While I was in Hawaii with Tom, he wondered why I occasionally liked to include Palm Trees in my photos. He thought they were obvious and touristy. I tried to explain to him that they are not! Most people in the world (99%) like a good palm tree… myself included!
Daily Photo – Palm Trees at Night
One night in Oahu we were doing some photography along a beach. Off in the distance we saw some palm trees that were lit from the bottom. It was about a quarter mile from anything else, so that was sort of strange. But I thought it was so interesting to see them lit from the bottom with small green pools of light underneath that I decided to walk over there and see what was going on. After I got over there, there were endless compositions of these various trees. I grabbed about five different angles and then took a midnight-nature break of my own…
The Instagram $1 billion… “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss… discussion of eBooks… breast recognition tech… and more more more… A fun show on This Week in Tech!
The others you see are Leo Laporte, John C Dvorak, Jolie O’Dell, and Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ.
A Personal Sub?
This has been a little dream of mine… I’d love to have my own submarine… But I want it to be kind of big, roomy, and fancy. With internet. I don’t know how you get internet on a sub, but I guess you cloud float up a little satellite buoy or something. The whole idea sounds very impractical, but also kinda awesome.
Daily Photo – The Russian Sub
There is a longer story around this photo that I caught on video… I’ll wait for that to be released!
But, as you can see, I clearly got onto a Russian sub in the middle of the night. It was docked right next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. As I was walking across its iron surface and hearing the empty echoes below, I could not imagine the sub making it all the way from Russia to this harbor. That was a long, dark, cramped ride…
Over the next month or so, we’re launching a bunch of new eBooks at Flatbooks.com. We just released The Tuesday Composition by Joe Decker – go check it out!
The Tuesday Composition solves the mystery of why some images just seem more “effective” than others, bringing in ideas from the sciences and the arts. Addressing many popular misconceptions, this beautifully-illustrated 75-page book teaches the craft of creating incredible, compelling photographs, through both a discussion of principles and through in-depth looks at a number of “case studies.”
Getting Visas
Getting Visas for travel feels like a very 18th-century way of getting around the world! As far as I can tell, the only REAL purpose of having them is as an extra revenue-source for the country. But the process is always so silly! Here’s two examples:
Each time I go to China, I have to fed-ex my passports to Houston where they process the Visas then send them back via fed-ex. A little hint, btw, is that if you connect in Hong Kong, you can just do it there…
I connected in Australia and had about 10 hours where I could go explore and take photos. What? I can’t leave the airport because I don’t have a Visa? Australia! You slay me… that’s a silly policy.
Daily Photo – Across the Top of the Old Village
The old town of Lijiang has these old rooflines that go forever to the horizon. Part of the problem getting up above the roofline is, well, getting up above the roofline. You have to head a bit out of town and walk up a hill to get this perspective. I found the spot thanks to Stuck On Earth.
I bought one a few weeks ago and have been using it quite a bit. I really like the camera! Below is a scene from the Indiana Jones Show at Disneyworld. I was sitting back in the audience, and I used the kit lens to zoom all the way in as close as I could. I could crop and still get an image that was 5200 pixels across!
Since I was able to take so many photos so quickly, I was able to pluck out the frame that had the most interesting action — when the big German guy flipped up Indy into the air…
We do have the tutorial available in many languages now! I continue to make little updates to the tutorial here and there as I discover new things… I hope you enjoy it! 🙂
shhh…. tomorrow is the official day, but if you want to watch me “build” the review today as I add new photos and make changes, see the inchoate Sony NEX-7 Review page now…
More from China
Click the China Category to see a bunch more stuff from the country. I spent about a month there recently, so there is a bunch of new work that I’ve published. Once you scroll to the bottom of the screen, you can select “PREVIOUS” to see even more. Enjoy!
Daily Photo – The Nest
I took this photo while I was outside another tower in the open air with Joe McNally. It was a great time.. It was also a bit scary.
For this one, I took my 28-300 and turned it upright to portrait mode and zoomed in quite tight. I liked the way the layers of the city stacked upon one another into the distance, and that was lost in the wide-angle landscape mode.
See you on Sunday at 3 PM PT. I’ll be up in the studio in Petaluma (stop by to say hi!) with Leo for a live recording of This Week in Tech. It will also be viewable on http://live.twit.tv. See you soon! 🙂
Photos of Me from Recent PhotoWalks
So this is kinda crazy… I get tagged a LOT nowadays from these photowalks… and now they all just kind of collect here like junk in an eddy…
I barely got this photo in time. I could see the storm coming across the beach towards us. About 60 seconds after I took this photo, you couldn’t even see the islands. The worst part wasn’t getting soaked — it was having to run back to the car in the torrential downfall with all my equipment. I wasn’t a happy camper at the end… but I felt good because I was pretty sure I got a good shot…
Today’s photo really took two different cameras… that is, unless I had two cameras ready to go, I never would have gotten it. Do any of you walk around with a two-camera setup as well?
Daily Photo – Late for a Very Important Date
I spent most of one morning shooting in Union Station in Los Angeles, and I highly recommend this to any photographer! Not only did they let me use my tripod, but there are all kinds of cool people-watching along the way.
My tripod was set up for an HDR of the interior, but I saw this couple walk in and start doing, well, whatever they are doing. I had my hip-shooter on, so I squatted down to take this shot…
Time/Date: April 12 starting at 9:30AM – Arrive early to shake hands! 🙂
Start Location: Monterey – across from the Aquarium
End Location: The Wharf!
– Free event
– Hosted during the EG Conference – day passes will be avail if you want to come
– All skill levels – bring your mobile phone!
– Family-friendly – great for kids and dads and moms
– RSVP on Google Schemer: http://goo.gl/8JrU0
– Can’t get on Google Schemer? Click link: http://goo.gl/RoxQg
Tag to use for your photos on Google+: #MontereyPhotoWalk
Trey’s Variety Hour 30 – The Great Aussie Photowalk
Australian Photowalkers Michael N Sutton, Gretchen Chappelle, Mykal Hall, and Alexander Kesselaar join adopted Aussie Brian Rose from the Google+ Photos team, Keith Barrett and me for the show!
We have a great time sharing all kinds of photos and stories from the record setting photowalk in Australia.
Sutton shared this really cool Google Spreadsheet of all the photo albums from the walk: http://goo.gl/6BqR2
We finish the show by sharing some G+ Discoveries:
Stephen Godfrey, David Savage, Michelle Robinson, Francis Gorrez, and Andrew Sanigorski.
Thanks to Leo Laporte, Tony Wang, and Dave Veffer for helping out with the whole production!
I’ve had some busy winters, so I haven’t been doing much… actually, I’m a snowboarder. But I recently had a friend tell me that they notice that a LOT of people are using GoPros on the mountain. Have you noticed this?
Daily Photo – The Long Dock
On one of my final nights in San Francisco, I walked out on the dock off the Embarcadero to see what I could see. There were nice views in every direction, and one of the best was looking straight back up the dock at the Transamerica building.
This wide-angle 14-24 lens is one of my favorites, but it does have one little problem that can also be an advantage. It takes whatever is in the center of the frame and makes it quite small. The opposite of that happens on the edges, where things get quite spread out. So, I did that little trick here to help the Transamerica building to seem a bit taller.
Time/Date: April 12 starting at 9:30AM – Arrive early to shake hands! 🙂
Start Location: Monterey – across from the Aquarium
End Location: The Wharf!
– Free event
– Hosted during the EG Conference – day passes will be avail if you want to come
– All skill levels – bring your mobile phone!
– Family-friendly – great for kids and dads and moms
– RSVP on Google Schemer: http://goo.gl/8JrU0
– Can’t get on Google Schemer? Click link: http://goo.gl/RoxQg
Tag to use for your photos on Google+: #MontereyPhotoWalk
Big Lenses = Big Sun
Do you notice how some photos just seem to have HUGE suns and moons? Well, for one thing, I think that 75% of the “cool” moon shots in landscapes are faked. That is, they will paste in a “big” moon from another photo above a mountain range or something. I don’t do that. Like, for example, the sun here was really here. I don’t add stuff like that to photos.
Anyway, to get the sun or moon to look Big, you have to do two things:
Orient an object that has a known size (human, tree, car) in front of the moon or sun.
Use a huge lens (in this case, it was around 300mm) to zoom in and make the distant object seem even bigger.
Daily Photo – Paddleboard in Hawaii
The weather in Hawaii was rather dour and dismal for most of my trip. I only caught one sunset while there, so I decided to try to make the most of it.
This lone paddleboarder was skating across the surface of the ocean while I was walking along the beach. Although this photo looks fairly serene and calm, I was not. You only get one chance for this shot, unless you are willing to take a shot, sprint, take a shot, sprint, take a shot, SPRINT, etc. I’m sure people on the beach thought I was a loon, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get it done!
Are you looking for a place to host your photos? I’m still quite happy with SmugMug. See my SmugMug Review for more information. I’m about to have a portfolio re-design there on the site… so get ready for that too!
Fireworks Tip
Here’s a quick one… if you have “Long Exposure NR” turned on (which it is by default), be sure to turn it off when shooting fireworks. The camera can take a LONG time to do that NR (Noise Reduction) processing, which will keep you from taking the next exposure.
Daily Photo – Fireworks on the Disney Cruise
I was not sure where exactly the fireworks shot off the top of the Disney Fantasy, so I gambled and guessed that this area on Deck 13 in the “Adults Only” area of the ship would be best. There is a little curving area that juts out that I thought would be perfect… I asked a few cast members, and they told me to be over on the starboard side, but I tried to explain that I wanted to get the boat in the shot too — this confounded them… so, anyway, I was over in this spot pretty much by myself… which is fine with me!
