Stuck In Customs

Monterey PhotoWalk

We have the Monterey PhotoWalk group up now on Flickr! Thanks again for coming out.. that was a lot of fun… enjoyed the conversations and the chance to shoot with you guys! 🙂

Daily Photo – Flowers and Carved Stone

I kept driving and driving and driving and weaved my way up past a town in the far northwest fjords. I saw this strangely (and nicely) shaped mountain with that strange early-morning lighting. Then, I spent another hour or so hiking around until I found this special kind of blue flower (EDIT thanks to commenters Scott & Guðjón – it is called the lupine or lúpína in Icelandic). Just when I was about to give up, I found a giant patch of them, so I selected the right lens and set up for this shot.

Have you heard of Larry Kagan?

This guy is awesome! He presented at EG with me, and he was in my little grouping of artists. It’s hard to explain the kind of art he does… but here is a little video and you can learn more about him and his work.

Daily Photo – Young Girl in Basket

The main river that runs through Feng Huang and is criss-crossed by many bridges and walkways. To get up to them, there are long stone stairways that switchback up the sides.

In the mornings, women go down to the river with their children to wash clothes. As they go back and forth to get more loads, sometimes they put the babies into the baskets on the way up again.

Live Webinar Class Registrations Open!

Okay, it’s now official! All the information and registration info you need is on Trey Ratcliff’s Photography Webinar page. Great name eh? Hehe… I actually struggled with a name. Like, for example, I didn’t want to just call it an “HDR Webinar”, because what I teach is so much more than just HDR. Anyway, it’s a 3 week course — 9 hours and 9 different classes. It’s gonna be awesome.

Here we are with the biggest conference badges of all time. They are actually super-big because they have the whole schedule on there. Matt is the awesome one on the left.

I Met Matt Groening!

While at the EG Conference, I met all sorts of interesting people, and I hate to say one was any more interesting than the next, but this one is a little special. I don’t have many creative people in the world that I really get giddy about, but Matt Greoning (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama) is one of them.

After I finished my talk (which should be available online soon), I was able to spend a bit of time talking to him… we talked about creativity, how to work with a team, about robots, about robots taking over the world, about how I was hoping that his strangest contribution to society would be that we would fill our lives with ridiculous and funny robots rather than the ones who simply want to kill us, and this sort of thing. Matt was SUPER NICE and engaging. Really… that guy is awesome.

I also met another guy I really admired artistically, but that did not go very well.  He treated me very strangely, and I felt foolish.  I can’t put my finger on it… I was really kind of crestfallen.  It sucked away a lot of my mojo…  anyway, I’m still trying to come to terms with that.

Daily Photo – Hidden Temple in Bamboo at Night

This place was pretty far off the usual beaten path but I was glad to find it!

In Kyoto, there is a wonderful and unexpected temple that weaves through an old bamboo forest. It weaves up, down, and around hills with warm, calming bamboo swaying about. Here and there, little temples, urns, and benches are placed. Everything is delicately lit to add to the mood. And just beyond where the lights are, the bamboo forest is pitch black and full of wonderful mystery.

Daily Photo – Hidden Temple in Bamboo at Night

This place was pretty far off the usual beaten path but I was glad to find it!

In Kyoto, there is a wonderful and unexpected temple that weaves through an old bamboo forest. It weaves up, down, and around hills with warm, calming bamboo swaying about. Here and there, little temples, urns, and benches are placed. Everything is delicately lit to add to the mood. And just beyond where the lights are, the bamboo forest is pitch black and full of wonderful mystery.

Hidden Temple in Bamboo at Night

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2009-09-30 06:58:30
• CameraNIKON D3X
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time30
• Aperture8
• ISO200
• Focal Length14.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+2

Survey Results

I posted a survey a few days ago to help me know what to include in my upcoming live webinar photography course. I love the answers to the survey question, “Why are you so interested in photography?”

There are so many reasons why people like taking photos.

They range from passion:
“It is a passion I have had since I first looked through the viewfinder.”

to sanity:
“It’s a hobby/side gig that keeps me sane.”

to attracting women:
“Chicks dig fast glass.”

to sobriety:
“I gave up crack cocaine to pursue photography.”

to self-expression:
“Because in everything there is beauty and interest. Through the lens of my camera, images often express what I cannot say with words.”

to showing off:
“Like wowing people with great images.”

to social responsibility:
“I love sharing not only my stories from different cultures, but those of the people I visit as well. I believe that as a photographer, I have a responsibility to show people’s lives just as beautifully as the people themselves live them.”

Why are YOU so interested in photography? Tell Me Here, and it will also be a tremendous help for planning the course too.

Daily Photo – Exploring Ibiza at Night

The old medieval town of Ibiza is an awesome place for exploration at night. Every nook, cranny, alley, and cobblestone street was built for photography. And it was doubly-awesome after a little rain gave everything a reflective sheen.

After we finished dinner, we started the long walk back to the hotel. It took 10x as long as normal with all the stops along the way. But comon… how can you walk past something like this and not take a photo? Impossible!

Great time at EG!

I’m having a good time in Monterey at the EG Conference and looking forward to the PhotoWalk on Sunday!

I had breakfast with Freeman Dyson, ended up having several conversations with Neal Stephenson, sat by Alexa Meade, talked about Icelandic horses with Stephen Tobolowsky and his wife, got to speak today between the great Elliot Erwitt and Max Ferguson, talked about the “haters’ with Masie Crow, discussed photography with Chris Rainier, shared adventure stories with Rachael Kinley, and decided to collaborate on something awesome in the future with Masa Kuwamura. Plus, about a dozen other remarkable things that are also worthy of mention! But I am so tired…. need to sleep after the…

Daily Photo – Prambanan Sunset

Sometimes the lighting is best right after the sunset.

And sometimes this is right when the police come to get you. Maybe they were security guards. But it was hard to tell in the dark – and, besides, I didn’t know the difference between the clothes of a security guards and a policeman in Indonesia. I had Will with me when these guys approached us, and he was no help at all. He did manage to keep them busy for a while so I could take some final shots, but we could tell that we had worn out our welcome. So then the guards started to escort us right out of there.

The Webinar Approaches!

We’ve been going through hundreds of different comments (and some very creative and unexpected ones!!!) from the survey for the webinar. I already had a pretty good idea of what people wanted to know, but I am seeing a few surprises in there!

Now, if you want to be the FIRST to know, be sure to sign up for the free newsletter over there. We’ll announce pretty soon, and that’s a good list for the early alerts. I normally send out about one newsletter a month with links to all the latest videos, reviews, tutorials, and more. Also, when you sign up, you’ll get access to the 23 previous newsletters that are full of all sorts of cool info!

Daily Photo – Homes in the Land of the Panserbjørne

On my ninth or tenth day of the solstice, the mornings sometimes got a little strange. On this morning, it was around 2 or 3 AM. There was plenty of light, but the heavy clouds cast a blue tinge over the landscape.

And it was that strange time of “night”, when you know everyone is asleep and you feel like the only one on earth that is still alive. When everything is well-lit, you also feel a little bit apocalyptic about the whole thing. Was there some kind of Zombie outbreak, and now everyone has eaten one another into oblivion, and I’m the only one left? But it’s that sort of dream-state that is good for creating photography. When nothing around is the way it is supposed to be — then it helps to keep me in a creative state of mind.