk right up to the edge. They’d run along it, sit there with their legs dangling, and all other sorts of crazy things. I spent most of my mindspace worrying about everyone else, which is certainly not like me. I’m usually in my own world. I think I was perhaps worried because I didn’t actually want to see anyone fall. This was both altruistic and selfish. Naturally, I don’t want to see anyone die like that. But also, I don’t want to see anyone die like that. You know, it would just kind of stick with you.

Well, it was a truly beautiful place. I hate to be so morbid in my description… I would have much preferred not to see anyone else there in a scary position, though.

Horseshoe Bend

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2013-08-23 02:06:21
  • CameraNEX-7
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/80
  • Aperture8
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length10.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias+1

Comments
29
Jan 2014 : Wednesday
filed under  Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook, New Zealand, Photography Tips

The Impressive Sony 55mm Prime with Lavender in the Fields

A recommended Lens

If you click up there on the top to see Trey’s Gear, you’ll see I have a bunch of different recommended lenses. One of them I used for today’s shot – the Sony 55mm FE f/1.8 lens. It’s really been quite remarkable and fun! It’s nice to have a full-frame lens like this with a great depth of field for shots of this nature (if you forgive the pun!).

Daily Photo – Lavender in the Fields

While driving up towards Mount Cook, I finally saw my first endless field of lavender. I’ve seen these before in photos and thought it would be fun to walk amidst them, which I then ended up doing for about an hour. I got all sorts of shots, from the close-in stuff below to wide vistas. I’ll publish some of those soon as well!

Lavender in the Fields

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-01-05 12:36:40
  • CameraILCE-7R
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/500
  • Aperture2.4
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length55.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias+2

Comments
28
Jan 2014 : Tuesday
filed under  France, Paris

La Défense de la Matrix

Introducing another Arcanum Master, Dallas Nagata White

I know many of you are excited for the doors to open on The Arcanum! Many masters are making “intro” videos so that their 20 Apprentices (and everyone else in The Arcanum) can get to know them. The vast majority of the videos inside are private, but we are releasing a few here and there for fun, like this one from Dallas!

Daily Photo – La Défense de la Matrix

This whole area in and around La Défense in Paris is an amazing area for photography. Everyone knows that Paris is a delight for artistic reasons, but the area in and around this building is relatively quiet. I didn’t really see many other photographers around here, so it was free and easy. I did get in trouble a few times for using a tripod from some security guards. But it wasn’t anything too rough, and I just moved away till I could not be seen any more and kept taking photos. They would just ride around in golf carts and be a little frenchy-mean. You know the type… while they talked to me, they would just shake their head with haughty, disapproving eyes…

La Défense de la Matrix

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2012-11-11 21:04:06
  • CameraNIKON D800
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time4
  • Aperture11
  • ISO200
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments