Homes in the Land of the Panserbjørne
The Webinar Approaches!
We’ve been going through hundreds of different comments (and some very creative and unexpected ones!!!) from the survey for the webinar. I already had a pretty good idea of what people wanted to know, but I am seeing a few surprises in there!
Now, if you want to be the FIRST to know, be sure to sign up for the free newsletter over there. We’ll announce pretty soon, and that’s a good list for the early alerts. I normally send out about one newsletter a month with links to all the latest videos, reviews, tutorials, and more. Also, when you sign up, you’ll get access to the 23 previous newsletters that are full of all sorts of cool info!
Daily Photo – Homes in the Land of the Panserbjørne
On my ninth or tenth day of the solstice, the mornings sometimes got a little strange. On this morning, it was around 2 or 3 AM. There was plenty of light, but the heavy clouds cast a blue tinge over the landscape.
And it was that strange time of “night”, when you know everyone is asleep and you feel like the only one on earth that is still alive. When everything is well-lit, you also feel a little bit apocalyptic about the whole thing. Was there some kind of Zombie outbreak, and now everyone has eaten one another into oblivion, and I’m the only one left? But it’s that sort of dream-state that is good for creating photography. When nothing around is the way it is supposed to be — then it helps to keep me in a creative state of mind.
Dinner in Akureyri
Special Photos – Dinner in Akureyri
Normally, I do one new photo a day, but today I wanted to do ten of them! Something a bit different to keep things fresh, perhaps!
So, when I was in Iceland, I went to visit my friend Helga Kvam who lives on a fjord in the far north near a town called Akureyri. She lives in a farmhouse right up against the water. Helga was with her long-time boyfriend Völundur Jónsson, who is also a photographer. Even though they live in a beautiful place, I don’t think they ever take it for granted… this is a nice side-benefit of being a photographer. You can read more about them on their About page on their website.
I slept in their basement one day, and woke up in time for dinner time (I stay awake all night to take photos and sleep during the day). Völundur and Helga were hard at work making a fantastic meal! I pulled out my camera and took some photos of the evening, so I can share it with here below.
If you’d like to see some other photos I took in and around this area, check the Iceland category!
 Völundur is outside getting the grill ready. The weather was perfect and Helga opened the windows so we could smell everything. You can see the fjord behind Völundur... |
 Helga, for being a photographer, is very shy about having her photo taken! So I took this one of her sitting with her nephew in the window sill, as they watched the food cook outside. |
 While dinner is cooking, Helga's nephew goes outside to play and shows me where he built his tree house earlier in the day. |
 He prepared a ton of amazing and fresh food. I think the only time they get to cook outside is the summer, and they take full advantage of it. |
 Helga was telling me about what things have been like after the economic crisis in Iceland recently. She said people have gotten back to the basics, and she knitted these gloves for herself. I tried to convince her to make finger-flapped knit gloves for photographers and I would help her promote on the website! But I don't think I convinced her... |
 Her house has all sorts of nice details and colors. Even before I met her, I knew she was very into rich textures and colors. |
 Helga and Völundur go into her kitchen to make last-minute preparations for dinner. |
 This meat was incredibly tasty and tender. I won't tell you what it was... since people often seem overly judgmental (or stuck in customs, the second meaning of the blog that few people ever get). |
 Fresh vegetables on skewers. They tasted as good as they look. |
 And for dessert, we had these insane bacon-wrapped dates. These things are amazing. I did find them one other place -- at a tapas restaurant in San Antonio. But anyway, stay on the lookout for these things! |
Also, I just got a note from Helga that her mom has started an Icelandic skin care company called Urtasmidjan. So there you go… you can vist to get some Icelandic products… looks like a girly thing 🙂
Where They Dry the Fish
iPad 2 in Austin?
Are you one of those hardcore stand-in-line-super-early-at-Apple iPad 2 kinda people? Are you here in Austin? Then let’s talk! I need two of those things… email me at wildcard (at) stuckincustoms.com — if you can grab some for me, that would be cool. I’ll pay you back of course, and I’ll even throw in an autographed book.
Beta List Complete
We had a bunch of comments on the announcement for the iPad version of 100 Cameras in 1. Our beta-list is complete, and you should hear soon if you are on the list. We can’t get (and don’t need) everyone in… so it is a very small selection, I’m afraid. Anyway, no worries, full version will be out soon enough!
Daily Photo – Where They Dry the Fish (Ósvör in Bolungarvík)
I ate a lot of fish in Iceland. I even had rotten shark. You’ve heard of this? They bury shark and let it rot until it ferments. And then you eat it. And then you have to drink this Icelandic vodka called Brennavin or something like this. It’s lethal. I remember because I was sitting by a couple of Irish girls that were traveling flamenco dancers and they were laughing at me while I powered through this one-two combination. I don’t drink… but, it was part of the shark experience. And I think of it more as a healing potion than whatever the hell it really was.
While in the northwest fjords, I came across these little huts with intermittent slats. This is where the fisherman hang the fish to dry in the incessant sea-winds that blow up the coast. Pretty cool, eh?
100 Cameras in 1 for the iPad
Update – Available Now!
Go Get it Now in iTunes!
Update 2 – Testing Closed
Now that the app is out, all the beta testing has closed off – thanks again!
Join our private testing group!
100 Cameras in 1 for the iPhone has been a huge success, so it gave us the chance to redesign everything from the ground up to take the experience to a new level for the iPad. And, well, with the upcoming iPad 2, it’s gonna be even more awesome (even though it will also work on the existing iPads, especially since we notice a lot of people enjoy re-processing existing photos). I won’t say more than that now, but you can get a hint as to some of the varied goodies in the screenshots below.
Want to join the testing with us? Just leave a comment below, and I’ll randomly select people and contact you via the email you used (or FB) when leaving the comment. So, it’s just not all fun and games… you need to crank hard on the app, try to break it, send us feedback, bugs, and all that sort of thing to be a good tester.
Good luck!
The Week of HDR Tips continues!
Today is Tip #4: Let the Time Flow. It’s been a great week so far, yes? Yes. Rick Sammon and I are each providing a good tip to help you take your photography to the next level… I hope you are getting something out of it. I enjoyed putting these together!
I thought it was interesting that yesterday, people discovered inside the tip that the object in the middle of the arena was a dirt-zamboni. I guess I looked at it so long, that I figured everyone would get to that conclusion.. but interesting that the mystery worked even better than I suspected!
Daily Photo – Icelandic boy after building treehouse
When I stayed at Helga’s delightful farmhouse near a northern fjord in Iceland, her brother came over and brought his son. They built a treehouse in the backyard and filled it with all kinds of goodies — all in one day! The sun was low, as it always is there that time of year. He was running around, silently playing in the back yard. I thought his eyes were so other-worldly blue that I just had to take a photo.
This area was very close to the little town of Akureyri. It took me about three visits to this place before I was able to pronounce it correctly. I feel like a damned fool trying to say some of those Icelandic words!
Ducks on a Foggy Morning
Daily Photo & daily photos
I’m still committed to one new photo a day, every day of the year. It’s tough! Even though I thew a good 8,000 of them at you yesterday, that won’t slow me down… I’ve got a lot of cool projects and ideas that excite me, but the daily photo is still the main ship…
Making-of video
I got a lot of questions yesterday about how I made that video… so I will put together a making-of video soon. I’ll show you how I did everything so you can try the same thing on your next adventure. It’s kind of a fun idea, and I’m glad it worked out.
Updated Tutorials
We are making some upgrades to the French tutorial, and the Italian one is almost done. It is in the final stages of getting up on the site… this is yet another thing on my to-do list. You should see my to-do list… it’s never-ending, I tell you.
Daily Photo – Ducks on a Foggy Morning
There is a soft silence that covers still waters in the early morning. If you’ve ever been by a slow-moving river before the sun is over the horizon, maybe you know what I mean. It reminds me a bit of the name of the wind, in that it folds one silence into another.
When driving across the southern part of Iceland towards Wik, I went through an area of several miles where there was a sudden fog. I felt like it might not last long, so I went on a quick hike over near a slow-flowing river. Some ducks were having a morning swim off towards the misty horizon.
Red Fields on the Tundra
24 Hours till the new video!
Usually, I just release the video on the day of… with no prior announcement. This time I’m trying something different… a bit of a lead-up to the event. I don’t know if it’s better or worse… just different. So maybe you have something to look forward to on Sunday, besides being the best sleep-in day ever unless your parents wake you up to go to church and you say moooohooommm nooooo…
Daily Photo – Red Fields on the Tundra
Across the middle of Iceland, there are all sorts of terrain. I don’t know if this is specifically Tundra. All my expertise in Tundra comes from Civilization where I know you can only grow one wheat, and sometimes there is a fur resource because of the seals.
When the sun is very low on the horizon, my normal temptation is to point the camera in that direction. But in the opposite direction, when the light and terrain is right, it casts a faint reddish glow across the ground. It’s a very nice effect and I did my best to capture it.
#1 in App Store and the Icelandic Phallus
First in App Store for Photography!
Thank you guys and gals very much for the support – it wouldn’t have happened without you!
This last weekend, 100 Cameras in 1 (iTunes link), got into the first place spot in the hotly contested photography category for the iPhone. We’re also in the top 10 in 40 different countries – insane (see stats). I never expected any of that… It’s all very exciting and the whole team here is ecstatic.
We’ve heard all sorts of good suggestions, and a great update is coming up soon. The update will be free as always. Besides several new features, we also have some new achievements that we’ve been mulling over. With some good prompting from guys like Charlie Sorrel and Mike Schramm, we’re going to push them through. I don’t think this app will ever be done, but we’ll continue to evolve it as better and better ideas are folded into the mix.
Below are a few of my recent creations with the app… I put them out on Twitter and FB on occasion, but thought I might share them in the main blog here.
 Created by mixing together two different effects via the new "Add Effect" button on the My Creation screen. |
 To make this, I first used the black & white effect in the Zen Effects group before adding two other effects to give it both light leak and some color. |
Daily Photo – The Icelandic Phallus
I’ve probably just accidentally offended the fine Icelandic people with that name. Sorry about that… but I don’t know what it is. Most old cultures have statues with some kind of phallus, so it was a good guess. It’s a doubly-good-guess since Iceland is the home to the famous “Icelandic Phallological Museum” (wikipedia link, but don’t click on it), which sounds like a pretty happening place. I told you not to click on it.
I found this in the middle of another one of those 6-hour sunsets. I had spent the first part of the day in a far northern fjord, at the farmhouse of a good friend. About 200 km later, I found this spot near a crook in the road, standing up like cairn stones against time.
Remote Farmhouse with Waterfall
Woopra Review
I still use Woopra quite a bit to make sure the site is nice, spiffy, and fun to everyone. It’s hard for me to tell what works and what doesn’t work unless I measure. I put this new video below on the Woopra Review page. It’s free for all the basic services (which is all most people need).
Daily Photo – Remote Farmhouse with Waterfall
On one of my first nights in Iceland, I was driving along the southern coast. Pristine farms are plopped along the side of the road every few miles. As I began to approach one of the volcanic areas, the terrain changed enough so there were huge waterfalls in many of the vistas. This one was nestled deep behind the farmhouse, and it seemed like a nice little spot for a photo.
Iceland on my Mind
Fish Out the Window…
If you’ve done a lot of fishing, maybe you know this trick. If you flip the fish upside down, it goes totally inert and just kind of stares off into space. It’s such an unusual position for that creature, that it just gets wonderfully confused. Anyway, I was thinking about this the other day as I was staring out of an airplane window. This is the same feeling I have at those times…
Daily Photo – The Old Shed (and Iceland on my mind!)
For this next week, I’m going to do something a little different. I’ll keep up the tradition of a NEW photo every day. But I’ll also throw in a grouping of my favorites from that particular location. We’ve recently grown to half a million pageviews per month in the past year or so, and I know there are many newcomers who might have missed some of the most unique spots in the world. I’m happy to reshare some of these favorites while still showing the new stuff!
This first shot below is from one of the fjords in the far Northwest of Iceland. It was a long and desolate morning when I arrived here. I had been driving all night, after the 2 AM sunrise, weaving back and forth on dirt roads up and down fjords. Little farmhouses are scattered here and there — many of them abandoned. I decided to get out and stretch my legs (and my tripod legs!) to grab this one.
And now, some of my favorites from Iceland. I’ve gone there for many summers and winters. I look forward to another long, lonely, and wonderful week there this summer around the solstice.
Horses Aloof
Review in Germany
There’s a nice review of the HDR Video Tutorial on a German site called Fotografr. Of course, it helps if you read German. Danke!
New Video Tomorrow!
I’ll release the next Stuck In Motion video tomorrow… get ready! Tell your friends! 🙂
Daily Photo – Horses Aloof
Speaking of the HDR Workshop, I believe I edited this photo during the London Workshop. There is a portion of time when I select a RAW photo to convert into an HDR image, and this was the one I chose. I had never processed it before, and I really like doing these live in front of people. I talk out loud so that people can hear my thought processes. Inevitably, there are problems, but this is what I like about this format. I know that photography and post-processing is basically just navigating around one problem to the next. Maybe people think I don’t have problems when I work on these… but I do! And it’s good to see, maybe, how I get around them.
