Whenever I’m in a big city, I usually try to find their Chinatown to see what it’s like and what kind of food they have kicking around. If it’s a big enough city, there’s often also a Japantown and a Koreatown, each with their own kinds of foods and shops.
One of the best views of Toronto is from a place called Central Island where you can grab a little ferry for cheap. This particular day was actually pretty rough because most of the island was flooded, meaning we spent most of the shoot ankle deep in water and mud.
So sad to lose my friend Michael Hawley – he was such an inspiration… and, in fact, still is! This is a little video I made when he and Nina You came here to Queenstown to visit us around the holidays. I loved that dude… I don’t know anyone else remotely like him. You can see in this video how he’s just off the charts when it comes to inspirational stuff.
My son Ethan loves playing the piano and it was incredible to have this genius just do this natural jam. Isn’t that awesome… inspiring people of all ages. That’s kind of the key to life, eh? Just be loving and help other people. People make life too complex… yeah he really has made me a better person.
I first met him about a decade ago when he invited me to speak at his incredible EG Conference in Monterey, CA. He’s the classic Gladwellesque “connector” and I made so many lifelong friends from those conferences. It spawned so many stories and adventures… and all because of Hawley’s vision.
Just as one of the hundreds of examples, it’s because of Michael that I ended up spending a while in Australia with Neal Stephenson to help him research an upcoming novel. Note that I did absolutely nothing to help the actual research, as I was only there because Neal was afraid to drive on the left side of the road. I have all kinds of stories about that, but I’m waiting for the book to come out so I don’t ruin anything.
Anyway, besides that strange anecdote, Michael has been instrumental in vastly affecting the lives of tens of thousands of people… a truly lovable inspiration.
Daily Photo – Woman in St. Petersburg
We stopped at this hipster coffee shop just after our train rolled into the station. It was filled with all sorts of interesting people like this gal. I had on my 35mm F/1.4 lens, so I made as much use of it as possible. There’s not a lot of people that run around with cameras in Russia to take photos of people… so everyone was a little bit more suspicious than I would have liked.
Dr. Rosalind Watts –
PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE: HOW DMT & LSD TREAT ADDICTION & ANXIETY
Here’s a great episode where you can get to know more about the good doctor here and the kind of amazing research she’s been spearheading at Imperial College London.
Daily Photo – Our pad in Zimbabwe
We stayed in lots of amazing places on the recent adventure in Africa and this was one of our favorites in Zimbabwe. We stayed here for three nights and it was our home base for heading off to visit the rare white rhinos. We do photography lessons almost every day, and this is one of the “interior architecture” photo days!
I recorded some fun 360 behind-the-scenes videos while on a helicopter adventure with my friend Sofia Jin. We went up with Choppy and Over The Top Helicopters to make some new videos and get a ton of photos. We actually took up two helicopters because one of them had the first 8K setup – specifically, the Shotover P1 MK ll dedicated 8K gimbal with a Red Monstro camera and Angenieux 36/435 zoom lens. We used it for helicopter-to-helicopter shooting. Anyway, this Part 1 video is free… and today is “Passport Sunday,” which is the day where I always release a new video to Passport Members on the blog. So yeah, if you’ve joined up, then you can see Part 2 today also. I’ll put the link in the comments.
Click here to join Passport and get access to the 2nd part and 200 other behind the scenes and tip videos as well as all of my tutorials and more!
More 360 fun from the Southern Alps!
And here is Part 2 of the video where you can see more about all the specifics of the setup! 🙂 We’re still working on the final 8k video shot from the Shotover P1 MK ll dedicated 8K gimbal with a Red Monstro camera and Angenieux 36/435 zoom lens, and will share it first to Passport Members as soon as we have it!
If your connection can handle it, bump the resolution up to 4K using the cog icon and remember you can drag the video around to look in different directions. 🙂
Daily Photo – Joseph Mina Dancing up a Storm in Zimbabwe
We went to an incredible village celebration, and, at one point, they came and grabbed Joseph Mina from our photography group. He got out there and absolutely tore it up. The crowd was going crazy and everyone, including us, was completely blown away at his moves!
As I do every Sunday, if you’re one of the awesome Passport Members, you get a little “bonus” section in the blog post that allows you to see extra stuff. In today’s one, you’ll see the edit of this photo!
Processing The Dappled Pond
This week I really get hands-on with the vignette…
Queenstown Gardens has a lifetime’s worth of photos every Autumn. I should actually go there more often, and not just in the Autumn. It’s not actually that far from me, but I tend to not drive into Queenstown very often…The parking is terrible down there and it’s barely worth the drive. However, since the tourism bust, it’s quite a bit easier to find a place!
While in Zimbabwe, we ended up having this local dance crew come perform for us on by the river. They were all dressed up in fun costumes and they really got into the performance. This is one of the dudes who had one of the more kooky outfits on… he was actually one of the stars of the show, being the silliest one.
Here’s a fun interview I did a few days ago! 🙂 Enjoy 🙂
Daily Photo – Thailand Deep into the Night
I rarely take long exposure shots in these tropical places at night, but, when I do, I’m always surprised! It looks a little weird, right? Like it could be daytime but with really strange lighting? I think that’s what I like about long exposure night photography… in that everything comes out a bit surprising!
That recent Elon Musk video reminded me of this classic one.
Daily Photo – Wet Pudong at Night
Wet Pudong sounds kind of naughty, eh? This is the “business” area of Shanghai where nobody really lives. So, at night, it’s pretty much empty! That makes it great for nightcrawlers like me that enjoy taking nighttime cityscapes without a bunch of people getting in the way.
