A Gentle Stream Through New Zealand All this news out of New Zealand is still upsetting. I've got a lot of contacts and friends down there... and I know it's a rough time. Not much I can do... feel a little useless... so about the best I can do is post some serene and gentle photos of the nicer side of nature. I hope all my friends down there find it gets a little easier as the days move forward.- 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 > The Batmobile On one of my little Texas road trips, I saw this thing on the side of the road and it was worth a turn-around! It kind of makes me want to have an awesome and impractical car like this. Everything else I do in my life is so dang practical...I think I need an impractical car!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Stone Steps in the City How do you guys feel about hyper-manufactured situations like this? I don't always know what to think. There are a lot of urban areas like this around Beijing where they create little natural-looking areas. They certainly look cool, and perfect in many ways. But, perhaps it is a little too perfect. No, that's not the right way to say it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something doesn't feel right about it. It's almost because I can picture the designer deciding to put a tree in a certain spot or the selection of a certain shape of stone in another part. Maybe if the placement of items was truly accidental -- true randomness -- then it might look more natural.But I see a lot of this in China. They have communities with giant apartment blocks. The new ones are all very modern and nice. And in the middle of them are fountains, small groves of trees, paths, swings, and everything. There are families out mucking about and enjoying it... but I wonder if it "feels" as funny to them as it does to me. I sometimes feel like I'm on a holodeck.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > A Gentle Stream Through New Zealand All this news out of New Zealand is still upsetting. I've got a lot of contacts and friends down there... and I know it's a rough time. Not much I can do... feel a little useless... so about the best I can do is post some serene and gentle photos of the nicer side of nature. I hope all my friends down there find it gets a little easier as the days move forward.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Saucer Section Separates You know you were in for something special whenever the Enterprise got into one of those situations where the saucer section would separate from the warp nacelles. It always happened in the most extreme situations, and there was always a vital emergency. But the actual separation process seemed to involve about four minutes of special effects, which was surely long enough for the Borg to assimilate everyone.What would have been better, in retrospect, was if the Borg would just assimilate the special effects department and modernize it a bit.Can anyone figure out from where this photo actually hails (ahem). - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Underlondon After a day of "working hard" by meandering all over London to take photos, we ended up here at this cool restaurant. I'm sure some of our clever UK readers know exactly which one it is!It was one of those places where you walk in and see 30 different kinds of bread. So then, there is no choice left, and you simply have to get bread. I can sometimes have good bread-willpower, but not when I am presented with so many choices. It's sort of like peer-pressure... and every one of those different kinds of bread is a sentient being, beckoning me to eat em up.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Last Sunset It was one of those perfect sunsets where time went in slow motion. I was on high-alert, and kept everything flowing as I moved from location to location. It's not easy to dance across rocks with the tripod fully extended, but it certainly is memorable!I saw this dock early in the day, and I was secretly hoping that it might just point towards the sun as it passed the horizon. So I had this shot planned along with about 10 others. Some worked out and some didn't. This is one of the ones that worked out.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Girl in Hat One morning I woke up early to go visit the Summer Palace in Beijing. Since it was the week of the national holiday, I was not the only guy that woke up early. Around the outskirts of the palace, there were thousands of celebrants in all sorts of garb. And plenty of cute kids in fanciful headwear. I saw this little girl, so I got down to her level and took a quick shot with the 50 prime. I hope this one is sharp enough for you... I know on Flickr sometimes I get a few photo-nerds that complain, "errr...you're a little soft in the lower right quadrant.".- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Terminal You guys know I love the Asian airports. I can't quite figure out why they are all so awesome. I suppose that the government just pours a ton of money into them. But, I don't really understand the economics of airports, even though I spend a lot of time in them. I know the airlines have to lease the gates, so that provides a regular income, but probably not enough to pay back the billion dollar pricetag to get it built. I'm pretty sure there is a lot of incestuous stuff that goes on... I know some giant Asian airlines are subsidized by the government, which in turn give money to airports that are owned partially by the government, and it all gets more messy from there. I suppose I'm just used to the government doing everything badly here.This is one of the smaller terminals in Beijing. The main terminal is huge, and you get to this one after you pass through security. The floors are so glossy, I feel like wearing ice skates!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > On Golden Borg If I had stayed a little longer in this area, I'm sure I would have been assimilated too! Not only were all the little buildings perfectly modeled, but the insides of the buildings had little lights. Every few minutes, they would flicker and change, and the lights in the overall room would dim. So here's a good idea if you go to Shanghai or Beijing, or any of these Asian megacities that have city-planning museums. These huge models are great for scouting sunset shots from a nice perspective. I usually use Google Earth, but taking photos of downtown areas require some thought about the altitude of the shot. So, for example, you don't want to go to the tallest building in a city to take the photo, because you actually want the tallest building to be in the photo. So that means you need to find a nearby building that is "high enough" that still has a good angle towards the big building. Also, preferably, you'd like that second building to be east of the big building so there is nice light at sunset. Well, there's a lot of things to think about, and these models are a perfect playground for perspectives.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Crossing Tower Bridge in the Rain My bulbous 14-24 lens is a problem in the rain! If you haven't seen the Nikon 14-24 (see my Nikon 14-24 Review) before, then most people think it is a fish-eye lens, but it isn't. The apex of the glass juts out almost just beyond the tiny bayonet, and it seems to suck rain drops into it! I'm always wiping down that dang thing.But... here's another little hint. That lens can shoot at F/2.8. That means you can focus on infinity for most of your landscape shots, and you'll only see a few, if any, raindrops that form on the lens. It's a very nifty trick! And, with a wide-angle lens, infinity ain't that far away.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Jack Horner De-choppering This is another picture from that mysterious ranch in Montana that I hint at from time to time. The only way to get there is a 3 to 4 hour horse ride or to take a private helicopter over the Rockies... it descends into a secret green valley... something right out of Galt's Gulch.Every few days, new guests arrive and depart. And, on this day, the chopper brought in the great Jack Horner. He's one of those guys that's awesome and doesn't even try to be. He just is. Later that night, he gave a talk in front of everyone about some of his new discoveries in the world of dinosaurs. It turns out that Triceratops and Torosaurus are the same dinosaur! Cool. He had shown me research a year earlier at his underground (literally) lab in Montana that rests underneath the dinosaur museum. He had huge computer screens showing the bone histology, and how it changes as the dinosaurs age. Very interesting stuff.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Shaft Casa Batlló on Passeig de Gracia is one of the most awesome places in the world. My camera was very happy (and me, by extension).This is one of Antoni Gaudi's masterpieces. That guy is amazing... It was certainly on my list to visit before the trip, and I did not really have enough time to spend there. And, I couldn't use the tripod, but I don't want to get into that discussion...just too frustrating."The Shaft" runs up the center of the casa. It reminds me of how each floor was a completely different visual experience. Taking photos in here was a challenge... I wanted to do the place justice.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Where They Dry the Fish (Ósvör in Bolungarvík) I ate a lot of fish in Iceland. I even had rotten shark. You've heard of this? They bury shark and let it rot until it ferments. And then you eat it. And then you have to drink this Icelandic vodka called Brennavin or something like this. It's lethal. I remember because I was sitting by a couple of Irish girls that were traveling flamenco dancers and they were laughing at me while I powered through this one-two combination. I don't drink... but, it was part of the shark experience. And I think of it more as a healing potion than whatever the hell it really was.While in the northwest fjords, I came across these little huts with intermittent slats. This is where the fisherman hang the fish to dry in the incessant sea-winds that blow up the coast. Pretty cool, eh?- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > The Infinite Stairs to the Oubliette This is one of the areas where the French kept Marie Antoinette in the conciergerie. There were many mysterious parts of these chambers, and this was one of the most interesting.I one time designed a set of stairs like this back in the day with a Quake level editor. There was a website where you could upload your creations that could be shared by other level designers. I uploaded my stairs, but I don't know if they were ever used or not. I thought I saw them in E1M4, but then I realized that those stairs were actually 5x better than mine.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com

A Gentle Stream Through New Zealand

All this news out of New Zealand is still upsetting. I've got a lot of contacts and friends down there... and I know it's a rough time. Not much I can do... feel a little useless... so about the best I can do is post some serene and gentle photos of the nicer side of nature. I hope all my friends down there find it gets a little easier as the days move forward.

- Trey Ratcliff

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

A Gentle Stream Through New Zealand

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