The event is sold out, and we have about 20 people descending on New Zealand from all around the world. I’m so excited… We have the Photography Workshops listed on that page, and you can see we don’t have any more in the works. You can always keep an eye on that page… but if you’d like to get a video of the event, sign up below to find out first!
If you want to hear about future workshops before they’re listed here and made known to the public then sign-up for our Newsletter. It’s free and pretty, and we promise not to spam you!
Scott Kublin, Karen Hutton, and Curtis Simmons are arriving here ahead of time so we can start preparing for all the festivities! I’m mega-excited!
Daily Photo – Poems in the Moonlight in Milford Sound
I stayed out late… way after the sun went down. The moon was out in full force, so I was getting all sorts of interesting shots. For the briefest of moments, the moon shot through one of the clouds towards one of the mountains that holds a glacier. I grabbed it as quick as I could!
I’m always trying out new prints for the home, and I just got a few slick ones from iAcrylic. I’m really impressed with the quality and look of the prints. Because of the reflections around the edge from the acrylic, there is a very interesting border-effect. It’s hard to explain, but I really dig it. One thing I have noticed is they look best if you hang them in a well-lit area.
Which photos did I get from iAcrylic? These two recent ones below which I quite like!
Daily Photo – The QT Sydney
This was my room at the QT Sydney from a few weeks ago… you can see my bags and stuff… probably should have moved them for the picture. Anyway, one of the Coolest things about this hotel is the elevators! They scan to see how many people are inside. If there is just one, then it plays lonely music, like Elvis singing, “Are you lonely tonight?” And then when there are two people, like, embarassingly when I was in there with Tom, it started playing, “Just the two of us.” And when there are like five or more people in there, it starts playing party music like Lady Gaga… anyway, it’s a trip!
The Stuck In Customs Store is close to coming out of beta. Thanks so far for all the testing and purchases! Everything seems to be going smoothly… and glad you are excited about all the products people have been wanting for years! The Gear Section has a few goodies that have not been fully announced yet… but they are there for you to order before the formal announcement!
Daily Photo – The Road to Mount Cook along Lake Pukaki
These lenticular clouds are pretty rare — but not on the south island of New Zealand! This is called the land of the long white cloud… I’m not sure of that means these lenticular clouds or not. Maybe a smart reader here on the blog can tell me!
Anyway, I do love this photo… I think it is one of my new favorites…
Thanks again for trying out so many books over at Flatbooks.com! As you know, if you ever don’t like one… you can have 100% of your money back! I think this is the best way to do it… then maybe you can try another book… and just keep going till you find one you like! Really, it’s no problem at all to get you a refund…we have Real Humans waiting to help you out, so there is no risk.
Daily Photo – The Foggy Road Through The Waterfalls to Milford
There is a long tunnel through a mountain upon final approach to Milford Sound. The tunnel itself is unnerving because it is downhill. I’m not used to long tunnels going downhill. Anyway, after you get out, something new always awaits you. I’ve been through the tunnel 10 times now. 3 times there were clouds, and this was one of them. The good news is that the clouds mean rain, and the rain means waterfalls!
Trey’s Variety Hour #67: Moving from being a Hobbyist to a Pro Photographer!
I am joined by Clayton Morris from Fox News, Alfie Goodrich (who wrote the article below), Nicole S. Young (pro), Scott Jarvie (studly pro), Gino Barasa (no qualifications whatsoever) and Melvin Little (pro-curious). We have a discussion about how and why to move from a being a Hobbyist to a Pro Photographer then show off some of our latest photos!
G+ Discoveries:
Peter Adams, Don Komarechka, Thomas O’brien, T.J. Powell, Ego olden, and Andrew Holian.
Thanks to Dave Veffer and Keith Barrett for helping out with the whole production!
The show airs each Monday at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET. (Check your local time)
See questions submitted here:
Official website:http://www.StuckInCustoms.com
You can subscribe for free to my YouTube channel at:
Many people have been asking for an update in the Sydney Morning Herald situation. There has since been an article on another Australian media outlet by Nic Christensen where he got in contact with the editor of the SMH. Below is a quote from the article in response that they have made an apology to me.
“Perhaps they have placed a handwritten apology in the pouch of a kangaroo and it jumped in the wrong direction, for I have yet to receive it (or any digital facsimile thereof),” said Ratcliff.
Otherwise, I’ve handed everything over to the legal team. This is the same team that dealt with the Time issue and countless others. I’ll give another update later, assuming I’m allowed to.
Daily Photo – Sydney Harbour Under Mountains of Clouds
This might have been the last shot I took with my Nikon D800 before the wind blew it over to destroy it. It turned out that I could not repair it, so I had to buy another D800. Sad Trey. I hope the shot was worth it… many Bothans died to bring you this photo…
Here’s my reddit account (treyratcliff)… if you are on there too, drop it below in the comments! I spend a bit of time over there every day! It’s wonderfully distracting!
Daily Photo – Under the Basilica of St. Thérèse, Lisieux
After the adventure with so many great people in Paris, Tom and I rented a car and started a little road trip through Normandy. We ended up here in Lesieux, thanks to sweet sweet Stuck On Earth. The cathedral is quite amazing, and, if you go, don’t forget to go look at this extremely ornate chapel underneath the larger one. The intricate tilework must have take ages…
This is a very geeky tip. I usually don’t put these up here, but this slowed me down about 30 minutes today! I finally figured it out.
If you like to poke around your own file system on your Mac, you may have noticed that something is missing when you upgraded your Mac OS. They decided to Hide the Users/[username]/Library to keep you from flubbing things up. To add it back:
1) Open a Terminal Window (go to Spotlight and type “Terminal”)
2) Type in the command “chflags nohidden ~/Library/”
3) Now it will appear when you go to Users/[username]
Daily Photo – What Does The Road Look Like on the Way to Mount Cook?
Many people hit “reply” on the email, and it actually goes straight to my inbox… I read them all. We decided to put more photos and descriptions in the newsletter going forward based on feedback — thanks for that! And thanks for forwarding the newsletter to your friends.
Daily Photo – The Milky Way over Queenstown
Tom and I went up to the top of the gondola a few days ago to get some shots of the stars. The sky was clear and we were lucky!
I made this with the fisheye lens and then did the lens correction on it. A bunch of stuff ended up getting cut off, but only I know that… It bothers me because there was some other awesome stuff! But since you don’t know what you’re missing… well I hope it is just good enough.
Errr… Anyone heard of Creative Commons Noncommercial? Maybe someone involved with copyright there at the Sydney Morning Herald perhaps? I like how they say, “a selection of our readers’ photographs” — very sly. This both indicates that they have legions of readers and that all the photographs are from these adoring legions. I just checked my doorstep here in Queenstown, New Zealand. Nope, I don’t see the Sydney Morning Herald there.
My license, which is quite generous and clear on the site says noncommercial. Now, I know newspapers are commercial, even though they are hemorrhaging money as people flock online to get more timely news and better photos (which, apparently, they are doing too for content-mining). So, the commercial use is definitely a no-no.
But in worse form, I think it’s a bit rude not to give credit down there towards the bottom of the photo. Instead, they used that valuable space to indicate that “oh we’re just one big community with ‘our readers’ who take these pics for fun.” Oh no, I didn’t pay thousands of dollars to fly to your country and stay in a hotel and buy camera equipment so I could take photos of your duck to adorn your newspaper. /said in the voice of Tim from The Holy Grail when he said “I warned you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little *bunny*, isn’t it?”
I saw a comment on Google+ from CNET reporter Lexy Savvides
Hilariously timed +Trey Ratcliff given that the SMH [Sydney Morning Herald] last week recently posted pieces on photographers having content stolen. See this article
Looks like it was used online too, littered with revenue-generating ads…
Good person “Dawnstar Australis” sent me this tweet that it is also being used online (image):
Harlan Ellison says it better than I could (and funnier!)
This is the famous Harlan Ellison, who I first came to know through his work on Babylon 5, but he’s also won the Hugo Award over nine times! It’s great to see him go off… I’m sure many photographers will really enjoy hearing him get angry!
Thank you to good man Matt Fangman who left this video link below.
I think it is a wonderful surreal work of art! Then again, I’m a huge fan of David Lynch and Twin Peaks. Anything surreal in my parallel universe gets a big thumbs up…
I decided to throw in a bonus for Day 2 of the online class that starts this weekend on the Midnight In Paris page! Each day you’ll learn a lot about photography from me and Miss Aniela. You’ll learn landscape, HDR, post-processing tricks, and even the special tricks that Miss Aniela employs with her models.
At the end of the Q&A session for day 2, I’ll be editing this photo below from beginning to end!
Daily Photo – The Colors of the Museum
Right before the in-person Midnight In Paris event, we took the class on a private photowalk to my favorite museum in the world! We ended up spending several hours here. I didn’t even get in trouble for my tripod this time!
I have soooooo many photos of this place. I’m trying to hold back and not post them all, even though I want to! We’ll just both have to wait, I guess…
We had a fun show recently with all FlatBooks authors! We decided to make a special bundle at 50% off all their books! You can get the whole Author Bundle at http://www.stuckincustoms.com/AuthorBundle
Here are the people that joined me (and a the books included in the bundle!) in the video below.
The Rocks is the oldest part of Sydney, and it’s down by the harbour. I have to make sure I get the “u” in there to appease local sensitivities. Anyway, it’s a cool area full of a lot of old-world charm. Now there are a lot of restaurants, bars, and little hotels that are sprinkled around the area.
I took this one from the top of a 3-story salsa bar. I didn’t even really go into the bar, except for the way to find the top of it! I looked quite strange walking around the salsa dancefloor to get to the other side, dancing with my tripod!
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