In the middle of the day, the playa is full of people rolling around on their art cars. It’s such a fun sight to see people dancing and laughing, just having a good time as they go by. Of course, Burning Man can also be a stressful experience. It’s a lot to take in, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed. That’s why it’s important to take some time for yourself to relax and recharge. One way to do that is to find a quiet spot and just sit back and watch the people go by. It’s amazing how much you can learn about people just by watching them. I find that life is full of people who are constantly posing as their natural state of being and so while it may look like I direct people, really, I’m just capturing little moments of their normal state.
This was described as “Visually the installation represents a giant diabolical clockwork bacteriophage infecting the playa or planet. Symbolically the installation represents the connection between people, technology, and the environment”. What i can tell you is that it was absolutely mesmerising watching people interact with it, making it twist and turn to their will.
Not a bad place to take in a sunset, or sunrise. Every time I passed by this sculpture there were people climbing all over it, as if answering some internal calling.
Every time I see this gramophone I think I should really look into building one for the garden… well… getting someone to build one for the garden. I’m sure the local sheep (and neighbours) would love me. I wonder just how far away you could hear it…
My latest recommendation is to watch this super funny show. Mike Judge had the brilliant idea to capture stories from musicians and then animate them in clever ways. Here’s the promo for it.
Daily Photo – The Temple at Burning Man
Here’s a photo I recently processed of The Temple at Burning Man. I think this was in 2016? I don’t remember. Too many drugs. Anyway, I did happen to capture this photo. I have strong opinions on the design of each temple, which varies from year to year (it’s always burned on the last day). For me, this one was definitely in the top three. I try not to look on the Internet about upcoming designs, but I heard the one for this year is another Asian-inspired theme.
Like me, my Photography Portfolio is a work in progress. But I made a lot of progress with both lately. So click on that link and check it out! 🙂
Daily Photo – XOXO Jump
I’m always impressed at how people climb and jump and do all sorts of athletic things around Burning Man. I’m a bit of a wussy, I guess. I’m always thinking that these are the sorts of things to do if you don’t mind being hurt. And, you see, I mind that. Plus, I have a lot of people that depend on me, so I can’t be doing silly things like jumping on an X.
Wow what a great year! I got around 18,000 photos and had a very inspirational time. After eight years in a row now, I’m always surprised how every time is like the first time, in so many ways. Sometimes awesome, sometimes uncomfortable, it’s sort of like a microcosm of a whole year of life squeezed into one week because you are doing and seeing So Many Things.
Here’s a few photos for you to get the party started!
This was many people’s favorite art pieces on the playa. In the day time, it was a pure green tree in the middle of the night desert. At night, the LEDs came on and flowed through the tree like the wind
It was another great year out there… it was very exhausting out in the sun all afternoon, though. But still glad I got out there as much as possible to take photos. I still have tons more to process, but enjoying going through
Birds of a feather…
You may remember the photo of the embracing Israeli couple that was doing Acro-Yoga from a few days ago. Here’s the pre-acro-yoga stretching period. They say it’s good to stretch before exercising. I don’t know who this “they” is, but they are probably right about these things. The sun caught her jewels in a surprising way.
Around 5:30 PM the sun begins to get low enough to cast great angles everywhere. It’s still a little warm, so many people still have their fans out to stay cool. I suppose a native American headdress also helps! 🙂
I don’t know if this enormous statue got enough attention, but she certainly did for me. She glowed from the inside and outside. I made a small pilgrimage there every day; this time I came with my camera.
By meandering-chance, I found a camp along the Esplanade that had a tremendous steel wool vortex spinning away. People would come stand in front and let the winds spray the burning metal around them. I’m not into being burned and stuff, so I sat down in the desert to take some photos. It was great fun to watch… I could have stayed here all night, but forced myself to get up and go see what else I could find.
Fuji was nice enough to send me the FUJI X-T2 to use at Burning Man along with a few lenses. I used it’s little brother last year and absolutely loved it. Here’s a link to the FUJI review showing off some of the shots I got with it. Below, if you’re a Passport Member, you can see me unboxing the new one!
Getting to Eze
The best way to get to Eze, if you don’t have a car, is simply to Uber there from nearby Naples. It’s a short ride, and you get dropped off at the base of the medieval town. You can wander up into it (not toooo far uphill), stroll through the streets, shop, then find a cute little restaurant and have wine and cheese and ice cream. It’s a great day-trip I recommend!
Fuji X-T2 Unboxing and a super inappropriate joke…
This little mountaintop town in France is one of my favorites. I first went here about 20 years ago with my dad. My dad used to do lots of car racing all over the world. He did those 24-hour races for Porsche – raced at Le Mans, Daytona 24hr, Nürburgring, Silverstone, etc. While there, he found lots of cool little spots like this. So it was fun to return now that I am really into photography and try to capture some of its beauty.
I am just now releasing the first version of the FUJI XPro2 Review. There’s lots of sample photos – enjoy!
City Guides
It’s been on my to-do list FOREVER to put together different city guides about the best places to go take photos. I’ve not gotten around to it yet… but certainly on the list.
Daily Photo – Dinner with a View of The Maiden’s Tower
What an idyllic place to have evening drinks and relaxation! This is on the coastline on the east side of Istanbul. The vast majority of Turkey is on the Asian continent, and I wanted to be sure I visited this side even during my short stint there. What a great place and an exhilarating walk along the shore. There wasn’t a bad view to be found. I had no idea how in the heck I was gonna get back across the water. I found a car ferry and jumped aboard. It dropped me off back on the west side before finding my way back to my sanctuary of the Ritz-Carlton!
Check it out, Aurora HDR Pro 1.2 has been released with a whole lotta improvements and some sparking new features! 🙂
Here’s one of my favourite recent photos from my family trip that was done in Aurora HDR Pro! Look at all that glow action!
NEW FEATURES:
1.Photos for Mac editing extensions support
2.Leica M Monochrome (type 246) RAW file support
3.Open/Save for .HDR and .EXR image formats
IMPROVEMENTS:
1.Better RAW file handling for Panasonic, Olympus and Fuji images
2.Updates to Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop plug-ins
3.Enhanced masking brush
4.Improved clipping results for overall HDR effect
5.Improved chromatic aberration reduction
6.Better UI support for 11″ and 13″ displays
7.Improved performance and various bug fixes
Well, this day started out great
You’ll read more about it below, but about 30 minutes after this I was in a car crash! My taxi hit another car in downtown Rabat that had run a red light. We t-boned it and I had on no seat belt! Half of me ended up in the front seat with a super-bruised right knee! Everyone jumped out of their cars and it was like a crazy Moroccan street fight. I was thinking I GOTTA GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE! So I jumped out very clumsily, pulled my suitcase from the trunk and limped away for about half a km till I was way out of that area… jumped in another cab, then hit the train station to exit stage left!
Daily Photo – Standing Guard at the Tomb
I was only briefly in Casablanca before moving on here to Rabat, Morocco. The first place I visited here was the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. I arrived way too early and it was closed. So I kind of loitered around… it was my first real day in Morocco so I was just wandering like a babe in the woods… it was so awesome. I made friends with the other guards that were waiting to get in, then I was able to be first and get a few choice shots while everyone set up for the day of guarding the tomb!
