Music Trivia!

I have a fun party idea that we do a lot… if you have Spotify or Sonos, jump on one of the “Oldies” stations from a favorite decade, enter DJ mode, and then play music trivia. See who can guess the bands!

Daily Photo – Waves crashing through Iceland

I posted a photo about a week ago from Iceland. I was on an editing-tear recently and I couldn’t decide WHICH photo to edit, so I ended up editing both. It’s a nice exercise for me to edit two different photos that are of the same subject matter in slightly different ways. It helps me to branch out a little and try slightly different things so I don’t get in a rut.

Anyway, today I’ll be taking family photos like a crazy person… looking forward to that!

Waves crashing through Iceland

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2007-02-12 12:59:25
• CameraNIKON D2Xs
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/20
• Aperture5.6
• ISO100
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias-1

Live on TWIT Photo and MacBreak Weekly Tuesday

I’ll be at the TWIT Studios on Tuesday for two shows – you can watch live at Live.TWIT.tv.  MacBreak Weekly starts at 11 AM PT and TWIT Photo starts at 1 PM PT.

Patrick Rothfuss Behind-the-Scenes

We had a hangout a few weeks ago with Patrick Rothfuss.  Here’s what happened before-the-show!  🙂  If you want to see the FULL show, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0enw-G5Din0

In this little pre-show, which we did not intend to capture, we talk about D&D, programming, Infocom games, sleeping, and a bunch of other stuff…

Daily Photo – The Distant Mist

While in Iceland, I traveled through a lowlands area early in the morning.  A mist — a video-game-mist — started moving quickly across the ground and through the distant hillocks.  It was all so surreal that I barely remembered that I should be taking a photo of this.  That was a strange feeling, since the whole reason I was there was to take photos! 🙂

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.

Blog now on Amazon Kindle!

Do you have a Kindle? Now the blog can be wirelessly delivered to you, fresh daily, and right as rain. Get the Kindle Version Here. Enjoy! And thanks, I appreciate your support!

We’ve had this available for a bit, and I have been testing it and all systems are go!

Great workshop weekend!

We had a great one – thanks everyone for coming! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I got a real kick out of seeing people’s results from the night before. People went home and tried all of this stuff for real and got some stunning results. On Twitter, check the the has #HDRWorkshop for a few samples. Thanks again for all the enthusiasm when you come to the classes – that is really nice of y’all.

Daily Photo – Zen Peaceful Iceland at Dusk

The soft magnetic blue of dusk lasts a good hour or more in Iceland. It’s a nice time to relax into your right brain, move around freely, and take photos until you collapse in exhaustion.

In Reykjavik, there is a lake that freezes solid, or, at least, it appeared to be solid, every winter. I started walking slowly across really give it a test. Why not? During my scoot-fest, I found this wonderful little bridge.

I’m thinking of going to Iceland this year for the summer solstice (that day when it is 24 hours of sunlight)… sounds awesome! I can’t imagine a 5 hour sunset followed IMMEDIATELY by a 5 hour sunrise!!

Comments appear to be broken on this one post – strange! As always, you can click through to the Flickr comments if you want to say something – I read them all 🙂

When I was in Iceland, I made a visit to the dock area. The edges of the dock were just beginning to freeze and occasional snow would blow in and pile up. All the ships were giant, metallic, and cold. I thought about what a hard life it would be to work on one of these ships. I don’t really like being too cold and I’m not sure if the old “dress in layers” trick would work so well when out on one of these ships in the north Atlantic. Those guys that do that every day are tough!

On this one, I kept the aperture pretty wide open to minimize ship movement on the rolling water. I don’t normally tell the software to automatically align images (mentioned in the HDR tutorial), but this time I did.

I probably should not have been standing in the middle of this frozen pond.

But when you are raised in Texas and you rarely get to see anything frozen, you get fascinated by large frozen bodies of water. I just stared at it for a long time like a deer that’s never seen headlights in the forest. I felt the saying, "When in Rome", and somehow replaced it with "When in Reykjavik…"

I slowly shuffled my feet out to the middle, using my tripod as an Imperial Hoth Walker to secure my footing. Once I got to the right spot for the lens, I ripped off a few shots before heading over to the safely of the shore.

It was about 5 in the morning in Reykjavik and I was colder than any human is supposed to be, but I had my coffee and tripod and was on a mission to catch the sunrise. While en route, I passed the icy city hall while the dawn light was breaking to capture this.

The night I first arrived into Reykjavik, I only had a few minutes of light before the darkness. I soon discovered that the final deep blue before dark lasts about an hour in Iceland. I am quite sure they take it for granted, because I saw it every night and everyone was going on about their business, not taking notice… Over by the docks, I found these four guys securing the blades on this helicopter for the evening.

It’s closing in…

This was shot in the docks of Reykjavik in Iceland… some ropes for mooring the icebreakers and fishing boats.

BTW, regular blog readers may or may not know you can click on any picture to go to my Flickr site where you can get the ultra-large versions…