Sydney, Australia is just a short flight from New Zealand where I live. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s still 4 hours, but everything else is 10+ hours from New Zealand.
There is an area called The Rocks that is one of the oldest areas of Sydney, and this is just a short walk away. I love this photo because it causes confusion the first time you see it. I try to do this sometimes with my photos where I attempt to cause the viewer to wonder exactly what they are seeing. After a few moments, they slowly figure it out and that gives them a little squirt of dopamine.
This image started as me trying to find something interesting to shoot while wandering around in Sydney one night. Then more recently I was commissioned by a collector to create an animated NFT from it. Never in a million years did I think that it would end up looping into infinity on someones wall when I took it… in fact back in 2013 I wouldn’t even have considered that an option! You can see the final creation here.
Well, this is pretty cool, if I do say so myself, and I do. We’ve designed about 100 of these things and here are some favorites all mashed together in about three minutes. Enjoy, and tell your friends, except for Joe Rogan.
Daily Photo – Walking along the bridge in Sydney
When we were in Sydney, my friend David Maxwell got us on a boat to scoot around the harbour for a while. It was great fun. We went under the famous bridge there a few times and saw people casually walking across the top. I thought you had to be harnessed in or something, but, hey, you know how crazy Aussies can be!
I have a Neal Stephenson book recommended here on my Kit.com. This one is pretty intense, so get ready for the ride!
Daily Photo – The Opera House in Sydney
A few years ago, I went to Australia with Neal Stephenson while he was researching his new book. I’m a great secret keeper, so I can’t talk about it. We had a great time… I actually kept track of a lot of stories of our adventures, but I don’t want to release them until after his book is out! If it wasn’t for Neal, I might have never seen the bustling metropolis of Dubbo, Australia.
There are now 5 of my audio podcasts available on your favourite streaming services (iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or in some regions Google Play). The latest features Kevin Rose. Kevin is one of the fun success stories of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and in this episode we talk about vulnerability, the approval of strangers, why we love Japan, psychedelics, kids and much more.
The Lies of Locke Lamora
I have a new book suggestion that came from my friend Brian Brushwood! The book is called “The Lies of Locke Lamora,” and if you are a fan of “The Name of the Wind,” then you will like this one as well. You can see it and more of my book recommendations here.
Daily Photo – Happy People in Sydney
Here’s a photo I recently edited from Sydney Harbor. While this huge rubber ducky was here, I took a ton of different photos. This shot is one of my favorites.
I’m always making big and little changes to my Kit.com so head over there to see all the latest goodies!
Daily Photo – The Sydney Opera House Before the Storm
We spent an amazingly fun day out on a yacht sailing around the Sydney harbor. It’s tough to take a bad photo out there! We did have a bit of an incident with the quadcopter, though. It got so far away from us that we were unable to figure out how to get it back. It was just a tiny white speck, and you could tell if it was moving forward or backward or right or left. After quite a bit of panic, we finally figured out the right orientation and brought her home!
In the photo below, you can see Tane, my once-bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed previous assistant. After a rather strenuous and stressful China leg to the tour and in the throes of young love, he has decided to head over to the USA to pursue his college sweetheart, Ash. His heart beats away like a jungle drum inside of his smooth dolphin chest, and soon that chest will flutter across the mixed metaphor of the Atlantic Sea to rejoin his paramour. Thusly, I have lost an assistant and New Zealand has lost a national hero.
So now, I needs me a new one. What’s involved? Well, first let’s talk about what you get, then talk about what you gotta do.
First, you’ll travel around the world with us and everything is included from air travel to board. For example, across our tours in USA, Europe, and Asia, we stayed in over 40 different Ritz-Carltons and other partner hotels, so we’re not exactly slummin’ it. You get to take photos alongside the team, learn a lot about the visual arts, and see some of the most amazing things in the world. You’ll have adventures that are indescribable. You’ll also have the freedom to create a great many things within the organization from photos to books to film and more. You’ll be on the cutting edge of tech, media, and social media. You’ll also end up going down many philosophical rabbit holes if you so choose.
Now, what is required from you? Well, mostly a willingness to do everything from the most awesome to the most mundane. Remember, anything I ask you to do is something that I have been willing to do myself for the past ten years. So, if it’s not below me, it’s not below you. We’re a small company (about eight people), so everyone does a little bit of everything.
Remember, it’s my goal to be the dumbest person at the company. So I hope you’re clever and enthusiastic. I find that gets you through most anything.
To name a few of these tasks, in no particular order: Organizing photos and videos, backing up data, editing video, charging camera batteries, sending videos to our editors in Brisbane and Scotland, carrying a lot of stuff, shooting video while carrying a super-heavy gimbal, meeting with our art collectors, getting me smoothies or wine depending on the time of day, writing newsletters, copy/pasting blog posts, creating eBooks from existing assets, getting supplies for the studio, driving my kids around when we need another set of wheels, keeping meticulous track of social stats in spreadsheets, getting us sandwiches on those 14-hour days, cleaning our Burning Man RV, procurement, drone piloting and prep, graphic design for social media reports for partners and other marketing needs, Lightroom basics, Photoshop basics, laughing at my jokes, writing skills that are way above average, making cocktails at our studio bar for soirees, driving us around on photo shoots throughout New Zealand and the world, hiking long distances while carrying a lot of shit, managing our online store at http://Store.StuckInCustoms.com, keeping up with the latest trends in social media, and generally aniticipating what needs to be done before we ask for it.
You’ll also need to live here in Queenstown or Arrowtown, New Zealand. While I am in the studio here, you’ll come in every day during normal working hours and you have your own little office with a window view of beautiful New Zealand (that is blocked by a huge bush).
It’s certainly a rather stringent set of requirements, I realize… sort of like Another Trey. A clone. A clone of my own… willing to work ridiculous hours while chipping away at short-term and long-term goals.
Interested? Then send us some goodies at [email protected] ! We expect a large volume of applicants, so don’t feel bad if you don’t get a personal response from me or the team. We’ll definitely look at every application, though! 🙂 Thank you for your time… and if it doesn’t work out with us, I hope it works out for you in one way or another! 🙂 -Trey
Daily Photo – More from the Sydney Opera House
You may remember I posted a photo of this place about a week ago. I guess I convinced myself it was sunrise, although I can’t believe I was actually awake for it. I keep hoping when I get REALLY old that I’ll wake up early like other old people seem to. They don’t seem to mind, do they? They kinda get up around 5 AM, have coffee, read the paper, and accomplish all kinds of stuff even before I hit the snooze button. It’s probably because I stay up too late watching Netflix and stuff. Anyway, I suppose, in that way, that I’m looking forward to getting older.
My son Ethan is trying to get his first job and he really has no job experience except when the cops got him to go try to bust a few local bars. So I decided to help him write a more colorful version of the episode:
Undercover Cop (said in Cartman’s voice) New Zealand Police Department
The NZ Police employed me to infiltrate dins of iniquity and use my cunning guile to expose lackadaisical standards of serving minors in local drinking holes. In disguise as my pre-drinking-age self, I surreptitiously entered pubs in Queenstown and Wanaka to beguile the local glasswipe with a bit of witty repartee before ordering a simple beer, a pilsner, a varied spirit, or a perhaps, on a whim, a rather complex girly drink. Despite my stage training, I was never able to bring any drinking establishment to its knees, a result that I entrust is an accidental benefit to my future employer after they leave work, tired of my musings, and “need a drink.”
Daily Photo – The Sun is Rising or Setting in Sydney
When I initially posted this, I thought for sure it was a sunset. But then my clever Aussie friends told me I was facing towards the East here, which means I was definitely 100% wrong. It’s so strange, though, because I don’t remember waking up for the sunrise there. But, clearly, I did. This just once again reminds me of how my memory is a slippery slope slipping more all the time.
I heard a rumor that Lando may get his own series of productions (played by Donald Glover). I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. I think I could watch that guy play in anything… such an interesting guy! My favorite part with Lando was when he was doing The Calrissian Chronicles on the bridge. They should use that title and get Glover to write it!
Daily Photo – Under the Bridge in Sydney
Not far from an area of downtown Sydney called “The Rocks”, which I believe is the oldest area of the city, is a sidewalk where you can walk underneath this bridge. This was a three-exposure HDR that I took probably about five years ago. I’ve been going back and editing some older photos that I never had the chance to edit. I was happy the clouds looked so moody this night. The way they pick up and reflect the city nights feels like it’s out of a movie or something.
