Best of Beijing

I thought I would share some of my favorite photos from Beijing here. I went there several years in a row as part of a program. I ended up getting arrested, so I haven’t been invited back. These things happen. Oh, well. At least I got some good photos!

Daily Photo – Returning to China!

I’m excited to come back to China in June. I’ll be in some of the major cities, but I’m also quite excited to visit a few new spots. I’m not sure where I’ll go yet. I reached out to my friend Kevin Kelly, who is quite the demigod in China, to see if he has any suggestions. I’m looking forward to trying out the new bullet train system to go far afield. Whatever happens, I’ll take plenty of photos and share back here on the blog with you.

Returning to China!

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2010-10-10 03:27:22
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/100
• Aperture2.8
• ISO2500
• Focal Length28.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias-1

Sunset Beach Photo Tips

I spend a lot of time taking sunset photos on beaches. It doesn’t mean I’m an expert or anything, but I have a lot of experience with it. Anyway, in this video, I talk a bit about composition and my setup for the shot.

Daily Photo – Wolfgang Thrust

For a fun experiment, we made a fake Instagram account for Tane. I wanted to name him “Wolfgang Thrust,” but in the end, we decided this might cause a bit of bias in the experiment. Anyway, that has very little to do with this photo that I got at the Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. This last weekend, I went through and started pulling out unprocessed photos from many years ago. This is one of the random ones I chose to process!

Wolfgang Thrust

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2010-01-24 17:25:50
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/4
• Aperture6.7
• ISO400
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias-1

the New HDR Tutorial

Here’s a promo for my new HDR Video Tutorial – I hope you get it and love it! 🙂

Daily Photo – Another Horse In Iceland

Sometimes I think I could make a whole blog just about horses in Iceland. I swear, I have So Many Photos of horses in Iceland, and they’re all pretty good! I can’t take much credit for them, you know, as the horses are just so darned photogenic. And then the whole country has a perfect backdrop… it’s just kind of hard to take a bad photo of them!

Another Horse In Iceland

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2010-06-13 05:00:29
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/4000
• Aperture2.8
• ISO800
• Focal Length50.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias

Billions

Here’s another show recommendation: Billions! It’s a drama based on Wall Street. Sounds kind of boring, I know… but still very entertaining! It’s one of the only shows I watch not on Netflix… it’s on Showtime and maybe a few other places?

Image Radiance

Let’s talk about one of my favourite features in Aurora HDR 2018, Image Radiance.

The latest version of Aurora 2018 (for Mac and Windows) is here! I’ve been using it a ton and I think you’ll be blown away by all the new features, especially combined with all the features that you’ve come to know and love with previous versions. If you Pre-Order you’ll get a bunch of goodies as extras and a discount!

Daily Photo – A Painted, Moody day in Feng Huang

I remember at the time I took this that I almost DIDN’T take it. The colors seemed muted, it was quite steamy/foggy/moody, and also, I was quite tired. Maybe I was feeling a bit melancholy or something. Anyway, for whatever reason, I took it. And then, when processing, I recalled the melancholy mood and decided to give it a nudge in that direction.

A Painted, Moody day in Feng Huang

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2010-10-07 15:23:51
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/320
• Aperture1.4
• ISO2500
• Focal Length50.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias

Philip Sheppard + JJ Abrams + Star Wars = Awesome!

I’m honored my friend Philip has used my imagery for his new Star Wars related album he’s just released right here.

And here’s his music on the amazing Comic-Con Reel:

And here’s the photo from that album cover…

The Great Walks

Did you know New Zealand has 9 official “Great Walks”? I think there’s like 5 on the North Island and 4 on the South Island. How many have I personally been on? ZERO! Can you believe it? I can’t…. I gotta fix that… I’m a bit upset with myself really that I haven’t made that happen yet

Daily Photo – Hiking Across New Zealand

New Zealand is a great place to hike, and this is from a place pretty close to my home in Queenstown. I think one reason it’s great for hiking is because there are so many trails, and most are pretty easy or moderate. I’m actually not into all the hardcore hiking… not for me! But it’s so easy to walkabout and see so much cool stuff.

Hiking Across New Zealand

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2013-01-17 07:40:52
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/1000
• Aperture2.8
• ISO320
• Focal Length130.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias

Communities and New Badges

Want to join the community and share your photos? Here’s some links for you! 🙂 Google+ turned 2 years old, and they announced a new Badge Maker that you can use for your website. I thought I’d use the new badges below to re-invite you to a few of the communities we started there! These are good places for you to share your work, if you so desire. Also, as always, I am happy for you to share your work here in the comments on the blog too! 🙂

Daily Photo – Peaceful Evening in Wanaka

I had a peaceful evening in Wanaka.

There is this tree that sits out in the middle of the lake. It’s so unusual. I love the way it reflects back on itself in the smooth water. I was by myself, listening to music on my iPod, and just watching the water as it would calm down then get excited, then calm down again. I swapped out lenses a few times and kept moving around to admire it from different angles. This one was one of my favorites.

Peaceful Evening in Wanaka

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2013-06-27 01:21:44
• CameraNEX-7
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/50
• Aperture13
• ISO100
• Focal Length55.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+1

Upcoming Photography Workshops

I really don’t do these very often, but it was getting confusing so we made a page that showed what, when, and where! It’s over on the Photography Workshops page, and I have pasted it below for you. Maybe we should have a punch-card like Subway where you get a free cookie if you come to 10 events! Hehe… we do have one gentleman that has appeared at a few of them and we may see him again! 🙂

Photography Workshops

Burning Man 2012

Here are a bunch of photos I took at Burning Man a few weeks ago. I put little captions below each one so you can read more about the situation there.

&n

Interview on Australian TV

I was on Channel 7 a few days ago in Australia – here is the clip 🙂

Backup Camera for Burning Man

My main camera I use nowadays is the Nikon D800, and I was a bit afraid to take that out into the desert. Instead, I took out my Nikon D3S to get some of these shots. It’s one of the six different cameras I used at Burning Man this year. I didn’t get much dust at all inside the camera… but I also never changed the lens or used it too much in sandstorms…

Invite to the Variety Hour

Over on Google+, I’ve started doing these weekly invites to the Variety Hour. You can accept over there, and it automatically shows up in your calendar… I think it’s a pretty cool feature.

As always, watch here on the blog too. The upcoming show has several cool and secret prizes to hand out! 🙂

Daily Photo – Musician at the Chinese Opera

It was my second visit to this particular opera and my third visit to a Chinese opera. I was fortunate enough to be able to move freely around the venue, as long as I did not get in the way of the performers. That wasn’t very easy, since the performers would often just start running down and around the aisles! They would dart this way and that, run around columns come in and out of random doors and re-use the same pathways that I was navigating. So I had to be on constant alert!

There was one girl that was playing a very unusual Chinese instrument. I’ll never get the name of it right, so I won’t even try… but she had this most unusual hat that I thought was quite nice…

Musician at the Chinese Opera

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2011-09-16 00:00:00
• CameraNIKON D3S
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/250
• Aperture2.5
• ISO14368
• Focal Length85.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias-4/3

And… speaking of funny YouTube videos

My kids and I love watching funny animal-related YouTube videos… the more the better!  Any you want to share with me?  I promise, I’ll click on any YouTube link that has some possible destination of animal hilarity!

Daily Photo – Suspicious Chipmunk

Why is the chipmunk so suspicious?  How much intrigue and backstabbing can there be in the world of the woodland creature?  What are the other unexpected emotional states of chipmunks?  Mildly-surprised-chipmunk?  Angst-ridden-chipmunk?  Walk-of-shame- chipmunk?  Only the internet knows…

And the internet DOES know… go do a Google video search for “Dramatic Chipmunk” – you’ll never forget it 🙂