Big Thanks to Our Support Team!

I wanted to send a public thanks to our support team (the guys than man support at stuckincustoms.com).  They’ve been doing a great job and we’re all thankful for them!  Since the DVD came out, they’ve been super-busy.  Do you know how confusing it is to coordinate Fed-Ex and PayPal and our DVD company and dozens of address in places that these companies don’t even have in their databases?  Hehe… well… there are always issues, and they’ve been doing a great job.  I just wanted to thank them publicly for their hard work.

Daily Photo – The Gentle Oxbow

Do perfect little places like this really exist?

Yes!

But they are a little hard to find… They’re not in guidebooks or written about on [most] travel photography websites. In fact, they’re all over the place. This was taken in an area of southern Iceland, on the road not too far from Hvolsvollur and Vik. If you just turn off the main road and meander down a few dirt paths, places like this are everywhere.

One of the most unusual places about this, which is missing from the photograph, are the bird sounds. They were extremely unusual, high-pitched, and made small siren-sounds when diving to and fro. The strange-nature sounds made me feel even more like I was on some strange Star Trek away mission.

Go Visit Tim Wilson!

When I was in Queenstown, I popped into an art gallery… I do this all the time, of course… And I’m usually kinda “ho-hum” about it… wondering, “Why does THIS GUY have a gallery?” That sounds horribly elitist, yes? Yes, it does… but I think many of us do this, yes? Yes, we do.

Anyway, I did NOT have those thoughts when I saw Tim Wilson’s gallery! This guy is great! You have to go visit his website at TimWilsonArt.com. No doubt, you’ll see what I mean. After I was staring into his paintings for a while, it turned out he was right behind me, lurking, watching me enjoy his work! We ended up having a few chats over several days… what a cool guy. I’m always happy when I meet an artist who is as cool as I imagine he might be!

Tim has lived in New Zealand his whole life, and only recently moved down to Queenstown… It’s all about the light and the landscapes down there… maybe I’m starting to sound like a broken record about this, yes?

And if you make it to Queenstown, be sure to come into his gallery to see these things in person. No doubt you’ll be impressed with his website… and everything looks even more amazing in person.

Daily Photo – Bright Morning, Stone Hut, Grass Roof

It’s so hard for me to imagine how these Icelanders used to sleep in these stone huts in the olden days. I don’t care how many stones you put into the walls, I don’t see how it can possibly keep out that Icelandic wind! Those must have been some tough people back in the day. The grass roof is always a nice touch, but I can’t imagine that’s helps a lot either.

This was taken around 2 in the morning, just as the sun was starting to rise off the horizon again. I found this place by happy accident. About 3 hours earlier, I took a gamble and drove up a random dirt road that spiraled up a mountain. I was doing my best to follow the sun by navigating around the topology, as best I could remember it. I had spent the last week or so driving around, up, down, and through mountains, so I was getting to know the area pretty well. I finally felt good enough to begin instinctively navigating around the landscape.

A Normal Day in Trey Ratcliff’s Life

Well I don’t know if it was a normal day or not, but I met several people from international press agencies while I was in Beijing. On this day, I had a bunch of very nice people follow me around… I don’t know if I was all that entertaining or not! But, anyway, this nice German reporter named Philipp Neumann wrote an article called “A Normal Day in Trey Ratcliff’s Life” that you might like. A few of the images that I took while in Tiananmen Square I included in the most recent newsletter (it’s free). Did you see them?

Daily Photo – Waterfalls at Midnight

I had done a little research about the southern part of Iceland before my trip, but I left enough gaps to be surprised.

On this particular night, it was about 65 degrees (18 C), so it was just a tad perfect. The air was wet with moisture from an evening rainstorm, and it was held aloft by the strange weather patterns. When I first saw this waterfall, it was around midnight. By the time I got into this position, it was about 1 AM or so.

Once again, I had not seen another human for hours. It was so eerie walking around these amazing places alone. Typically, with something so grandiose, you sort of expect a bunch of tourists to be lurking about. So, alone, it all feels a bit post-apocalyptic. But thanks to a ton of video games, I’m well versed with how to survive in these situations.

What Terrain-Person are you?

I think there are ocean people, mountain people, plains people, desert people, and forest people. By that, I mean, for whatever reason, you just feel most comfortable in one of these environments. You picture living there, building your house there, waking up there, and going to sleep there.

I’m pretty sure I’m one of the mountain people (not be be confused with the “hill” people or the “village” people). I have a lot of friends that are definitely “ocean people” that just love the beach and the sea. What terrain-people group are you in?

Daily Photo – The Sea and the Sun

Even though I’m not an ocean person, I do spend a lot of time photographing them. Maybe as long as there are mountains close by, I feel a little more comfy.

The NW area of Iceland is edged with countless fjords. They just go on and on and on. It’s also confusing when you are not used to the area. The road goes around the outside of course, and as you edge out onto one peninsula, it circles back into another big loop around the bay. Each loop takes another 30-45 minutes or so! I remember I was trying to get to a certain town, and I knew it was somewhere there along the road. Fjord after fjord passed, and as I rounded yet another peninsula, I was both exasperated and excited that I had to make a big loop around yet another fjord!

Your Favorite Woody Allen Movie?

So, some of you know that I am a fan of Woody Allen stuff. In fact, I just finished his audiobook from Audible… there were some funny bits in it.

I have a few favorite Woody Allen movies — what are yours? This title comes from Love & War. It was kind of slap-sticky, but there were some super-funny scenes in there. At the end, they start talking about “wheat”, and it reminded me of these horses.

Daily Photo: Wheat Horses

This HDR is from a single RAW file, as about 20-30% of my photos are. If you look in the free HDR Tutorial here on the site, you can see page 3 talks a bit about how to do this. It’s quite easy!

Before, I talked about my desire to try to get off the main highway in Iceland. But when you have cool horses like this lining up along the highway, it’s hard to find a reason to get off!

I don’t always like to use a flash when taking photos of horses because I think it scares the animals. I prefer just to shoot wide-open with natural light and see what I can recover later with the HDR process.

In this case, these two horses were playing with one another, weaving their heads and necks together in a little dance. I stood there with my camera, trying not to intrude on their private horse-moment, when they stopped for a quick second in this pose.

Speaking at Google China

On October 11th, I’ll be heading over to the Google China offices in Beijing to give a talk on art, photography, HDR, and everything in between.  If you’re part of the Google team here in China, then I look forward to meeting you! 🙂

If you missed my first Google Talk at their HQ in California, just follow that link.

Daily Photo – A Lonely Night in Iceland

I was in the southern area of Iceland, only a few kilometers from the big volcano eruption. There was still a bit of ash scattered around, and I was driving down random side-roads. I made a deal with myself that I would randomly take exits off the main highway to see what I could find. This was one of those occasions.

On the way back to the highway, I saw new things. It’s hard to have a 360-degree sense of all compositions while driving. Usually my viewing cone is fully stimulated at 180 degrees while moving forward! So, moving back and forth along roads sometimes provides surprises.

I had just spent a few hours around midnight on a black-sand volcanic beach on the shore. I was the only one there, as usual. It’s very creepy, in a way, being on a gigantic black beach in the middle of the night without another car or human anywhere in sight. And I know that it is even beyond my sight for a long way because I had not seen anyone on the drive there. I listened to music and took photos all the while, of course. And on the way back, I saw this tiny lit church against some distant mountains, so I popped out for another shot.

Sunset Pressure?

Don’t you hate/love that pressure-zone of the sunset?  Well which one?  I of course love it… but the pressure to move around and get as many good shots as possible is pretty hardcore.  I plan it all out like I’m playing an RTS game.  I’m constantly calculating compositions, timings, and the logistics of getting from one point to another.  Every situation is different… if I am on foot, with vehicle, or on bike.  It’s a period of sweet sweet high-anxiety!

Daily Photo – A Soft Evening on the Lake

Here is a situation when I had no sunset-pressure at all.  It was a perfect evening and the sunset lasted for about five hours, as the slow-moving sun sank into the solstice sky.

I was driving through some dirt roads that connect Iceland to an area of fjords in the Northwest.  While weaving in and out of these little roads, I saw the edge of a lake, and did a short hike to find this boat, all alone at sunset.

Join me in the Peachpit Photo Club Tomorrow!

Register now (Free!) for the Peachput Photo Club event!

The event is on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 from 8 to 9 p.m. ET (5 to 6 p.m. PT). See you there!

Portfolio Question

I wanted to ask your opinion before I did this about my portfolio at stuckincustoms.smugmug.com.

Personally, I really like when I see photography slideshows set to music. But I also know that it is annoying when this happens on the web. I understand that it is actually more than annoying — because most people are already busy listening to something else. Switching to my music or turning off my music immediately starts out with a negative experience. That’s not good…

So, having said all that, should I add music to my portfolio?

Daily Photo – The Labyrinth Rocket

Isn’t this a beautiful and unique church? It’s been so long since I’ve posted a photo of it. It’s called Hallgrimskirkja. This is much easier to say if you are a dolphin. And drunk.

On my last trip, I made my fourth visit to this spot. I was graced with good clouds to complement the monotonemapping of the scene. The doors were locked, so I could not get inside. I had some bizarre visions of possibly climbing up the rock face to clamber in through the windows, but then remembered it wasn’t a video game… dangit.

London PhotoWalk Reminder

In just a few days, we’ll be having the big London PhotoWalk! I look forward to meeting readers in the UK. Feel free to come on out and walk around with us, even if you are not a photographer!

Daily Photo – When the Earth was Young

This unique area of Iceland has new surprises at every turn.

The strange milky-blue water boils up from underground. There is a big part of you that wants to touch it to see how hot is is. The other part of you is scared to touch it. These two parts never stop fighting until you go ahead and touch it. Then, you discover it’s not all that hot after all, and it only reinforces a already poorly-reinforced decision matrix for the next time.