I’m much too lazy with the landscaping to create a driveway experience like this. Also, I’m too cheap to hire someone to make something so lavish. However, whenever I do see someone else’s driveway that looks so awesome, I think, wow, I should really upgrade my driveway a little bit.
I think we passed this on the very first day of the Routeburn track along the South Island of New Zealand. I had a feeling we’d pass a few waterfalls, but I didn’t expect anything quite this majestic. It was one of those cool waterfalls where basically everyone gets soaking wet while passing underneath… which was a really nice break after a rather sweaty ascent.
If you’re a Passport Member then today you’ll see a lot of photos I just took about 24 hours ago! You’ll see the before and after photos from the event and see a little bit more about my techniques.
If you all follow my silly Instagram stories, then you’ll get to see some of the frivolity behind the scenes… In today’s video, I’ll show you about a dozen new photos and the reasoning behind the editing. In some cases, it’s a bit over the top, but that is cool too 🙂
From the party pics, here is one of my favorites.
Today’s photo is one of my unique commissioned works I did for a collector. As for other collectable photos, you can go visit www.TreyRatcliff.com to see more. This print was was one-of-one, which is what I usually do for collectors. This is actually the same collector that introduced me over dinner to Edward Norton and Leo DiCaprio in LA, and they ended up getting some prints as well from the series.
This was a rather difficult photo to create, but it makes a lot more sense when you see it large and your eye is able to travel across the length of it. It’s made out of about 100 different photos, all taken around the same time, but the light would constantly change and flex… it reminded me that when you look at an actual panoramic scene, your eye and brain build a patchwork quilt of disparate parts.
Today I have a rather cool video tutorial if you are a Passport Sunday member! You’ll see the complete end-to-end processing of the daily photo… and if you’re not a member yet, then why not? You’ll get access to over 150 videos and all other sorts of goodies!
In today’s video, you’ll see me begin by only choose 2 out of the 3 source photos, doing some cool editing in Aurora HDR and then ending up in Photoshop for some final and fun tweaks. Enjoy!
New Zealand is full of beautiful roads, and this one is probably in the top 10 as far as scenery. There is this crossing of the Southern Alps right in the middle of the South Island that has a look you don’t see anywhere else in NZ (that I know of). It’s a mix of barren and beautiful, and the road flows beautifully from the west coast to the east coast.
Nothing to see here… just one out of 10 million scenes from across New Zealand. I did have to wait a little bit for the wind to get just right, but here ya go! After all the travel restrictions are lifted, I have a pretty good feeling that people will be flocking here.
If you are a Passport Member then today you’ll get an advanced look at one of my newest creations. It’s just halfway done, but you’ll get a sense of it nonetheless a find out more about the creation process.
So here is my latest one that is still being created. I’ve decided to make this one pretty much 100% symmetrical. It’s actually a bit more difficult than it looks. The music is not final, but I do quite like it. I build these in 10-second intervals – that is – since its 30 frames per second, I choose what the scene looks like every 300 frames and it extrapolates in between. Whenever I see a 10-second span that doesn’t quite look right, I go back in and make some adjustments to the math for that particular keyframe.
Also, if you missed the Passport newsletter last week keep an eye on the eBooks download section of your account for my latest book being added in the coming days. 🙂
I’m headed off for a fun festival on an island over there called Ancient Future. Since don’t have any active cases of Covid19 here in New Zealand, everyone is out and ready to enjoy the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) in just a few days. I didn’t get to go to Burning Man for year 11 in a row, so the chance to get to a big festival where no one is wearing facemasks sounds pretty radical. Why not? The whole event is sold out, so I’ll be one of the 300 hippies out there. Even better, I’ll be taking my son Ethan. I took him to the burn about 7 years ago, so this will be another fun experience for him. I’ll be out doing everything from taking photos doing yoga, hiking, listening to music, dancing, reading, attending workshops, and seeing friends. It’ll be epic.
New Zealand was NOT a bad place to be during lockdown because I was able to go out on walks in nature every day. How special! Luckily, I live out in the country, so I was able to wander off in different directions. I would take photos almost every day. Here’s one of the many paths I walked along the way. Also, believe it or not, I took this one with my pixel phone. No, this is not a paid add for Google! 🙂
Luminar AI (launched yesterday!) is great for landscapes and portraits… in this quick look vid I process an image that is somewhere in between using templates, sky replacement, adding mist/fog and more. Grab Luminar AI here.
Check out Monni’s clothing range at https://monni.co or on Insta here (or here).
Here’s my buddy Brandin Cooks here in New Zealand when we went to go explore Skipper’s Canyon. This guy is such a badass… If you follow the NFL, then you know he has played for a bunch of teams and is now in Houston, being even more of a badass. As you can tell from his photography positioning, he’s even a badass when he takes photos!
New Zealand has such a beautiful coastline. You just can’t go wrong no matter where you are. You either get stunning beaches or dramatic cliffs. This was my first time exploring the East Coast so I was naturally quite excited to see how different it was from the rest of the country. It reminds me a lot of Big Sur along Highway 1 in California.
