I wonder if the people who design hotels get to go and stay in them when they are complete? Like here… the architect surely planned out the balcony of this room I stayed in to be awesome at sunset, and it was… but did they get to come along at some point and see their vision realised?
This is the first spot we took people during the Portugal workshop in Sintra. We were staying there in the Ritz-Carlton, and it was quite cool because there were many ruins within walking distance. You can see a bit of the old Roman aqueduct there on the top. Obviously, they built a golf course all around it. I decided to get this vantage point with the quad to make the photo a little confusing on purpose.
Sometimes I tell people I’m a pretty good drone pilot, but I’m nothing like this guy. This guy makes me feel like I can barely operate a tricycle. Check out this video below!
Here’s a shot of the rather remarkable Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve. The hotels are nice enough on their own, but these “Reserve” locations take everything to the next level. This photo was taken as a “vertirama” where I stitched together a few vertical photos.
Here’s yet another critique show for ya! 🙂 I actually am not sure if we’ll keep these going or not, as they take quite a bit of time to create and edit. But, hey, you never know… it’s a good experiment!
This is the entrance to the Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Krabi. How beautiful is this place? I actually did yoga in that place a few times… It was a perfect and serene place to practice. I would also take strolls around here at night, always with my camera in tow.
We’re doing one of these a week here on the blog and they are a mix of some stories from my life which I hope will inspire you and post-processing tips. Here’s Episode 3 for ya!
I’ve been to a few of these different floating markets, but I’ve never seen them from above until this time that I visited Langkawi. Our concierge at the Ritz-Carlton there got us a boat to use for the day. This floating market was much better than my last one near Bangkok. I remember I was there and it must have been 120 degrees with no wind. I got stuck in a boat traffic jam for about three hours, trying to jam-float my way through the market. It was quite miserable, actually! So, this one in Langkawi was about one million times better!
Episode 1 seems like it was a hit with people, so here’s show #2. We’re learning more as we go… Episode 3 is even more punchy as we drop the critiques to 1 minute each (or well, we try).
This is the Ritz-Carlton there, and it’s in maybe one of the most epic locations I’ve ever seen. I got up early one morning and got the drone out over the Pacific Ocean to get this. I had a little vision for the shot the evening before while I was watching the sunset and eating s’mores!
I just finished listening to this podcast. It was really good… I like them both a lot… I’m definitely more in Sam Harris’ side in this discussion. I think Russell will come around to his way of thinking eventually.
Here’s another shot I took out of my hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton there in Shanghai. It was the end of our Asia tour and I was feeling exceptionally lazy, so sometimes I would just relax in my room, read books, and then lazily walk over to the window and take some photos. I’m not used to being lazy, and it made me feel rather lame, actually. I’m generally much more stimulated when I’m running around doing ten different things. I mean, I can still be quiet and meditate for a while, but, when that is done, I’m ready for extreme action!
Here’s a cool music maker I recently got for my 13-year-old daughter. I wasn’t sure if she would want it or not, but we watched a few videos and she got super excited.
Check out this hallway in the Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong. This hallway leads to some absolutely amazing restaurants where I ended up eating way too much food! Also, this hallway seemed to be very popular among Instagrammers. I had to be pretty patient to wait for all of them to get out of their egoic selfie zones so I could set up with my tripod.
I’m always making updates to my kit.com that includes everything from my favorite books to my recommended camera gear to my crazy gadgets. Of course, sharing this goes against my minimalist, non-consumer inner drives. I don’t really have a lot of stuff, but, for the stuff I have, I choose stuff that adds to my life and does not subtract from it.
We received a nice email from a Passport Member asking about Adobe Bridge and how I use it. I realized I had never made a video about that before, so this was the perfect opportunity. In this video, I also share a little bit about my workflow. Enjoy!
Here’s another crazy sunset I saw while in Krabi, Thailand at the Ritz-Carlton Reserve. To be totally honest, I felt like a very lazy photographer when I was there. It was just too easy to waltz out of my room, get my bare feet in the sand, and then set up to take a photo. Here’s a fun word for you… Crepescular. That kind of light that is shooting out from the clouds is called “crepuscular” light. I don’t really know why that is interesting other than me enjoying the texture of that word.
As you can see in the photo walk highlights below, it definitely didn’t rain and a good time was had by all!
There were great views from the rooftop bar in at the Ritz-Carlton there in Moscow. It was pretty easy to pop up there at different times of the day to get different light situations. I took this right before our photo walk, when rain was threatening. This was the final city of our 10-city European tour, and we had not had rain at all. I was afraid our luck was about to run out!
