Stuck In Customs

Machine Elf 48 – Clinging

Welcome to the latest Machine Elf creation! This one was very fun to create and I decided to try something a bit different with the audio soundscape by starting with some words from Mooji. I listen to his meditations and talks quite a bit. He’s got a rather nice way about him and a pleasant and contemplative gait to his voice. This is a remix I did where most of the heavy lifting is done by Nils Frahm & Monolink combined with “Don’t Forget The Moon! 01” from Anton Tumas.

This creation mostly explores the constantly unfolding geometry of a bifurcated symmetry which breaks and rebuilds itself in a steady flow between order and entropy.

Daily Photo – Midnight Loop around Singapore

Right in the middle of Singapore is a pretty big lake that is surrounded with all different sorts of art. It makes more sense to go there at night for two reasons. For one, that’s when all the lights come on and it makes for much better photography. For two, it’s about 50 degrees cooler so you are not melting in the Singaporean sun!

Midnight Loop around Singapore

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2018-03-28 00:25:28
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/80
• Aperture2.8
• ISO1600
• Focal Length17.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias

Luminar AI – Processing Landscapes With People in Them

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).

Daily Photo – Taking photos in New Zealand with Brandin Cooks

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!

Taking photos in New Zealand with Brandin Cooks

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2020-01-04 11:52:45
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/4000
• Aperture2.8
• ISO250
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias

This is gonna sound crazy, but right as Covid-19 was kicking into full gear (thanks to that scoundrel, Randy Marsh), I had a super intense vision in a dreamstate while at a meditation retreat called Aro-Ha here in New Zealand. Ever since I had the poison of the Sonoran Desert Toad in the form of 5MEO-DMT, I’ve been having more and more natural psychedelic experiences while meditating + astral projections + all kinds of wild stuff. Each one is worth its own story… But, as for this one, I had my eyes closed and there was a wrap-around movie screen in front of me where I saw the coronavirus at the molecular level. And I could zoom in and out… I could see two, then more and more. Then I zoomed way out and saw evergreen trees with little particles flowing between them… then zoomed back in and saw the virus spreading and multiplying (I know this sounds crazy btw, but it’s totally true) – then I had this really cool understanding that the virus is just doing what it does with no malicious intent. Its only purpose is to multiply. In that, it’s not good or evil, as it’s just doing what it’s doing like a heart beats or a tree grows. It’s just a natural expression of nature (even if maybe it was created by humans) – and everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. This is a continual message I get from DMT, meditation, and other psychedelic spiritual experiences. And all this energy flows from one state to another as described in all sorts of texts like the Bhagavad Gita. Anyway, this is why I chose one of my favorite “Indian” flavored songs to show this natural energy flow from one state to another.

The music for this one is from Midival Punditz.

We’ve put a few of our fully customized Machine Elf creations in 360 for a cool VR app called TRIPP. If you have an Oculus Quest, Go or Rift, you can download TRIPP which features guiding experiences to make you happier, calmer, and more focused. Grab that here: https://the-machine-elf.com/TRIPP

Antarctica How-to Today for Passport Members!

If you are part of my family of Passport Members then I have a fresh one for you this Sunday from Antarctica! Every Sunday, I release something new, and it’s been a while since I processed a new photo from Antarctica, so here ya go! Passport members of course get to see how I edited the photo

Antarctica Boarding

I hope you enjoy the creation of this process and some of the last-minute decisions I made! 🙂

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Daily Photo – Flying Home from Antarctica

Here’s one of the last photos I took before leaving Antarctica. You can tell what countries people are from because they all wear different uniforms. The Kiwis are the ones in the orange coats and the Americans are in the red ones. There were also a few people from the Korean and Italian bases too… The Italians had, by far, the coolest uniforms… they all looked like they raced for Ferrari!

Flying Home from Antarctica

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2015-01-21 07:49:53
• CameraILCE-7M2
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/250
• Aperture9
• ISO50
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias

Passport Sunday Fun

In today’s photo, you’ll see I used the technique I mention in last week’s exclusive Passport Sunday how-to video. I love how it turned out on this one, which I feel is sort of a combination of landscape and architecture.

The Processing of the Onsen

I think you’ll really enjoy today’s how-to video which is a combination of HDR and the new filtering technique!

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Daily Photo – The Ginzen Onsen at Dusk

This area of Japan was one of my latest discoveries right before Covid Corona 19 kicked in. I had decided to spend some extra time exploring the snowy recesses from the north. This is actually the place that inspired Spirited Away, if you’re a Japanese Anime geek like me… it’s called Ginzen Onsen and I stayed right over there on top of that cool old Japanese cottage. Down underground was a little network of beautiful, natural onsens all fed by hot natural mineral water. It was incredible. I was the only non-Japanese person in there, and no one else I saw spoke any English, so there was just a lot of nodding and smiling, which I interpreted as, “Yeah, this is really awesome, fellow human!”

The Ginzen Onsen at Dusk

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2019-02-18 21:40:44
• CameraILCE-7RM2
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time2.5
• Aperture8
• ISO125
• Focal Length24.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias

Today for Passport Members you’ll get part 1 of 3 that show some cool processing tricks. If you’re not a member now, today is a good time to join up! You’ll get over 200 video tutorials plus a ton of other things.

Today is the first step on the way to showing how I get this sort of look that I got on my recent road trip to the north island.

And now on with the show…

HDR Processing before the Special Filter

On some of my photos, I use a variety of drastically different techniques. First, I’m going to push it hard in the HDR realm (as shown below), and then in next week’s video, you’ll see how I add a special custom filter that will reduce the contrast and give it a rather unique look!

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Daily Photo – Extreme Processing of a cool building in Dusseldorf

While on a random wander through the modern area of Dusseldorf, I came across this amazing building… I took shots from a few different angles, but this was my favorite. You can unlock the part below if you want to see the processing video!

Extreme Processing of a cool building in Dusseldorf

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2015-02-08 23:55:38
• CameraILCE-7R
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/400
• Aperture8
• ISO125
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias-1

Passport Sunday

Today, for you awesome passport members you’ll get to see all the “rejects” from a recent art commission I did. At first, I did not think about sharing these, but I thought you may be interested in seeing the ones that didn’t make the cut. They’re not terrible photos or anything… but that final selection process is always a little difficult!

Welcome to the Rejects

I proposed a final 10 with 3 alternates to the clients, and they loved all of them. I just recently sent them all these “rejects” which I now share with you. There are definitely still some winners in here that I’ll be sharing soon on the blog and social media… but I hope you enjoy seeing them in the meantime!

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Today, if you’re a Passport member, then you’ll get to see some clips from the amazing 8K footage we captured for Over The Top Helicopters here in Queenstown, New Zealand for my friend Choppy! What kind of equipment did we use? We took up two helicopters, one of them had the first 8K flight setup anywhere in the world – specifically, the Shotover P1 MK ll dedicated 8K gimbal with a Red Monstro camera and Angenieux 36/435 zoom lens.

And here are a few of my favorite photos I captured on those amazing few days of shooting!

For those of you who missed it, here is the previous video on the project. A 360 vlog on location…including inside the helicopters. 🙂

Over the Top 5 min Trade Show Cut

Here are some of the best video shorts we got from helicopter to helicopter! They are going to be using these in HD at trade shows and stuff to run in the background and other edits will be used for different purposes. Thanks again to the whole team for helping out!

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Today, if you’re a Passport Member, I have a cool new video that shows some of my favorites that I’ve selected so far while working on a new photo project. Actually, I’ll show you some that I really like and others that I don’t like and explain why… a little self-critique time. In fact, one of them I think I hate!

Te Arai Selections so far

I’ve been taking photos at this epic golf course called Te Arai to make some prints for some members. I’m about halfway through the process but thought you would like to see the selects so far… I may make another video after I finish the next round of photos and show you where the project is at!

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Daily Photo – Te Arai as the sun sets

Here’s a new photo from my road trip around the North Island of New Zealand. This is one of the coolest golf courses in the world called Tara Iti. It runs right along the beach and when the sun gets low, you get some pretty incredible shadows along the fairways. I like shooting on golf courses, but I don’t always like making it obvious it’s a golf course. I like the idea that it’s a beautiful place that’s just convenient for playing golf if you want to.

Te Arai as the sun sets

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2020-08-05 00:00:50
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/640
• Aperture5.6
• ISO250
• Focal Length86.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias

Here’s the latest! Machine Elf 36 – Open Heart. I remember laying out in the white sands of the desert at Burning Man on my back in the middle of the afternoon, looking at the sun and blue sky. I was thinking about 1,000 different things and not thinking of them at the same time. Yes, I might have been on acid, but that’s beside the point. Well, not really, because, soon enough, I heard this song “Burning Sun” by Monolink playing about half a mile away from an art car… the sounds vibrated out the desert where I was hearing them… I remember what I saw and I’ve tried to recreate it here.

For more Machine Elf creations and to find out how to watch them in 360 VR, check out the website!

Best of: Austin!

And next up is the Best of Austin shots! Well, I’m not sure these are the absolute best, but there are few winners in here I haven’t thought about in a while.