I lived in Antarctica for about a month, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I stayed at the New Zealand base (called Scott Base) along with about 100 other people. They were mostly scientists doing all kinds of strange research like looking at penguin poop and stuff. While there I would go out on little adventures with different groups of scientists and on this one, I was with someone that tags Orcas.
Today’s photo uses one of my favorite techniques! Make sure you pick up my Textures Tutorial in the store. It comes with a ton of textures that you will love too!
Daily Photo – Textures of the Li River
Finally, something not from the USA! I’ve been sharing a ton of photos from my USA tour recently… mostly because I’ve been away from home in NZ for three months and don’t have access to my mother lode of photos! I edited this photo for a few hours on the plane. I love using textures… I hope you try out the tutorial above and enjoy it too!
Based on today’s Venice post, I was thinking about the time Rene fell into a canal in Venice, Italy. This video below never fails to make me laugh. I mean, you know what’s gonna happen, but it still always cracks me up.
Daily Photo – Textures of Venice
Last time I was in Venice, I was there for a long 3 weeks. That’s a long time to be in a place! Hey, but I got to know it really well! It took me about 10 days before I stopped getting lost. Well, sometimes at night when I would walk around my friends, taking a drink of wine every time we crossed a bridge (we call it bridge-wine), we would end up getting quite lost. That may have been a contributing factor to Rene falling in a canal one night.
It’s been a while since I’ve plugged my fun video tutorial (that also comes with a ton of textures) about how to get this sort of look with your photos. Grab it in the online store here!
Daily Photo – A Textured Venice
This is one of my favorite little tricks whenever the sky gets a bit too boring, but the rest of the subject matter is great. For this texturing, I went a bit more grungy and distressed. It reminds me of some of the museums I visited around Venice. Many of the old paintings had stains and just “time” on them. The colors were often muted and they look like they might have been dipped into the canal from time to time.
Here’s another one of my favorite new texture shots from the Textures Tutorial.
Daily Photo – Amazing Venice Forever
Rene and I crossed this bridge almost every day. In fact, it’s not too far from here where he fell into the canal, so he has fond memories of this area. This is one spot we’ll stop at for sure during the upcoming Venice Photo Adventure… we’ll all line up here along the bridge and have a ball!
Be sure to visit Trey’s Texture Tutorial to see how I make these kinds of photos. They are very fun, and anyone can do it!
Daily Photo – The Tapestries of China
This whole area around Guilin has become one of my favorite areas to visit and explore in China. The shapes around here are epic and timeless, and they put me in quite a creative and contemplative mood!
Announcement! A Photography Workshop at Google Giveaway!
Are you in LA and want to join me for a great day at Google for a photography workshop? Watch my Google+ Stream today for instructions on how to win the giveaway. It will be an amazing time!
Textures
This photo below, like others you see on occasion, use a texture method that I get a lot of questions about. We have a popular Textures Tutorial here on the site that comes with a ton of different textures in case you are curious to learn more…
Daily Photo – The Long Path to the Temple of Heaven
It was a beautiful morning in Beijing. It was cool and crisp, and I walked around this historic area while locals were doing yoga and various other exercises. There are many ancient, repeating structures that cover the grounds in a very orderly manner. This is one of the many long structures that helps to connect various areas of the complex.
I have released a new video today that you just gotta see. The Exclusive rights to show it were nabbed up by Abduzeedo.com and the amazing team of Fabio, Gisele, and all the other from that Brazilian Design Powerhouse! Fabio actually came to my Google Talk on HDR Photography in Mountain View, so it was really cool to meet him in person.
We will be showing the video here on StuckInCustoms tomorrow, but you should head over to Abduzeedo in the meantime. That site is a constant source of artistic inspiration for me… I think you will dig it too.
New Shot from the Textures Tutorial
Today’s photo below was made with a few of my 150 Textures from the popular Textures Tutorial. The downloads on this thing have been crazy… There is even an illegal site out there that shows over 30,000 downloads. Pirates! Anyway, I know none of you nice people would do such a thing… so I appreciate the support you give your friendly internet artists! 🙂
William Beem recently put up a review on the aptly named WilliamBeem.com – I can tell from that photo that he is really getting the hang of it – cool!
Daily Photo – The Edge of Chile
Today’s photo comes from the from the very southern tip of the Americas. It is a bitterly cold place, even in the summer. I believe that the glaciation period is relatively recent, so the peaks are extra jagged and everything feels fresh and raw.
I can’t believe there are actually people that climb this thing! It was hard enough getting myself up high enough on a distant peak to take this shot. Then again, I’m not exactly in mountain-climbing shape. I’ve heard the old answer to the question, “Why do you climb the mountain?” The answer is always, “Because it’s there”. Funny — that is my same answer when people ask my why I don’t want to climb the mountain.
More details to come soon, but save the dates and come RSVP on Facebook! I’ll be signing books, meeting you, and hanging out. I hope you can make it! Don’t worry about coming alone… you’ll make friends with the nice people there soon enough!
The Taj Mahal is an awesome place. I mentioned it last night in the live video chat (thanks to those of you that could make it — we should have a recording up soon). I spent the day taking photos of the place, and I was dog-tired when it was all done. Plus, my feet were hella dirty. You have to take off your shoes there. It turned out, actually, to keep me pretty cool. It was a very hot day; the marble was nice and cool on my feet.
I obviously used a special texture treatment on this one — if you’d like to find out more, there is indeed a “Textures Tutorial” here on the site.
These places were a joy to explore. My friend Ben Willmore is heading to the temples of Angkor soon, so I am hooking him up with some of the locals there that helped get me around. I’m sure he’ll have as much fun exploring these places as I did. While it was fun, there was sometimes not a stable place to step. I don’t have the strongest ankles in the world (thanks to a bunch of soccer injuries), so it got a little sketchy in spots! When you see some of those distant mysterious doorways, it’s hard not to want to trample over to have a closer look.
