What a great city Philly is! On my first night here, I was staying over there on the left at the Ritz-Carlton, and then I went out to take some night time photos. Usually, when I arrive in a new city, I have an unexplained high level of energy. I love to use this energy to go out and get lost in the city and take photos. The whole city felt very safe to me, so I had no problem roaming around and finding scenes like this. That’s the giant City Hall right there in the middle. It’s a well laid out city because there are four long roads that all lead right to that iconic building.
Here’s a fun photo captured by Curtis while we were in Pittsburgh together. I don’t normally climb stuff, but in this case, I climbed up one of those bright yellow bridges there! We spent the day with our Brazilian photographer friends Rodrigo and Ricardo Polesso… navigating our way all through the city throughout the day and the night.
I must have walked back and forth across these bridges like 30 times! They were so photogenic and really popped as the night colors came online. The bridges had a great pedestrian walking area too. The city is smartly laid out with parks all over the place so it gives you a reason to wander around from bridge to bridge and park to park. I’ve been in many cities where the downtown area is very poorly planned and they are not walkable at all. A few cities that pop into mind are places like Dallas, Orlando, and Reno. They’re fine cities… don’t get me wrong… just not really a “joy” to walk around like Pittsburgh.
Who know Pittsburgh was this beautiful!?! I certainly had no idea! I didn’t know it was so colorful… that was maybe the most surprising thing to me. There’s a little hillock/mountain that you can ascend via a funicular. We took it up around sunset so we could take a variety of photos as the sun was setting. This tends to be my favorite time to shoot: just after sunset so there is a mix of artificial and natural, ambient light.
Now, when you click through to the image on SmugMug, there is a new “button” on the lower left that lets you see the EXIF. It will scroll in from the side and you can see all the nitty-gritty details. I had to do it on this one because I could not remember if I took it in Pittsburgh or Philly!
Daily Photo – The Diner in Philly
Philly had some great neon signs! I would pass this one almost every night on the way back to the Ritz-Carlton. By the way, thanks again to everyone that came out to the art talk there. That was a really special and fun night. It was great to see my friend Joseph Mina (@hawaiianstarman on Insta) again too! 🙂
Here’s a fun little 360 video I made when I took Ethan to Outward Bound in New Zealand. The lens is a little messed up with cracks and scratches and stuff, but, then again, so am I. 🙂 Enjoy!
If this is your first time seeing a 360 Video, note you can grab the screen and look anywhere!
Daily Photo – It’s Always Cloudy in Philadelphia
That’s not true. It’s usually sunny. I ended up at a rooftop bar. I forgot which one… they all blur together at some point. But whichever one I was at, I saw this incredible sunset blooming over southern Philly. What a great town! I know it’s called the town of brotherly love, but I really did sense a real brotherhood there. People on the streets were really nice and fun… maybe just a tiny bit more than some other cities! I mean, I find nice people in all cities, but maybe Philly just had them beat by a few molecules.
The people over at Skylum are hard at work on Luminar 4 and have announced a few new features. First up was a quick and easy way to replace the sky in your images, then some AI Structure functionality and now it’s AI-powered portrait enhancements. I’ll be playing with the beta on my Africa trip and if you’re interested in more info (or to pre-order) you can check out their promo vids here.
Daily Photo – The Ballpark in Pittsburgh
If I was a true baseball fan, I would know the name of this place in Pittsburgh where they play baseball. I at least know the team is called The Pittsburgh Pirates. Maybe it’s called Pirate Stadium? Or, knowing the USA, it’s probably called “Geico Stadium” or some horrible name like that. Now that I spend more time back in the USA vs. NZ, I’m so surprised how everything has to have a brand on it… it’s like this brand-crazy place. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing… just a weird thing.
Here’s a cool video I haven’t shared in a while! During our USA tour, we got a ton of quad footage, so I decided to cram it all into this cool drone-only highlight video!
Daily Photo – Hi Philly!
During our USA Photo Walk, we had a cool situation when we got to Philadelphia because one of the photo walkers brought a cool lightstick. If you don’t know what that is, it’s actually pretty tough to explain! Basically, it’s a long stick that has LEDs that change. If you do a long exposure as the stick passes in front of the camera, you get some pretty cool results!
When I came through Philly on the bus tour, I wanted to make sure to carve out some time to talk with Jared Polin! I went up to his awesome studio and we had a heck of a good time together. This is a really unique interview, and I think you’ll enjoy it! 🙂
It’s been a long time in the making and the stars finally aligned to allow me to interview Trey Ratcliff right here in the loft. Trey is one of the most well known photographers online and is most commonly associated with HDR photography (high dynamic range).
As man¥ of you know I have been very outspoken about not liking HDR in the past. Most of this stems from seeing really bad HDR. Trey on the other hand does HDR right and tries to share his methods with as many people as possible. No that does not mean I will be doing HDR anytime soon. But you can not deny the success and you have to give major credit where credit is due. Check out the FULL Interview at 33:54
Don’t forget new RAWtalks go live every Monday both as audio and video so be sure to subscribe on iTunes or YouTube to be noticed when the latest shows go live.
Show Intro – 00:00:16
Allen’s Nikon-A-Palooza – 00:05:58
Photo News – 00:08:43
Trey Ratcliff Interview – 00:33:54
Gear of the Week – 01:22:07
Wheel of Fro – 01:24:34
Well, after 58 days on the road and then one of our photo workshops, I’m finally back home… now getting re-organized and everything! 🙂 Here’s a few of my favorite photos from here… omg SO happy to be home 🙂
