Stopping in Petaluma to see the TWIT Cottage

I spent the night up in Napa where I was visiting my mom and grandmother (so I have extra fudge for everyone!). Since I was coming back to the Palo Alto area anyway, I drove through Petaluma. While there, I stopped by the TWIT cottage to meet with Dane. Whilst there, Leo happened to be taping a show, so I ducked in a for a few moments to see everything in person.

So, what is cool about this? Well, for one thing, I’ve always like Leo and the scene he’s throwin’ down. Did you know he also sees out of just one eye? The one-eyed guys have to stick together.

Also, he runs a huge media empire out of this little cottage in Petaluma! It’s really an impressive feat. He has several shows on his network that I think are interesting. You can either get the podcast on iTunes or watch live at http://live.twit.tv/. I recommend TWIT (This Week in Technology). There is another good show called “Macbreak Weekly” which is very good. Last, you should try to catch the science stuff with Dr. Kiki. She was there too – a very nice gal…

I thought about setting up for a major hardcore HDR in his studio, but I didn’t want to impose… It was my first time in there (previous appearances on TWIP – This Week in Photography) were all remote via Skype, so I got a kick out of seeing the operation in person!

Extra Books at the Stanford Event?

I’m all out of copies of A World in HDR (but I am bringing some homemade fudge from my mom to hand out)! We totally sold out at the Google speech, which was way more popular than I anticipated… Also, some of you may remember that Amazon sold out in several countries, so it can be a little tough to get copies… they don’t exactly grow on trees! But, Amazon, Borders, B&H, and all the others replenish their supplies all the time.

If you already have a book, I am more than happy to sign it for you… it would be my pleasure!

Daily Photo – The Lonely Barn

Note that this is not the aforementioned TWIT Cottage.

Along the road from Napa to Petaluma, there are countless photo ops. I stopped here and there on the side of the road to jump out and take some shots. This one I took with my 85mm prime lens – I will soon add it to the Nikon 85mm Review page along with the other sample photos.

It was a foggy and overcast morning, so I had to look for other sorts of subject in the landscape that were interesting… which is pretty easy to do here in the wine country!

Filed under the categories: California, Napa, Nikon D3X, Travel

Stanford Walk

I’ll meet you all at The Oval on Thursday at 4 PM. There is ONE bit of bad news. There was going to be a talk afterward at 5:30 PM, but it looks like the auditorium at Stanford fell through. This was a surprise to me too – so, my apologies… however, the walk is still on and I look forward to meeting y’all.

As a bonus, I’ll be giving away a lot of Smugmug goodies! So be sure to come with room to take home something special!

Topaz Detail Review

Topaz Detail just upgraded their cool software. I have written a quick Topaz Detail Review, which I will add to more in coming weeks. It’s a really nice and fun program – I invite you to check it out!

Daily Photo – The Gothic Study

Note this is the “small” library. I’ll post the main library in a few weeks!

As always, you can zoom in to see the details by clicking through. The details are quite incredible, and I am sure you will delight in seeing the closeups of the hand-carved wooden arches and the painted Spanish ceilings… it was all amazing! If you look closely at the full res version towards the middle, you can see a portrait of WR Hearst when he was 31-years-old.

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, Nikon D3X, Travel

Check Out this Workshop near LA

For you are in the LA Area (or willing to travel for an interesting workshop), join my friends Frederick Van and Joeseph Linashke for their workshop at nearby Joshua Tree.  These guys have worked hard to put together a really excellent program… you can visit the website to see everything that is included!

New Interview Up with Ron Martinsen

I had an interview with the extremely nice Ron Martinsen.  Head on over Ron’s photography blog to have a loosee!  He also has a nice discount code on my textures tutorial, in case you have been waiting for a good deal!’

Daily Photo – A Great Day at the Google HQ!

Wow that was a cool experience.  Those guys and gals over there are super-nice.  You never know…  I guess maybe Google seems somewhat intimidating from the outside, but after I met guys like Cliff, Brian, and Chip — I felt right at home.

I gave an hour-long talk in one of their theaters there.  It was super-packed and people were standing all around because seats were gone.  We were graced with the presence of one Sara Jane Todd from @Peachpit to help out selling books – and we sold out!  Also, my Brazilian friend Fabio, the editor of Abduzeedo was there too, so it was great to see him.

The Authors@Google (video link) program has a neat deal where they subsidize books, so Googlers don’t have to pay full price.  I saw all kinds of cool stuff and took a lot of pics.  I have to get most cleared with Google Corp Comms before I can release… but I nabbed shots of a spaceship, a new pseudo-holodeck, and more mysteries await!  We even got to eat lunch there in the Google cafeteria, which had some of the most excellent food I’ve ever had in such a setting… they even have a small organic farm on the campus… well, I could go on and on…  but I was very impressed and happy to meet so many enthusiastic people!

The video should be done in the next 2-3 weeks or so.  We’ve got good-man Brian at Google slaving away on editing the whole thing together!

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Travel

See you all today at Google!

I’m excited to meet a lot of my Google friends in person!  The talk is today, and I’ve got everything ready for it.  For reference, here are a few links I will mention during the talk:

• HDR Tutorial – Free tutorial here on the site – you’ll be up and running with a pretty pic in an hour!
• Jill Bolte Taylor – about the Right and Left Brain on TED
• HDR Spotting – a site with the Attention Distribution Engine to drive more traffic to other HDR Artists sites (still in beta – you have to get an invite code from existing member)
• Textures Tutorial - The textures and a video showing how I got those textured-photos
• Videos – A collection of free videos showing how I take HDR Photos in the field…
• Twitter and Human Evolution – A longer treatise on what it suggests…

Daily Photo – The Azure Blue Indoor Pool at Hearst Castle

I mentioned yesterday that I was able to get a private tour throughout Hearst.  It was a long and great day!  Thank goodness I had a mass of memory cards… I got so much footage it was crazy!

I could have picked a bunch of shots to be the “first”, but I thought this one was particularly wonderful.  There are two enormous pools at Hearst Castle, and this is the indoor one.  This is a nice vantage point because this spot is actually quite difficult to reach!  There is no door behind me… so I had to “shimmy” along that edge you see… It was NARROW… the shimmy was like a video game, except while holding a $10,000 camera!  Sketchy!  But I just had to get over here because I could visualize the shot before it happened…

Here’s a cool fact about this pool.  Nearby, there is a huge room that was intended for a gymnasium that Hearst never constructed. The State then made it usable for IT and Archive area, so the water cools the computers…  wild, eh?

Filed under the categories: California, Hearst Castle, Nikon D3X, Travel