对不起，此内容只适用于English。

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK

Over 50 Million Views!

I am always shocked when I look at these numbers.  I’m very hard on myself when it comes to photography, and I feel like I rarely ever reach that “nirvana” point in a photo.  But I do like to try — and I enjoy sharing and getting your thoughts.  It helps give me energy to keep on trying!

These stats are a good indication of how much energy you are giving me!  We just passed 50 million views — at least this is the official number that we can count through SmugMug and Flickr.  The photos are spread far and wide beyond that, but I can’t include them in the official count.

I find it remarkable that I started hosting photos on SmugMug (see SmugMug Review) in December of 2009, and we already have over 30 million views.  It’s been about five years on Flickr and we are at 22 million views.  I still post my photos over there, but I just don’t link there from the blog — and so many of my friends are still on Flickr.  I wish I had more time to surf around and see their work!  This is just too hard for me sometimes with a busy schedule, family, and this sort of thing.

Anyway, thank you so much!

Daily Photo – Time in London

I had many highlights of the year… one of them was certainly that amazing huge photowalk in London.  I enjoyed meeting so many people… it’s amazing how many “lurkers” there are out there!  You guys and gals are too shy on the Internet!

A pretty good example (and what I’ve grown to expect) is gents like Andy Bird.  I find that generally interesting and awesome people just end up enjoying this sort of thing!  He came up to me, wearing a Joss Whedon t-shirt, so I knew there was something of interest in the works.  And then I found out it was long-time commenter Andy Bird!  What a cool guy…  and, I’m always impressed (and not surprised) when I end up meeting frequent (or infrequent!) members of the community.  Anyway, while I was looking at this photo, I came to think of that nice photowalk in London.

Speaking of that, when I set up for this shot in particular, I spent some time talking about the composition… Big Ben, the lights, the bridge, etc etc.  And then, right when I was taking the shot, another photographer got right in front of me!  hehe… well, these things happen.  But, it helped me decide on a nice treatment for the photo — to keep the emphasis on the shapes rather than the interloper.

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK

对不起，此内容只适用于English。

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel

About the Site

We have quite a nice team here that have helped out with the site. Down at the bottom of the page, we have a new footer that came with the new design. In there, I put a link to “About the Site“, where you can get some scoop on people that help us out. We have a few freelancers that you might need in the future too!

That “About This Site” page is sort of a work-in-progress… but I believe in getting some things up early and then refining over time.

HDR on the iPhone

I was recently on Leo Laporte‘s show The Tech Guy — we talked all about HDR on the iPhone. I’ll link over to that podcast when it comes available. My friend Brian Matiash wrote up a little analysis on his blog that you might enjoy as well.

Daily Photo – Rainbow over the London Eye

Today I am taking a train from London to Paris, and going through the chunnel (under the English Channel) for my first time. I’m very excited about this… I love the idea of rail travel in Europe. I don’t know why this is… I do look around at the other passengers and they often seem Euro-melancholy. Maybe you know what I mean…

So, today’s shot is of the newly famous London Eye. It’s more than just a ferris wheel. I can understand why it was so controversial when it was being built. What proper city would want a carnival-esque attraction right in the middle of it all? Well, this is no regular ferris wheel. It’s at least four times bigger than most, and each capsule is like a tiny plane. Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to go inside for a ride… this was for many reasons:

• They put a bunch of people in with you, and I fear they would all crowd to the window
• I want to go up at exactly sunset and take an amazing photo, which would really require me to be by myself or with an assistant
• I saw there was a special “ride” you can get that has gourmet chocolate on board. That sounded good and I wanted to plan that for a future trip!

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK

Twitter and Photography

Twitter has turned out to be a great tool for photography!  Not only did I help use it to organize the London PhotoWalk, but I also send out tweets to places like @WickedLondon and @Tate to get inside scoops on photography and whatnot.  Since these places are obviously into social media, they are often likely to respond.

Daily Photo – Wicked London

So, I just got finished watching Wicked in London.  It was a very cool experience.  I would have enjoyed getting a few more shots of the environs and actors/actresses — maybe next time!

The stage was wonderfully elaborate and fantasy-steampunk.  I didn’t expect so much steampunk stuff in my life lately…  speaking of that, I’ll have more of these sorts of photos coming from Burning Man in coming days.  When traveling on the road, it’s hard for me to get new shots up right away, but I know people enjoy seeing “live” shots that show what I am seeing on a timely basis.  It takes a lot of energy to be out shooting all day, come back, post-process, and then upload everything to the blog — but I will try to do it from time to time.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see Wicked in London, I certainly recommend it.  I won’t ruin the story for you if you haven’t seen it, but there is a surprise appearance at the end from Jar Jar Binks that is totally unexpected.

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, UK

London PhotoWalk Links

Thanks again to the massive group that came out!  It was a ton of fun, as you know!  Here are some links for you to follow to post your photos and give comments/review:

• Flickr Group
• Facebook Event

Video of the PhotoWalk

Stephen Graham put up a video of the event on his site too. He grabbed some informal footage while were all walking around… Jump over to his site iboogaloo.com to see it.

Pics of the event

Sadly, I’ve been too busy to process many photos, but I will soon!  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the photos of others on the walk.  There are some very talented and passionate photographers in London… very exciting stuff!

And below are a few more photos from the event that came out kinda cool… so you can see what these things are like in case you want to join the next one. I stop a few times along the walk to describe the shot, give tips, and this sort of thing. Everyone gets along great, and people usually make many new friends, since most come alone!

Many people took many “behind the scenes shots of the event”. Some interesting ones from Gergio Amiti (5ERG10) and KBTimages.co.uk(uk_photo_art). Just click on the photos below to jump over to their photostreams to see more!

Filed under the categories: England, London, Travel, UK

Enforced in London

Well I’ve already been nearly to jail twice in London. And yes, just for taking photos.

My UK friends have warned me about how insane the rules are here, and they are right! I wouldn’t mind if there was ANY logic or reason to it whatsoever. But it’s artistically and personally offensive to me.

The first time was inside the first 10 minutes of shooting in Waterloo station. A security guard came right up to me and said, “This is private property.” I said, oh, that’s nice… It’s a train station and 3,000 other people are taking cell-phone pics at 5 megapixels and up. Then he sent me to the big boss, who was busy eating dinner behind a row of monitors. I asked him if I could take photos for my blog. He said absolutely not that it is a security risk.

And then I went over to the London Eye (the big ferris wheel). Two security guards came up to me there and said, “No tripod.” I asked why, and they said it was a legal risk that if anyone tripped, they could be sued. But there was no one near me within 50 yards except for the security guards! So I took off the camera and held the tripod, asking, “Can I hold it in my left hand while taking a photo with my right hand?” He said, “Absolutely not.”

These are the two reasons I hear again and again… Security Risk OR Legal reasons… just more evidence that governments and lawyers (especially, working in concert) are inane entities.

London Photowalk Tonight!

I’ll meet many of you soon! Looking forward to it! For details, see the London PhotoWalk Facebook Event!

Daily Photo – Approaching London

Despite being accosted by imbeciles on multiple occasions, I’m still having an amazing time in London. I go out just to take photos for a few hours, and then end up staying out past midnight! This great city has been on my list for a long time… so I am happy to finally make it.

The afternoon yesterday had a typical London rainshower. But it cleared up just before sunset to reveal magnificent clouds. I crisscrossed the Thames River many times to find the right light. After the sun dipped below the horizon, the light finally fell behind Westminster with a delicate palette.

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK