I captured this on the last day of a Disney cruise a bunch of years ago. I’d taken to getting up early each day to capture the sunrise and this was one occasion it really paid off!
The waters went suddenly calm all around the ship and the sky stretched out forever. I had just seen a pod of whales and we were weaving around new areas of the fjords. I knew I was in Alaska then!
Here’s the first photo I took at Burning Man in 2013, I think, and it’s still one of my favorites. It features a sculpture by Marco Cochrane. When the occasional sandstorms come, a lot of people go take cover, but that’s when I go out to take cool photos! It adds all the depth and mystery that is really there, I think.
Here’s another one of the images from my 1000 Stories from 1000 Places NFT drop. It sold out in minutes, but they are now available to trade on OpenSea and X2Y2, etc so be sure to check them out.
Utah was the best place for my inner geology nerd to come out to play.
Back at university, I had a double-major in Computer Science and Geophysics. I dropped the latter because I had a fight with the professor. Here’s the story. Note it wasn’t a fist-fight, but I considered it.
I really just chose that subject because I’ve always had an interest in Geology, and I just love rocks. Who knows where that comes from? Is it a childhood trauma thing where my parents threw rocks at me? Perhaps.
Anyhoo, I was in a graduate-level class and I spent a few weeks in the desert near the Grand Canyon to do some nerdy geological mapping. I worked really hard on it, and, being a bit artistic, I had by far the most beautiful. map. So, the professor ended up giving me a C-! I went to him, and I was like WTF bro! This is amazing! And he said because I was the youngest in a class of nine, he gave me the lowest grade because he only gives out one A+, one A, one A- — you get it. I was like, fuck this guy… so I quit out of spite, but it never diminished my love of rocks. It only further diminished my dislike of the university system.
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
This is El Pulpo Mecanico, by night he is a flaming monster, partying with the adults. By day a mild-mannered octopus who is a kid magnet.
I was scanning through some of my unpublished (or at least I think unpublished) images and found this one from Burning Man a few years ago. It was captured with the little Sony NEX-6, one of their first mirrorless cameras. Maybe the first? Anyway, didn’t it do a great job of capturing a bunch of dynamic range? Nicely done Sony!
Just a reminder, today’s image is available as an NFT on MakersPlace. Find out more at treyratcliff.com/.
Let’s try this again… will it appear today? Who knows, not me… take it away WordPress gods!
I go to Burning Man every year to refresh, recharge, and get inspired by the sheer randomness and light of it all. It’s the one place you go where you have no idea what you’re going to see, but you know it’s going to be awesome and interesting.
Thinking back, I probably used NiK Tools for this image from Burning Man. I had a lot of fun with those but drifted away from the software. Maybe it’s time to dip back in and see how it has evolved…
I’ve shared images from this place before, but only the outside, I think. It was a whole church like structure that some crazy art people managed to build in the desert, and it was set up like a mouse trap, balanced on a stick, tilted on one end like it could come slamming down at any time. Here’s what the inside looked like. Such a cool ceiling installation.
