Awesome Melbourne PhotoWalk!

I’ll get some more photos up soon, but you can see many photos from the Melbourne PhotoWalkers here! Melbourne has one of the most vibrant photowalk communities I’ve ever come across!

January 26 is the day!

Of the big event at Midnight in Paris! Even if you can’t watch live, you can still get it later. This photo below of the bookcase is part of the video… there is a pretty funny scene in episode 1 that you’ll enjoy around this… because I never even saw this shot myself!

Nik Silver Efex Pro

I processed this photo using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro. I recommend it!

Daily Photo – The Fantasy Bookcase

I suppose bookcases will become more an antique in the near future. It’s hard for me to imagine my kids having a lot of bookcases when they get older… the vast majority of everything they read now is on a tablet. I suppose they can have a bookcase with a few tablets in it, but that’s kind of like having a buggy-whip case full of lightsabers.

Filed under the categories: France, Paris, Travel

Updated Drobo Review

I’ve been playing with one of the New Drobos — the much faster Thunderbolt version, and they are very good! I have since updated my Drobo Review here on the site for you to enjoy.

Daily Photo – The New Facebook HQ

I had a fun afternoon walking around the new Facebook campus when I was recently there. Here’s a quick one!

Filed under the categories: California, San Francisco, San Jose, Travel

Want the info on any of my shots?

Every day, I upload the max rez image along with all the EXIF info to SmugMug. To see the EXIF for yourself, just click through the image to the SmugMug page where you can see a little “i” when you hover over the image. Click that to get the info!

Daily Photo – The Cemetery in the Monastery Castle

I know that purists tend to call this place more of a monastery, but I call it more of a castle! To me, after all, it just looks like an almighty castle (said in Bob-Ross-voice), doesn’t it?

For this one, I got down pretty low with the Nikon 14-24 lens. I had the engines pushed to Warp 10 at 14mm! The rest of the EXIF is ISO 100, f/8, 15 seconds for one of the exposures.

Filed under the categories: France, Mont Saint Michel, Nikon D800, Travel

New Topaz Software Released

There’s always something new! You guys know that I use Topaz as part of my processing… Topaz has some new releases that might be of interest to you!

Daily Photo – Ornate Taxi in Beijing

This little taxi reminded me a bit of those crazy Burning Man cars! It parked here for just long enough for me to grab a photo. After it left, I realized that I think wanted a ride in it… but I was too busy getting lost in taking the photo to keep my wits about me.

Filed under the categories: Nikon D800

Some Cool eBooks for you

We are always getting new stuff over at Flatbooks.com — here are a few relatively new ones you might have missed!

• Vibrant Colors by Jay Patel
• Light Painted Night Photography by Troy Paiva
• WordPress for Photographers by Peter Adams

Daily Photo – The Ancient Muds of Death Valley

Death Valley is a pretty harsh place. It’s especially harsh if you happen to live your life as mud.

I saw these kinds of cracked mudflats in many places, but this was one of my favorites. It was very close to some giant sand dunes. I’m hardly an expert on deserts and sand dunes and whatnot, but I was surprised that these were so close to endless miles of dunes…

Filed under the categories: California, Death Valley, Nikon D800, Travel

New updates to OnOne Software

In case you missed it, there are new updates to OnOne software that you may enjoy! It’s one of the tools in my arsenal… along with Photomatix and many more. I keep my latest, most used tools up to date inside the HDR Tutorial.

Daily Photo – The Commune, China

This is a really cool place near Beijing!

It’s an expensive resort, but really quite unique. They had a series of architects come in and create very modern “houses” that are scattered across the hilly countryside. Then, they “repeated” those designs and created many little “rooms” inside each of the houses where you can stay. One of the other great features of the resort is that you can begin a walk up an old river bed for about half a mile before reaching a forgotten, abandoned part of the Great Wall of China.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

PhotoWalk in Melbourne Australia!

See All The Event Details here!
Everyone is invited for a fun evening of photography and learning!

I’m really looking forward to this… I’ve always wanted to come to Melbourne, and I promised I’d do a photowalk when I came! I look forward to meeting you all!

Skill Levels: All skill levels! From mobile cameras to DSLRs
Time: Friday, Jan 11 7:30 PM – Or come a little early if you want to say hello!
Cost: Free
Location: Federation Square outside the Info Centre
Tag: #MelbournePhotoWalk2013
Who can come: Family friendly…bring the kids!

I’ll be setting up for many shots and talking through my settings and this sort of thing… feel free to ask me any questions or whatever you like!

If there are more questions, good man Paul Pavlinovich will be able to answer them… a big thanks to Paul for helping me to put this together! See you soon!

More from Hearst

If you click on the “Hearst Castle” category below the photo, then you can see all the photos from this amazing place. When you get down to the bottom, be sure to click to go see the other pages as well!

Daily Photo – Inside Hearst Castle

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any photos from Hearst Castle, but this one stuck out to me. These rooms are so ridiculous in a way, yes? I mean, even if I had all the money in the world, I don’t think I’d ever want a room like this in my house! It’s so formal and unlivable… I prefer something a bit more comfy!

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, Travel

Trey’s Variety Hour #64

Trey’s Variety Hour #64: David duChemin and Friends

In this episode our guest is David duChemin, founder of Craft & Vision. We are also joined by Nicole S. Young, Brian Matiash, and Alex Koloskov. We discuss their magazines and ebooks and display some of our work.

G+ Discoveries:
Jason Joseph, Pawel Tomaszewicz, Hengki Koentjoro, Dave Morrow, and Christopher Germano.

Thanks to Dave Veffer for helping out with the whole production!

The show airs each Monday at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET. (Check your local time)

Submit your questions here:

Please submit any questions you have while you watch the show and we’ll try to answer as many as we can.

Official website:http://www.StuckInCustoms.com

You can subscribe for free to my YouTube channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/stuckincustoms

Subscribe to the Podcast and View Past Episodes

• Subscribe for free to My YouTube channel.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching the show, I hope you enjoyed it! While you’re here be sure to have a look around!

• Tutorials – Discover the Art of Photography, Free HDR Tutorial, HDR Video Tutorial and Textures Tutorial
• Reviews – Detailed camera reviews, photo software reviews (and coupon codes) plus what’s in my photo bag!
• eBooks – Flatbooks.com has many topics include photography techniques, photo composition, photo editing, HDR photography and lifestyle.
• Applications – We have several beautiful and fun apps you might enjoy: 100 Cameras in 1, Photo Voyages and Stuck On Earth.
• Newsletter – Subscribe to the our newsletter. It’s free and pretty and we promise not to spam you!

Filed under the categories: Podcast

Sony NEX-7 Review

As you may or may not know, Sony doesn’t give me free cameras or pay me to talk about their stuff. If this changes in the future, I’ll be sure to let you know! (Same with Nikon, BTW!). Anyway, I’ve just bought the new wide-angle lens for my NEX-7, and I’m in the middle of testing it… I’ll report back soon!

To find out more in the meantime, see the Sony NEX-7 Review!

Daily Photo – The Milford Sound Spray

People are sometimes disappointed when they come to Milford Sound and it is raining, but that is really one of the best times! The waterfalls go absolutely crazy, and there are, in my opinion, more interesting photos to be taken than in the sunshine. Of course, it’s a very different kind of photo, but you really can’t go wrong.

There are a few boat cruises that go out into the sound and the ocean as well… those are all highly recommended. If you see Eric Lim from Southern Discoveries, be sure to tell him hello from Trey!

Filed under the categories: Milford Sound, New Zealand, Travel

Join us for the Online Class – it quickly approaches!

In a few weeks, we’ll be having this great online photography training event called Midnight in Paris. You’ll notice today’s daily photo is one of the ones in this little video-teaser below!

Daily Photo – The Royal Stairs

I imagine all sorts of royalty going up and down these stairs. I wonder what it was like, back in the day, when people would come over to the chateau… arriving on horse-drawn carriages and the like… coming in to ascend these stairs… I wish we had video footage from back then. It would be so interesting.

Maybe someone will invent a quantum-time video capture device. Then we could set it up on the stairs and dial it back to the mid 1800′s to see who went up and down the stairs.

This reminds me a little of what my little 7-year-old girl said. She was looking at some old photos from the 20′s. She said, “You know dad? Like in the olden days? Like when everyone used to dress in black and white?”

Filed under the categories: France, Nikon D800, Paris, Travel

Rankings in NZ

This is a funny post from New Zealand photographer Jason Law: NZ Photographers more popular than our Prime Minister on Google+… Pretty funny to see that myself and a few other close photographer friends here in Queenstown/Central Otago are more popular than our Prime Minister.. Perhaps +Todd Sisson or +Stefan Haworth should run for Prime Minister next term?.. Check out www.circlecount.com for some interesting stats.. http://www.circlecount.com/nz/profileslist/

Daily Photo – Exploring the Medieval Mont Saint Michel

I think if you ever go to Mont Saint Michel that you should really try to stay up on the island. Hotel space is extremely limited, but it gives you the chance to walk around the old walled city deep into the night. All the tourists are gone, and the only people around are the supposed 46 people that live there, according to Wikipedia.

Here, an old man walks home after a day at work.

Filed under the categories: France, Mont Saint Michel, Nikon D800, Travel

Snow on Christmas?

Even though it is the middle of summer here in the southern hemisphere, I’ve heard there has been snow here on Christmas… usually it’s in the 60′s and 70′s (18-22 Celsius) in the summer, but every now and then these storms come through and dump a bit of snow!

Quick Timelapse

For today, I’m did a very quick timelapse of two days in a row in Queenstown, looking out into my back yard. As you can see Day 1 was super cloudy while it was preparing to snow. Day 2 you can see the fresh snow on the mountains.

Filed under the categories: New Zealand, Nikon D800, Queenstown, Travel