This is an awesome church in Paris. These places are great to photograph. I believe this one was taken inside Le Sacre Coeur up near the altar. At the PhotoWalk, I had a few questions about how to get a tripod into a church, of all things! I wrote up a 10-step guide for this sort of activity a while ago that you can view at your leisure!

I’m spending the weekend in Atlanta. It’s about 10 degrees cooler than Austin here, which means it’s still inhumanly hot! I did get a chance to do a little shooting this evening. I’ll see if I can grab the sunset tomorrow night! I don’t yet have a good Atlanta shot… I’ll hope for some good clouds!

Filed under the categories: France, Paris, Travel

Thanks to everyone who came downtown for the PhotoWalk tonight. It was lots of fun and I hope everyone got something out of it.

I asked everyone to please share their photos from the evening and encouraged people to comment on the photos of others. You can get this started by posting them either inside the Facebook Event Here, or, of you prefer Flickr, inside this thread in the Stuck In Customs group (which you can join).

According to the Driskill, we had about 160 people squeezed into the Victorian room. Cool! Is this one of the biggest PhotoWalks ever? Maybe so! Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed your assignments. By the time we got to the capitol, the group was a bit scattered! It was wild to see over a hundred photographers out there taking photos, using tripods, and running around to get the best angles. Very cool!

I set up to take some HDRs and talked through the process as much as possible. Around the backside of the capitol, I stopped here to take a photo. It just seemed like a nice spot with the little rolling hills and the evening lights. Like I explained to the group there with me, half is the shot, and the other half is the processing. There were many new people there today that are new to this scene, so I wanted to point them to the free HDR Tutorial here on the site.

I understand that CBS and NBC were there covering the event. I know I saw a camera from CBS out on 6th Street. If any of you can find footage, feel free to post it below. Thanks again to everyone that came — I hope you had fun!

Filed under the categories: Austin, Nikon D3X, Texas, Travel

An all-Texas episode of Stuck In Customs today!

We have our big PhotoWalk this evening here in Austin. It’s going to tonight (Thursday, Aug 6th) at 7:30 PM. Be at the Driskill on 6th and Brazos. We’ll meet inside the Driskill in the Victorian Room. All are welcome, whether you are a beginner, amateur, or pro. It’s simply a very laid back event where we will walk to a location, meandering this way and that as a group, taking photos, sharing techniques, and the like. Afterward, we share the photos online, exchange comments, contacts, etc etc.

Also, if you tune into ABC news in Austin on Thursday for their midday news broadcast, you might just see me! I have a short interview on there. I’ll also endeavor to get a YouTube of it to share afterward in case you miss it (like I will).

To share your photos from the PhotoWalk, you can post links in the comments here, or you can put them up in a few places. Share them on Facebook here, or share them on Flickr here!

As for this photo below, it was shot about two hours outside of Austin in a little town called Brady. You’d like it. They have a Sonic there. This was a 5-exposure HDR shot at f/16. This kept everything in focus and kept the shutter open long enough to let the clouds drag across the sensor. In these conditions, you don’t have a lot of time to fool around because the sun is bookin’ it towards the horizon. If you are new to the site, then you might enjoy reading more about how photos like this are made in the HDR Tutorial.

Filed under the categories: Austin, Nikon D3X, Texas, Travel

I received some cool news today. One of my photos of Glacier National Park has showed up in the #1 spot of the Huffington Post for a story they did on the Top Ten Best National Parks You Don’t Know About. That’s another good reason to keep your images under the “Creative Commons” license; people end up using the photo for interesting stories like this. I know not all photographers agree with me – that’s okay.

The first one is the photo from the article. The others beneath it are some of my other favorites from the park. The second one is Ethan, standing on the edge of the “Going To the Sun Road”. Isn’t that a cool name for a road?

We’ll make a final announcement for the PhotoWalk on tomorrow’s post. I understand that I’ll be on the Austin ABC midday news on Thursday to talk about HDR Photography and the like. I’ll get you more details when I have ‘em!

Filed under the categories: Travel

There is an amazing hallway that connects the The Hotel at Mandalay Bay with the rest of the casino. It’s long and at its end is a cool bar, which is a welcome respite no matter what kind of night you had in Vegas. Actually, I wouldn’t really know since I don’t drink… but, I do like to hang out in them, drink tomato juice, and process photos on my latptop. Yes, this is lame, I know.

I’ll be going to Vegas again in two weekends. I’ve got a list of places I want to visit with the camera… any suggestions?

Filed under the categories: Las Vegas, Nevada, Nikon D3X, Travel

After we set up camp in a little wooded area, we headed off to see if we could get to one of the glaciers by sunset.  This is near Cerro Torre, a region that is disputed between Argentina and Chile.  I didn’t see much of a dispute while I was there — no armies or anything.  I did see some wayward Guanacas, but I was not sure which side they were on.

I walked along the river until I got to a stopping point, where I got stuck.  I couldn’t cross because it was too sketchy, even for me.  So I set up here to prepare for the sunset.  This was shot about two hours prior to the sunset while I was exploring the area.  I’ll be sure to edit the other photos soon (ish) and get them up!

Filed under the categories: Argentina, El Chalten, Nikon D3X, Patagonia, Travel

Did you know that energy is so inexpensive in Iceland that it is cheaper to ship aluminum from Australia to Iceland for its final treatment? I don’t know much about refining aluminum, but I do know that final process (bauxite scrubbing?) is quite energy-intensive. And it must be worth it to ship something all the way from the other side of the world. I can’t imagine there are many ports further apart than Australia to Iceland! I used to play this game on my Amiga called Ports of Call. I may have to boot it up to check!

Anyway, this geothermal plant was very interesting and perfect for photography. Asmundur and I spent a bit of time there moving around for cool perspectives. I’d like to thank him again for taking me there!

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

At one point when driving through Yellowstone a few weeks ago, I got out of the car and started walking right into the forest on the edge of the road. There was a thick fog and the morning sun was low, creating an unexpected box of light. I kept walking and walking until I found this area. It just felt right for whatever reason, so I set up to take this HDR.

In other news, I found out today the exact meeting location for our upcoming PhotoWalk at Sunset here in Austin. We will be meeting in the Victorian Room inside the Driskill Hotel on 6th street to gather before the walk. It’s nice and air-conditioned in there, so we can save all the fun summer Texas sweatbox for the walk itself! Feel free to gather there between 7 and 7:30 PM on Thursday evening, August 6th. Once we’re all gathered, I’ll set the groundrules and then we’ll be off! By the way, a few people have asked if they can bring their kids, and that should be just fine… no problemo.

Filed under the categories: Montana, Nikon D3X, Travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone