Behind the Scenes of Stuck On Earth

Our iPad app “Stuck On Earth” (iTunes Link) is still doing great, and a big reason behind it is Karen Hutton.  She did amazing voice work for the app, so here is a bit behind the scenes for you.

Daily Photo – Patagonia Alive

While walking across this open field in the Andes, I stopped countless times to open up my tripod.  I’d only walk a short distance before looking around again and seeing everything anew.

I’d like to go back here on another epic hike.  Perhaps I’ll go in the deep of winter next time.  This place would be even more amazing under a fresh snow.

Digital Workflow and Stuff

This is a little presentation I did at the Apple store here in Austin.

Now, many of you have heard different flavors of this talk before. But, there is some new stuff in here (at 22:08) , particularly about workflow and how I keep track of my digital assets. I also have a more thorough Digital Workflow eBook that even comes with a video.

Want to see a full timecode / description? Visit this one on my YouTube page.

Daily Photo – Glacier in the Fog

Yesterday’s photo was of Glacier National Park, and today we have another glacier – but this one is from Argentina.

The glaciers in Glacier National Park are really quite boring. I’m sure that’s not a nice thing to say, but it’s true. The only ones I saw were quite far away and not very epic-looking. Maybe I was in the wrong place, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong! 🙂

SmugMug is using Amazon S3 to serve all these up... and I feel like I'm kind of eating too much at their all-you-can eat buffet of data!

175,000 Photo Views a Day

You guys are crazy! It’s been a while since I checked the SmugMug stats, so I was surprised to see the ever-steady increase in the daily photo views.  When you combine this with the 22 million from Flickr, we are well past 60 million views.  I guess the photos are good enough to keep people coming back – so thank you very much!  I’m still very happy with SmugMug — if you are thinking of switching to put your portfolio and photos there, I still highly recommend it.

See my full SmugMug Review for more.

Daily Photo – Deep into the Patagonia Glacier

This is where my Russian friend first produced a bottle of cognac from his inside breast pocket. And it was not a small bottle.

Even more baffling, during at least ten other major photography moments, he would pull a brand new cognac bottle from a different pocket. He was like a clown with endless streams of hidden tardis-like pockets. On one of the final nights of the hike, in fact, we were running low on food and there was nothing to drink. Upon hearing this, he simply raised his eyebrows and pulled out three full bottles of cognac and set them upon a log.

This is the Perito Mereno Glacier, and this thing is over two miles wide. Unfortunately, everything is so huge in the photo that you can’t get a sense of the scale. When you see huge chunks cleave off, it all happens in slow motion, just like the movies. And the sound is like an icy thunder.

See the Argentina category for more shots from this area!

Join me on Twit.TV today!

4 PM Pacific Time today (Friday), join me live on video at live.twit.tv! I’ll be on with Lisa Bettany and Leo Laporte for a new photography show. If you can join live in the chat room, I’ll hand out a free gift for all of you in there!

@Photoshop Tweets from Adobe Speech

During my talk yesterday at Adobe, the team there sent out a bunch of tweets… quoting me during the talk. I grabbed a bunch of them to put here below for you, in advance of the video that I think they are workin’ on:

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “Art on the Internet is just getting started, its not a saturated market.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “You have to have saturated and not saturated parts of the image to give eyes a break and keep viewers on the image”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “We picture ourselves as stars of our own movie…and we like to capture it for ourselves in a more meaningful, rich way.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “Next time you go out to shoot, try wearing some ear phones..What happens is unexpected.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “If you can separate yourself from what is going on, everything can become dreamlike and you can see things in a new light.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “I challenge you to be awesome. We’re at an unprecented time in history to be awesome together rather than alone.”

Daily Photo – Russian in the Woods

Russians often just look cool. I don’t know how they do it. They don’t even have to try, but they just kind of have this “edge” that I can’t put my finger on.

I took this shot of Vulva (pronounce the “V” like Chekov did with nuclear wessuls) when we were walking in the woods in Patagonia. I had gotten up ahead of him about a quarter mile, and I stopped to take of my bag to get a snack. I like snacks when hiking. Snacks are so good. Anyway, I heard Vulva coming up behind me, so I spun around my camera to take this quick photo of him walking at me. I told him that I thought he looked really cool, but I think he thought I was just being a cheeky American.

Daily Photo – Natalia on the Farm

After getting back from one of those long hikes in Patagonia, I stayed with my Russian friends at a small hotel in El Chalten. It was a little family-run operation and the daughter Natalia helped out by running errands and these sorts of things. I took her around with me to take some photos in the little town, and she was happy to pose! It was plenty easy to find all kinds of interesting backgrounds, since El Chalten is a picturesque little town with old buildings, horses in fields, and mountainous backdrops.