Argentina – Stuck in Customs
21
Apr 2023 : Friday
filed under  Argentina, Buenos Aires, Camera Gear, Nikon D3X, Nikon D800, Travel

A Harrods in Buenos Aires?

Daily Photo – A Harrods in Buenos Aires?

There are parts of Buenos Aires that are not too safe to walk around by yourself. This part was not so bad when I was there, but there were several abandoned stores around, including this Harrods. I was surprised to see such a nice store in a state of disrepair, especially after visiting its Valhalla-like anchor in London. Out front, there was a man playing the violin alone. It echoed around in a strange way through the acoustics of the tile, the roof, and the lonely streets. There was an Argentine rhythm he mixed into his playing that really transported me to another time and place.

A Harrods in Buenos Aires?

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2023-04-13 13:24:11
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/500
  • Aperture5.6
  • ISO800
  • Focal Length23.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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5
Nov 2022 : Saturday
filed under  Argentina, Camera Gear, Nikon D3X, Patagonia, Travel

Crossing Rivers in the Andes

Daily Photo – Crossing Rivers in the Andes

I worked my way back and forth across this river a few times during this evening. I was trying to figure out a way to get closer to the mountains in the distance. It was pretty much physically impossible without risking extreme danger to my body, which I’ve grown to like over the years. So I just remained in this area to take photos and explore the river with the mountains beyond…

Patagonia, Argentina

Crossing Rivers in the Andes

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2009-03-30 21:15:04
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/8
  • Aperture11
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length22.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias+2

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24
Aug 2021 : Tuesday
filed under  Barcelona, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Dubai, London, Marrakech, Moscow, New York City, San Francisco, Travel

50 Beautiful Cities

Hey awesome blog reader… you’ll probably be aware that I’ve been delving into the world of NFTs in the past few months. So far, it’s been both a success and an interesting adventure. That continues today with my 2nd drop on OpenSea. This set of NFTs is based around 50 of my favorite cities spanning all seven continents. There are a wide range of configurations (and prices) available and I’d love it if you’d check them out. If you thought an NFT mixed with physical art was odd last time then how about several NFTs, wrapped in an NFT… mixed with some Aave tokens which should appreciate over time??!

The first drop on OpenSea did better than expected and broke $100,000USD in the first three days. This second one already has a lot of interest as more and more collectors are getting into the NFT world. Jump on in! I’ll make a detailed video soon that talks more about what I’ve learned, mistakes I’ve made, some new ideas, and other interesting stuff from this wild wild west of cryptofun.

Also, if you’re an NFT curious artist, be sure to sign up for Passport where I’ve been sharing videos about my NFT experience so far. If you’re thinking about listing your own, you may find those helpful. Speaking of your own NFTs, I’m now starting to invest back into other projects so if you launch something cool tag me on Twitter and I’ll be sure to take a look. 🙂



Trey Ratcliff Cities NFT OpenSea Preview

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8
Sep 2020 : Tuesday
filed under  Argentina, Travel

Best of… Argentina!

Here are a few of my favorite photos of Argentina in continuing the “Can’t-wait-to-get-out-there-and-travel-again” series! 🙂

I've Made it to the Edge of the World This was shot in the final hours of daylight, near the southern tip of Argentina and the edge of Chile, just a glacier's throw from Antarctica.In the morning, we woke up at 4:30 AM in -7 degree cold. I hardly slept 30 minutes the whole night. I was in a tiny 2-man tent with Yuri. The noxious fumes of our tiny prison reminded me, if you will, of the inside of a tauntaun that had spent its life consuming cognac and cigarettes. Furthermore, his snore had the sonorous bass and carrying power of a humpback whale with none of the beauty.I started on one edge of these rugged peaks and moved around to this side, to get the view from the glacial lake. The spiked mountains there are Cerro Torre, and I was very lucky to see them without cloud cover. I understand they are covered up 90% of the time, so to have crystal clear air was fortunate. The glacier there, which presents on the right but really goes back behind many more mountains, is called "glacier grande".I did a lot of other things this day too, including a 45-minute 1500-foot ascent up an icy trail that was not really a trail at all. Dima and Vulva (Vulva is one of the other Russian gentleman who joined us on the trip -- it's hard to pronounce with a strange V-W sound, but he seemed to respond when I called him "Vulva") went up the mountain with me in the pitch black, using only headlamps. I'll have more on that story later because it was pretty sketchy. But, alas, we were able to see Fitz Roy as the sun turned the tips pink. After that, we began the long additional 10km hike that brought us to this location. I stayed here watching icebergs float by until the last morsels of dusk remained.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
The River Runs Through the Andes Getting to this position was not as long a hike as the others around Patagonia, but it was no cakewalk! It was one of those strange river-rock strewn areas where the rocks seemed to be the perfect size for spraining your ankles. I had the tripod extended to act like a walking stick, although it's not the most handy walking stick with a giant Nikon on one end of it!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Adventuring Deeper into Patagonia After a four-hour plane ride deeper into the Andes, we started to get further into the wilds of Patagonia. Perhaps I should explain that I was on this trip with a very good Russian friend named Dima, who is also a photographer. He brought four other Russians with him. Despite our friendship, he had given me a non-English-speaking roommate named Yuri that never ceased to amaze. Within five minutes of dropping him off in my room, Yuri was in his underwear and I noticed his approximate size to be that of a smallish beluga whale. This ended up propagating many other problems For example, on the flight to El Calafate, our small plane had a bit of a hard landing because I was not sure the pilot was fully informed of Yuri's weight.After setting up camp in El Calafate, we went out to the edge of Lago Argentino tonight to shoot the sunset to shoot the Perito Moreno glacier. Every few minutes, you could hear giant shards of ice cleave off and drop into the lake below.See all of the dark bits of ice floating in the water? Those are actually the clear bottoms that were once underwater, but recently flipped over. In the midst of all this, and from out of nowhere, Yuri produced a giant bottle of cognac, which seemed to keep the Russians happy in the freezing cold. When I posted this photo on the blog and across the various social networks, many of my Facebook and Twitter friends requested a photo of Yuri. That night, while he slumbered, I endeavored to take a panorama of him. I considered the glacier as practice, since it was also big, white, and cracked.This was shot with the Nikon 14-24mm 2.8 lens. The second of the five exposures (the -1 EV shot) was at f/8.0 with a shutter speed of 0.033 secs and a 250 ISO. As for the coal length, I think I had it cranked all the way to 14mm to take this shot. I'm always flummoxed as to whether or not I should take a panorama of these places, which essentially means I'd have to map out an invisible grid and then take a photo in each cell for later stitching using post-processing software. For this photo, I did use a Nikon D3X, which already has a 24 megapixel sensor, making the final product a fairly detailed 6000 pixels across or so. There is some invisible point when enough is enough, and I never quite know what it is. One limiting factor is time-of-processing. Panos take a long time to both shoot and post-process, so that comes into the decision making tree fairly early on.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
The Robot Flower Followed the White Sun
The Secret Crystal LakeThis remote lake was so icy cold. You would think it's about 33 degrees or something, right? It felt like absolute zero. I dropped a little piece of my tripod in here and my hand almost froze off trying to retrieve it.In the distance you can see where the glacier comes into contact with the glassy lake; it gives a sense of the epic scale here.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
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12
May 2020 : Tuesday
filed under  Argentina, Buenos Aires, Camera Gear, Nikon D2XS, Travel

Abandoned shipyard in Buenos Aires

Daily Photo – Abandoned shipyard in Buenos Aires

This is one of the most dangerous areas of Buenos Aires. I didn’t find that out until a lady came up and grabbed me and said I was lucky to still be alive. I’ve never really gotten into trouble in any country like that before, but I’ve probably just been really fortunate… or maybe good karma!

Abandoned shipyard in Buenos Aires

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2007-11-05 11:30:16
  • CameraNIKON D2Xs
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/15
  • Aperture5.6
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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30
Mar 2020 : Monday
filed under  Argentina, Fine Art, New Zealand, Patagonia, Queenstown, Travel

Patagonia in my Hallway

Daily Photo – Patagonia in my Hallway

Since I recently converted one of my homes into an AirBnB, I decided to also make it a bit of an art gallery. I hung up about 10 photos all over the home and it was pretty fun deciding what goes where! Back in this long hallway that goes to four of the bedrooms, I decided to put up this panorama. I’m always a bit scared to get things printed because I don’t want to see any mistakes! Sometimes that happens! But, this time, it came out perfect and I’m quite happy with it.

Patagonia in my Hallway

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2019-12-17 03:55:43
  • CameraILCE-7RM3
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1.6
  • Aperture5.6
  • ISO64
  • Focal Length22.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias+2

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29
Jan 2019 : Tuesday
filed under  Argentina, Camera Gear, Nikon D3X, Patagonia, Travel

A Place that Only Kind of Exists

Stand for the Pixel 3

I ended up buying the stand for the Pixel 3. It’s super-cool because you don’t have to plug in your phone to charge it. You just set it there, and it even charges through the case. I felt really dumb for the first week, because I would always take it out of the case first. But then Curtis told me to try it with the case on, and it worked perfectly…hehe.

Daily Photo – A Place that Only Kind of Exists

Here is kind of a fun idea. I have never done anything like this. I created a fake landscape! Well, kinda. I was interested in trying this new feature in Photoshop where you can do a content-aware crop. But the idea is that you crop outside of the photo, making it bigger. So, the left 60% of this photo is real, but then I dragged the crop way out to the right, and it auto-generated those other mountains. It did a pretty good job, but then I went in there and did some clean up to get rid of the obvious repeated patterns.

A Place that Only Kind of Exists

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2009-03-31 06:46:13
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/15
  • Aperture22
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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27
Dec 2018 : Thursday
filed under  Argentina, Camera Gear, Chile, Nikon D3X, Patagonia

A Snowy Walk in Patagonia

What’s in Trey’s Bag Video

See everything on my kit.com page and here are some highlights in a new video!

Daily Photo – A Snowy Walk in Patagonia

I took a long hike one morning here on the edge of Chile. It was quite a vertical ascent too, and I did it without any water, hoping I would find some freshwater lakes along the way. Luckily enough, I came across this one where I filled up my bottle with some of the freshest water I’ve ever tasted.

A Snowy Walk in Patagonia

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2009-03-31 06:30:34
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/15
  • Aperture22
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length14.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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11
Nov 2018 : Sunday
filed under  Argentina, Chile, Passport, Travel

The Knife

New Re-Mastering Video for Fine Art on Passport Sunday!

If you are a Passport Member then you get a special treat today! I am just releasing Series 2 of the fine art over at TreyRatcliff.com and decided to go re-master this one from Patagonia.

Passport!

Hey here’s the video of me working on the final image. You can see how I dealt with a lot of different problems. One thing I forgot to put in the video is how I gave the mountains a little bit of vertical stretch at the end… or as I like to call it, Mountain-Viagra.

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Daily Photo – The Knife

When I went back to re-edit this one, I had to fix up more than I first thought. Something happened with some of the fringing, which was very very difficult to fix. If you watch the video, you’ll see all the trouble I went through. It reminds me not to move the sliders too far in one position because it can cause tiny little niggling problems that you can’t solve later.

The Knife

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2009-03-31 06:10:16
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/15
  • Aperture8
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length28.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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22
Dec 2016 : Thursday
filed under  Argentina, Passport, Patagonia

Autumn Hiking in Patagonia

Fun Passport Fun

Today Passport members are seeing me have a tough time getting a few shots on a rainy day in New Zealand. Then, over the next 3 days, I’ll also release how I edited them! 🙂

Back to Argentina?

I’ve been meaning to get back to Argentina and do another mega hike down here in Patagonia. It might be fun to plan a little workshop around that… hey that’s not a bad idea —will talk to the team about that. For other workshops, please visit our workshops page!

Passport Exclusive – Glenorchy Series Ep 1 of 4

Tough Photo Day! I set out to spend the whole day taking photos. The weather for the first part was really bad… but I kept on plugging away. Here’s some footage of me out trying to get the shot.

Stay tuned TOMORROW and the NEXT DAY (and even the NEXT DAY) when you, wise Passport-holder, can see me edit a few of the photos I finally got!

Here’s a link to the original photos I’ll be working on over the next 3 days so you can follow along at home if you wish!

Exclusive content for Passport members

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Daily Photo – Autumn Hiking in Patagonia

All the colors were vivid and fresh, especially when the sun splashed on them. Everything always seemed to be a little-bit-wet too, giving it an extra sheen. It looks like all the fauna and flora is easy to walk through too, but it isn’t. It’s thick as thieves and your legs are constantly getting caught up in it. Every now and then I’d try to go off-trail to get a shot here or there, and it was never as easy as I thought it would be.

Autumn Hiking in Patagonia

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2009-03-30 17:25:06
  • CameraNIKON D3X
  • Camera MakeNikon
  • Exposure Time1/60
  • Aperture16
  • ISO50
  • Focal Length32.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias-1

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