Stuck In Customs

Recap of the Photowalk

It turned out to be a great Photowalk!

I sent out a few worried tweets while en route because of the rain, and I got tweets back that there was a full complement of photowalkers waiting under the tree in The Oval. I showed up, at the very last possible second, and then said hi to everyone. It was a very upbeat crowd, and I was happy to meet all of them! I think we had around 50 there, even though the rain was rather epic, especially by California standards!

After I explained the way I do my Photowalks (half shooting, half sharing online), we set out to hit a few spots on campus. As we were moving about, Arnav Moudgil took this photo (also on the right) for the newspaper. This was taken when we were walking in one of the covered areas of the campus.

We moved around and hit several locations, including the one below. At the end, we went over to an eating area and talked for a long while about photography and stuff! I signed books, gave away all kinds of goodies from Smugmug, and this sort of thing — it was nice to meet such enthusiastic photographers. One enterprising Type A created a “Stuck In Stanford” Flickr group where people are currently sharing their photos… this is my first contribution to the group!

Daily Photo – The Stanford Church in the Photowalk Storm

The rain situation was betwixt sprinkles and torrent.  There was enough rain to moisten my bulbous 12-24 (that sounds dirty), so I wanted to be quick.  Usually, I let people look through my lens to see the composition, but, it would have gotten too wet… so I just fired away quickly then put on my little trombone-cover-thing.

Now, maybe my smart audience can help me figure this out.  Some people on the walk told me that “HDR” was “invented” here at Stanford.  Others tell me MIT.  A few people told me that the first HDRs ever taken were inside this very church (where I also collected some shots, for publication soon).  Anyway, this all sounds very intriguing… and I am interested to know the real answers!

Win my book over on Layers Magazine

My friend RC Conception tweeted me about a contest he is running on Layers magazine along with Brad Moore to give away a copy of my book. You can see more by visiting his contest post on his website.

Reminder of Kelby Article

Speaking of Brad Moore, he was the nice gentleman that helped me with this long guest post on Scott Kelby’s blog a few months ago. If you missed it the first time, you might enjoy it now. It’s called “Being an artist sucks. Being an artist is awesome.”

Daily Photo – The Sunset in San Clemente California

We had a great photowalk down in San Clemente! Thanks again to everyone that came along… I enjoyed it very much. Now I am finally getting a chance to post-process some of the images. If you were there, you may remember when I took this one!

Want to see other photos from the Photowalkers? Visit Victor’s Typical Shutterbug site (also has a great podcast!) where you can get a link to the proper Flickr group.

The sunset was just as good as you can get, which was very lucky after many days of rain before. We were all quite worried about a rain-out! But, the gods shined on us and everything turned out great. It’s always nice to walk around with other photographers and geek out on this stuff!

The sky got a bit noisy for me in this one. I used Noiseware to get rid of it – for more info, see my Noiseware Review here on the site.

Great Reads for 2010

Thanks to Abduzeedo who listed “A World in HDR” as one of the Great Reads for 2010!  Thanks Abduzeedo!

The Third and the Seventh – An Awesome Video

Here is another thing I found on Abduzeedo that I just HAVE to show you.  It’s so awesome.  I could watch this thing again and again – in fact, I have!  You can go see it on Vimeo at The Third and the Seventh.  Can you believe the whole thing is computer generated?  I can’t get over it…  I think you’ll see why I like it so much!

Daily Photo – A Scene from the Super Volcano

These charred dead trees jutting out of the strange deposits at Mammoth is quite a place.  I’m sure that maybe you’ve also heard that Yellowstone is just a simmering super volcano, waiting to erupt at any moment.  This always makes me a tiny-bit edgy as I move around the environs.  But, I figure, that if I am in any of those states around there while the volcano exploded, I’d probably be dead anyway — so why not be right in the center of the sucker where it is the prettiest?  This is not the best logic I have ever used, but it is a subtle use of it, I suppose.

Barn Of Your Dreams now Avail for Collection!

We have another Limited Edition Numbered Print that has just come available. It’s called “The Barn of your Dreams”, and if you are a regular around here you probably remember this wonderful place in Wyoming. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Thanks for the comments on the prints I’ve received via email, btw. I’m glad you find these affordable and unique. I wanted to ensure that each one remains collectable and has a particular number – this seems to resonate well! Thanks again!

Stanford Photowalk

We had a great one in Stanford! There were 40-50 people there, and the weather was downright lousy! When I arrived, everyone was taking cover under the tree, so that was kind of amusing to see… a bunch of people with tripods in the middle of a green expanse, all packed under a tree with tripods sticking out in every direction!

I believe we spent about two hours together or so. We walked around, talked, and geeked out with HDR! It was great fun, and I met some really nice people. At the end of the evening, we ended up in a Stanford eatery and I gave away a bunch of Smugmug prizes!

If you were there, come share your photos in the Stuck in Stanford group on Flickr!

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!

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.

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!

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?



The Azure Blue Indoor Pool at Hearst Castle

Photo Information

---

• Date Taken2020-07-08 15:05:12
• CameraNIKON D3X
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time8
• Aperture11
• ISO100
• Focal Length14.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+2