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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 > Parisian Blue Skies over the Rodin Chateau It was a perfectly beautiful day on my first visit to the Rodin museum in the heart of Paris. I’ve always liked his sculptures, and the way they were spread among the lush grounds of the chateau was rather… French. It was a good day of exploration!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Unorthodox Religion Here is a good church picture from Kievo-Pecherskaya Larva for Sunday in the bible belt.I am not sure how people were able to photograph the interior of churches before the HDR technique came along. Well, actually I do - since I used to do it too, but now I am ashamed of all my old pictures. There is no other way, in my opinion, to capture the richness, details, and colors of these massive works of art.You can see a heiromonk there on the right in his morning ghostly ritual.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Hanging Out of the Chopper Here is another photo that I took that evening when I was flying in a helicopter around downtown Chicago. The pilots were cool enough to take off the door to give me an unencumbered view. That part was great -- the thing I did not expect was the 200 MPH backwash flying through the cavity. It made it rather tough to keep the camera steady!This is a shot (on Facebook) that Fiona got of me hanging out of the helicopter (albeit on the ground!).Now, I know some of you EXIF-hunters love to know all the dirty details of the exposure. I keep it inside the Flickr page if you click on More Properties. But to save you the time, here is the basic info. BTW, this is a single-exposure RAW file that I converted into an HDR. This was shot at f/2.8 with an Exposure Bias of -5. The shutter was 1/8000, the ISO 800, and it was shot at 18mm. The camera was the Nikon D3X and it was shot with the 14-24mm 2.8 lens. I have details of all that stuff over there in the DSLR Camera equipment area.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Secret Emerald Lake I saw the craziest and most unbelievable things in Patagonia. It was like nature rewrote its own rules to build this place. I'd like to make a reference to the ill-fated Genesis project in Star Trek II, the Wrath of Kahn, but I won't.I came across this shockingly clear and mysterious green lake. The water magnified the pure green algae that covered every strange underwater formation. There were also fish swimming around inside, but I kept the ISO so low on these shots, the fish got blurred out. I do have some higher ISO shots of the fish I will add at a later date. They were these little blue-colored fish. I think they were trout, but I'm not totally sure. Anyway, I felt lucky to be here in the Autumn, just after a small rainstorm, making all the trees nice and moist with a glistening glow.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Grand Tetons We drove down to the south of Yellowstone near Jackson Hole to explore the Grand Tetons. Just as I was taking this picture, a huge bison came up behind me and caught me unawares… and I barely got the fifth exposure to this HDR! It’s amazing how big those things are and they are still quiet.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Dark Duomo Mark Twain said the following of the Duomo in Milan in his work, Innocents Abroad:What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems ...a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!...The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures-- and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest...everywhere that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself...Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. ...(Up on) the roof...springing from its broad marble flagstones, were the long files of spires, looking very tall close at hand, but diminishing in the distance...We could see, now, that the statue on the top of each was the size of a large man, though they all looked like dolls from the street... They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite - L'Hôtel de Ville in Paris Here is a shot of the Hôtel de Ville, just about a 15 minute walk at midnight from Notre Dame, where I had just shot a stirring sunset shot. I wish I could freeze sunset and run around and hit every landmark at the same time… but since it’s impossible… I suppose I just have to go back another time. Anyone want to join me?- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The High Altar and the Inner Cloister of Notre Dame This is one place they do not like you to use a tripod — inside Notre Dame. I stuffed it down beside my leg inside my overcoat and acted like an invalid, limping in to pray to the pantheon of saints. Once inside, I dropped the rouse and extended the tripod like a transformer and shot away. I got off enough right before they told me to stop in rather polite French.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Winter is Coming I drove the long way from Akureyri to Reykjavik and took way too much time going down side roads to take pictures, but it always paid off…This picture was taken before I stopped for the night in Stadarskali, a very lonely place where I think I was the only guest.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Alone at the Taj Azed Baba would not tell me much about himself except for what his name means. Azed means "freedom" and Baba means "spiritual man". We sat around and watched the sunset at the Taj together and I asked if I could take his picture.After I while I rubbed my House-like stubble since it has been a few days since I shaved. I asked him if he liked my beard. He gave a grunt in response which was either a laugh or a grunt of general disgust at the state of my beard.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Midnight Adventure in the Japanese Cemetery The night had been dark for many hours by the time I hiked to this point. It was raining and somehow the wetness seemed to make everything even more black. There were old and new crypts, spider webs, lonely rotting wood, creaking trees in the heavy rain, and more strange sounds from the woods. Talk about eerie! Japanese cemeteries are not places that people visit very often. It’s bad luck. Naturally, I don’t believe in any of that, so it was my good luck it was empty for photography!Of all the spots around Kyoto, this is probably my favorite. There is an area of 1,000 Red Gates that flow up and around a picturesque little mountain. This cemetery is about halfway up the trek and it shoots off to the right. It is both great and annoying to shoot in the rain. I had to carry an umbrella, tripod, bag of camera goodies, and the like, and everything gets all jumbled up when it comes time to set up for a shot. I need an assistant!How did I do this one? There were three exposures +1, 0, -1. Normally I do 5 from +2 to -2, but in this case, it was so dark that the shutter speeds were outrageous enough. I kept the ISO at 200. The 14-24 lens was at 15mm (on a D3X). It was aperture priority at f/5.6. The three shutter speeds were 2/4/8 seconds. If you zoom into the Original size on Flickr – you can see all kinds of details.Here is one special thing I did on the last exposure. It was DARK out there. And I mean DARK. I had my SB-800 in my bag. On the last exposure, I ran over behind the gate to the right like Carl Lewis, and jammed the “Test” button about 5 times in every direction to light up that area. I almost slipped and died… I have no idea what a police investigator might assume if they found me in the morning.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Gestalt of Coming and Going I do love train stations in Europe!I think each one has a personality of its own, and the gestalt is a function of the trains that come to visit. Leipzig wouldn’t be Leipzig if it never made a connection to Dresden. The stations really have no say in the matter and connections just get made on their own. It’s the natural order of things. Whatever it is about Dresden that makes it special becomes part of Leipzig, and vice versa.This is from my LucisArt 6.0 tutorial… I’m still a-workin’ on it when my mind has moments of lucid thought.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Hindu Ascent This is a 94-year-old woman ascending the final stairs in the 272-step ascent in the Batu Caves, a pilgrimage site in Malaysia for over 800,000 Hindus per year.Her hair is 3 meters long (about 9 feet). She has never cut it her entire life. It is so long, she has to fold it back and forth a few times and wrap it to keep it from dragging behind.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Three Houses with a Grass Roof This was found in the countryside of Iceland, which roughly describes most of Iceland.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Notre Dame of Lyon This is the interior of the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvre. It is probably the most lavish and beautiful cathedral I have ever been inside. It beats the other Notre Dame in Paris by a mile. I’ve never been in the Sistine Chapel, which is probably more lavish. I was going to visit it on my last trip to Rome but the Pope died the day I was there… so that one was… busy.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Parisian Blue Skies over the Rodin Chateau

It was a perfectly beautiful day on my first visit to the Rodin museum in the heart of Paris. I’ve always liked his sculptures, and the way they were spread among the lush grounds of the chateau was rather… French. It was a good day of exploration!

- Trey Ratcliff

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

Parisian Blue Skies over the Rodin Chateau

Camera: Nikon Corporation (Nikon D2xs) |

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original size: 2816px x 4124px |

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