Apple Store, New York This store is pretty awesome, isn't it? I was just showing this photo to the architect Eric Kuhne (who gave an awesome presentation at EG about futuristic city design - will link soon), and we both had the same reaction to this place... smart and awesome.I always wanted to take a photo from this angle and thought about it ever since the first time I visited. I was happy with the rain, because it made it all feel right. Even better, I was standing under an arch so I was perfectly dry... these kind of shots out in the rain with the 14-24 are tough because of the bulbous lens. It's not a problem if the rain is straight down, but it never is!Lisa Bettany has an upcoming PhotoWalk starting from this location, and I am sure she will mention more today on the live show.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog. - Trey Ratcliff | Stuck In Customs

Thank you again for all the comments and feedback - much appreciated and I read them all! A lot of requests come in for my tutorial about how I do these shots - you can find it here: HDR Tutorial

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StuckInCustoms > Paris HDR I think this was my fifth trip to Paris, and the first time I actually got some Eiffel Tower shots that I find satisfactory! I literally had to take thousands of shots of this thing before I found something that feels right to me.The gardens that surround the Eiffel Tower are surprisingly empty. Around dusk and sunset, it's usually not too hard to find a nice bench to drink in the sights. Or, barring that, there are plenty of spots in the grass where you can lay out a blanket and enjoy some amazing cheese and pastries... and what is more wonderful than that?- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > An Amazing Day at the Met On Sunday, I set aside about six hours to spend alone at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of you may know by now how I am obsessed with the Impressionists. Don't ever go to a museum with me, because I will bore you for hours on end with strange tidbits. Anyway, the Met has a fantastic collection that kept me busy most of the time... It's rather nice of them to hang on to my paintings for me. One day, when I get some time, I'm going to make a little page here and show some of my favorites.The Man would not let me take a tripod inside, so that was unfortunate. I did manage to do a few hand-held HDRs however... here is one that I have processed thus far.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Sheep on the way to Paradise
This title makes it sounds a bit like they are about to be slaughtered... or maybe they are suicide-sheep, about to meet some sweet sweet virgin sheep in paradise. But no, this is not what I mean. There is a little town past Glenorchy, New Zealand called "Paradise". I passed these sheep while on the way there.

I never made it to Paradise, truthfully. I turned around. It felt like such a long way to get here, and I had to turn around to get back to Queenstown before it got too late.

I took this photo with my new Nikon 28-300 lens. I love it so far! This one was shot at f/5.6, 70mm, and ISO 100.

Read more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Ensnared in Flame On my first evening in Barcelona, I dumped my bags in the room them went right out to explore. Unpacking is so boring... let's face it.I started going down side-streets and back alleys to where I heard activity and motion. I was more or less zig-zagging my way to Las Ramblas, where there's always a lot of activity. But I didn't want to go right there. During the weaving, I found this enormous cathedral nestled between a square of classical looking Spanish buildings. A performer had lit a unique homemade contraption of flames and was whirling it about. I got back behind her and set up for this shot.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Soft Hills on the way to Paradise, New Zealand Just beyond Glenorchy, which is just a shade beyond Queenstown, lies a little place called Paradise. The road gets tinier and tinier as you get closer. A few miles before the road becomes all dirt, I pulled over to these soft rolling hills. They were covered with little sheep families, walking to and fro.One the rare occasion when I am in the field with students, I have them notice a bunch of things. I've touched on this before, and this is another good example. It has to do with the location of the sunlight. There are three elements that can be lit here - the hills and/or the mountains and/or the clouds. Every combination looks dramatically different in the final shot. When you are there on the scene, the light changes so gradually, you don't notice. So you have to teach yourself to be mindful of the untimely flow of light. - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Simplicity of Life A delicate photo for you today.There was a silent lake in the north of Iceland around 1 AM where I stopped for a stroll. I had bathed myself in this light for over a week, and this non-stop dream of solstice nights was getting deep into my mind. There is that strange moment between sleep and wake - you know the one - but that moment was elongated to hours on end as the elements drifted around me. Certain feelings around this are hard to explain, but perhaps you know what I mean.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Apple Store, New York This store is pretty awesome, isn't it? I was just showing this photo to the architect Eric Kuhne (who gave an awesome presentation at EG about futuristic city design - will link soon), and we both had the same reaction to this place... smart and awesome.I always wanted to take a photo from this angle and thought about it ever since the first time I visited. I was happy with the rain, because it made it all feel right. Even better, I was standing under an arch so I was perfectly dry... these kind of shots out in the rain with the 14-24 are tough because of the bulbous lens. It's not a problem if the rain is straight down, but it never is!Lisa Bettany has an upcoming PhotoWalk starting from this location, and I am sure she will mention more today on the live show.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Two Glacial Lakes of the Southern Andes This was a hard spot to reach!It was quite a hike to get up here early in the morning, just as the sky was still in a dawn of deep blue. The two lakes on either side are those pure glacial blue lakes that you sometimes see from airplanes and wonder, "What's it like to be down there?" I'll tell ya - AWESOME! I went down there and drank from the lakes like a guanaco on holiday. It was incredible.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Mighty Peaks and Soft River
I'm going up again soon to the northern part of Iceland to visit some friends, and it will be great fun. This time, I'll have to convince them to come out with me on a little photo adventure...

Right before you get to Akureyri, the road twists along a valley that runs beside these mountains. They are beautiful and scenic, but very difficult to photograph. You keep looking and looking and looking for an angle, and it never quite works out. I found this one by accident. There was a little side road that looked interesting. I took it, and then it almost immediately went off the side of a hill! It turns out it wasn't a side-road at all, but some kind of fake-road meant to trick dumb people like me. So, after sliding to a stop, I went out to see if my 4th wheel was dangling over the side. It wasn't, but I did see a little path that went down by the river. I thought there might be a good vantage point, so I took my rig down there to get this shot.

-Trey Ratcliff

Read more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Exploring the Peninsula at Sunrise I weaved in and out of these little roads as the sun was coming up in Iceland. I was trying to find a certain rock formation off in the ocean, which I never found. But that's okay. These roads are very windy, and that makes setting up for a shot very difficult. Every curve of the road is a new geometry, and this causes endless possibilities and problems! When you come across a nice old farmhouse like this, you hope the road is curving the right way so that you get a nice setup with the composition.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > This is Vespucci I'm leaving Italy today... Between meetings I had time to explore around with my camera and iPod in overdrive. I saw a lot of interesting faces, so I collected a series of portraits that I have collected into a little portfolio set on Flickr called "What they Dream and What they Do". If I ever saw someone with an interesting face, I thought perhaps they might have an interesting story too, so I've organized the set by the motif of what people do with their lives. Here are the first eight pictures from the series. I will probably add to this collection in the future, or at least until I ask to take someone's picture and they punch me in the face.Vespucci's dream is to find his son and tell him important things. He twists his head quickly at me with a lost and quizzical look, and then he returns to a thoughtful gaze.Vespucci is currently homeless and cannot remember where his son is.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Silent Temple of Zhangjiajie
Here's another photo that I worked on during last night's webinar class. It was a tough one! I was going through many different examples, and this was a good example of one of those mixed-light situations. It's so easy and wonderful to experience in person, but so difficult to capture otherwise.

I took this in the middle of a serious trek in Zhangjiajie, deep in the southern part of China. It was one of the hardest single-day treks of my life. This part in the lowland forest was not too tough because it was relatively flat. There were little path problems here and there, but nothing too major. Most of the problems involved walking up and down these bitches. I probably should not call them that, but, honestly, when you are walking up on down them, it's one of the words that keeps popping into your mind.

In a single day, I walked up and down those things twice, each time passing through these lowland forests... this was the calm before the storm of the ascent, and this little temple brought me some temporary peace.

Read more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Nobody Needs Dramatic Sheep
I've posted two Iceland photos in a row! This is unlike me...yes, but I'm excited about Iceland. And, this is one of the photos I made in the video above.

I think people that rarely see sheep are fascinated by sheep. This is very confusing to people that spend a lot of time around sheep. I'm sure people in Iceland find that outsiders find sheep WAY too interesting. But, to us outsiders, we see these wonderful little white puffs, milling around... the gentle way they drift over the soft turf like clouds on a green sky...

If you zoom in tight on this one, you'll see there are actually three sheep there on the left... the one in the back is just being a little sheepish.

-Trey Ratcliff

Read more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Green Mountain, Red House
"Is the house really THAT red?" my wife asks me. Yes, oh yes, it is... But now I am taking her to Iceland with me, so she can see these bright colors for herself...

I don't know if it's a Scandinavian thing or what, but we just don't see colorful houses like this in the states. I think we either have brick, or white, or slightly off-white, or perhaps a light beige, or maybe something daring like a mauve-eggshell-white... I mean, I'm just as bad... mine in stucco. I don't even think my homeowner's association would let me paint it red. But, knowing Austin, with a bright red house, we'd probably have a few commies show up in Che Guevara shirts, wondering where the free pizza is...

- Trey Ratcliff

Read more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Apple Store, New York

This store is pretty awesome, isn't it? I was just showing this photo to the architect Eric Kuhne (who gave an awesome presentation at EG about futuristic city design - will link soon), and we both had the same reaction to this place... smart and awesome.

I always wanted to take a photo from this angle and thought about it ever since the first time I visited. I was happy with the rain, because it made it all feel right. Even better, I was standing under an arch so I was perfectly dry... these kind of shots out in the rain with the 14-24 are tough because of the bulbous lens. It's not a problem if the rain is straight down, but it never is!

Lisa Bettany has an upcoming PhotoWalk starting from this location, and I am sure she will mention more today on the live show.

- Trey Ratcliff

Click here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.