Name That Bird! We had left Dunedin, in the very south of New Zealand, before switchbacking our way up a steep mountain to visit this castle. It’s called the Larncach Castle, and it was very beautiful. The gardens were immaculate, and there were many interesting subjects for photography.I found this little guy over by a pond and bent over with my 14-24mm to take a shot. You have to get in close with this lens, and I felt a little strange getting so close to such a strange beasty. Anyone know what it is?- 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 Tracer Late one night, after everyone was super-exhausted from digging up dinosaurs all day, we had a BBQ. After the BBQ, everyone got out a bunch of guns and we started playing around with them. Good times in USA! Anyway, hehe… one guy pulled out a giant elephant-type gun and loaded it with tracers. We fired them off into the distance to watch their awesome parabolas. I set up to capture some of the action… - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Santa Monica Boulevard You know those images we all have of Los Angeles, California? Pretty roads, lined with palm trees, people on roller skates, and convertibles driving by without a care in the world? Well that is only about 1% of Los Angeles. The rest, sadly is not terribly exciting. But, why not go ahead and take photos of the top 1%? Yes, that's what we do as photographers. So, this is one of those pretty bits, right near the beach in Santa Monica, one of the prettier areas of Los Angeles. - Trey Ratcliff Read more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Natalia on the Farm After getting back from one of those long hikes in Patagonia, I stayed with my Russian friends at a small hotel in El Chalten. It was a little family-run operation and the daughter Natalia helped out by running errands and these sorts of things. I took her around with me to take some photos in the little town, and she was happy to pose! It was plenty easy to find all kinds of interesting backgrounds, since El Chalten is a picturesque little town with old buildings, horses in fields, and mountainous backdrops. - Trey Ratcliff Read more here at my travel photography blog, Stuck in Customs.

StuckInCustoms > The Lake in Queenstown We are having a wonderful time in Queenstown and the surrounding area. We just can't find a place with a bad view! Thanks again for all the suggestions and info on the various neighborhoods that people have suggested via email, twitter, and the blog comments!Gordon from Camera Labs, who lives here, made a good point that living in Queenstown is a bit like living inside of a national park. There are beautiful national parks around the world, but you can't actually live inside of them... so this is really a remarkable place. Even better, the main mountain range here is called "The Remarkables"! - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Horses at f/1.4 Everything looks better at f/1.4! Kids, flowers, horses, and anything else with nice details really look amazing at f/1.4. In fact, this is a tiny little secret in the photography world. Even a rookie can make something look pretty special when using this lens! Sure, it doesn't always work out, and you still need good composition, but some extremely unique photos pop out from time to time. - Trey Ratcliff Read the here at Trey Ratcliff's Stuck in Customs travel photography blog.

StuckInCustoms > From Bilbo’s Hobbit Hole When I was in a little town called Matamata, which Peter Jackson’s team selected as the perfect place for Hobbiton, I was lucky enough to receive a private tour from Ian Brodie (see Hobbiton Tours for more info!). Ian is also quite the HDR enthusiast (see Ian’s Photo Website), so it was great to spend several hours with the guy! I put a video of us together below… and we talked a bit about taking photos of the party tree.After that, we got to adventure inside of Bilbo’s actual hole! Cool! I turned around to take a photo from the inside out. The huge tree there is the famous party tree, where Bilbo had his birthday party with Frodo before he slipped on the ring. - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Bright Morning, Stone Hut, Grass Roof This was taken around 2 in the morning, just as the sun was starting to rise off the horizon again. I found this place by happy accident. About 3 hours earlier, I took a gamble and drove up a random dirt road that spiraled up a mountain. I was doing my best to follow the sun by navigating around the topology, as best I could remember it. I had spent the last week or so driving around, up, down, and through mountains, so I was getting to know the area pretty well. I finally felt good enough to begin instinctively navigating around the landscape. - Trey Ratcliff Read more here at Trey Ratcliff's travel photography blog, Stuck in Customs.

StuckInCustoms > Balloons at Disney I've been trying to capture a shot of balloons at Disney forever... it took a while before I found something with which I was happy! Do you know these balloons cost $10? TEN DOLLARS! A ten dollar balloon... but they do light up. So that's kinda cool. What isn't cool is that you have to buy one for every single kid in your retinue. One other cool thing (kinda secret) is that if it ever goes flat or pops, you can bring it back to get a free one. Technically, you could even bring it back the next year and still get a new one. This might go against the spirit of the deal, but it is a ten dollar balloon for the love of Disney-god. - Trey Ratcliff Read more here at Trey Ratcliff's travel photography blog, Stuck in Customs.

StuckInCustoms > Horse in Window I can never decide if I enjoy naming photos or not! I think I enjoy it when I come up with a good name, and I don't like when I come up with a boring name. Let's take this one for example: "Horse in Window." I mean, how uncreative can I be? What's wrong with me?When I am editing photos, and the muse visits, I am like a man possessed. I can rip through a bunch of photos and make some nice little creations. But then I click "Save As...", and I just blank out on a name. I think the creative part of my brain for making photos is different than the part for naming things.I do enjoy writing, and I often find that the words flow easily. This bit of me seems disconnected from the photo-editing bit, though.There is a small slice of solace, I think, in considering the names of some of the great paintings from my impressionist heroes. They have names like "Girl in Field" and "Sun on Water". Not too exciting, but they do stand the test of time. But "Horse in Window"? I think not! - Trey Ratcliff Read more here at Trey Ratcliff's travel photography blog, Stuck in Customs.

StuckInCustoms > Halls of India I understand that many of these royal halls used to be inlaid with rare stones. I can't even imagine what it was like... since they are already beautiful and detailed with all the stones missing! I don't believe I've ever seen a re-creation of one of these, even where the stones are fake. One place that comes to mind is the Amber Room in St. Petersburg, but I haven't been there yet... although it's on the list. - Trey Ratcliff Read more here at Trey Ratcliff's travel photography blog, Stuck in Customs.

StuckInCustoms > The Martian Chronicles I am proud that one of my books is a signed copy of Ray Bradbury's book. I don't think it's my favorite book, but it's got that nice patina of awesomeness that comes with early-age science-fiction. Part of my problem, frankly, is that I can't get some of those wonky images out of my head that were implanted by a low-quality movie version I saw on TV as a kid.So... today's photo mystery... exactly where was this taken? Let's have some Google Earth links !! Hehe... it will be interesting to see how close (exactly) people get. - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Name That Bird! We had left Dunedin, in the very south of New Zealand, before switchbacking our way up a steep mountain to visit this castle. It’s called the Larncach Castle, and it was very beautiful. The gardens were immaculate, and there were many interesting subjects for photography.I found this little guy over by a pond and bent over with my 14-24mm to take a shot. You have to get in close with this lens, and I felt a little strange getting so close to such a strange beasty. Anyone know what it is?- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Army Men We were walking around near some of the roller coasters in Disneyland when these army men came around the corner issuing a bunch of orders through the megaphone. Ethan and I were so surprised — I hardly had time to pull up the D3S for a quick shot!Some of those days in Anaheim can get pretty hot… I don’t know how all these people in costumes can handle it. I guess it’s better than being one of the dress-up people in Orlando, though!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > Google Street View Cars After I was invited to speak at Google on HDR for their Authors@Google program, I visited another one of their buildings where I gave a little workshop. It was great fun! On the way over, I passed the fleet of Google Streetview cars. I set up for a shot in the awesome Mountain View afternoon skies.I know there's a lot of controversy over these cars. I think it's all silly. Everyone is everywhere taking photos nowadays... whether with DSLRs, consumer cameras, or cell phones. The idea that Google can't do what everyone else is doing in an organized way just doesn't make any sense. I use Google street view all the time to help find my way around... it's a huge time-saver! And, it's super-cool on my Android phone, I must say...- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

StuckInCustoms > 1,000 Red Gates What a wonderful and unique place on earth this is! In Kyoto, Japan, there resides the unique shrine of Fushimi Inari. It consists of thousands of red gates that wind up and down the mountain. I walked through it deep into the night…. I was the only one around and it was downright eerie. Every now and then, the gates would stop and there would be a mini-shrine off to one side or a graveyard to another. Both of these added to the creep factor.I had a serious worry about an hour into the hike through these gates — what if they turn off the lights? I had no flashlight! I considered my two options — I could strobe my SB-800 to find my way out, which would be a totally surreal experience through these gates. Or, I could do what one of my Israeli hiker friends did in Argentina, use the back of my camera display for light (he actually used his to set up his tent)!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Name That Bird!

We had left Dunedin, in the very south of New Zealand, before switchbacking our way up a steep mountain to visit this castle. It’s called the Larncach Castle, and it was very beautiful. The gardens were immaculate, and there were many interesting subjects for photography.

I found this little guy over by a pond and bent over with my 14-24mm to take a shot. You have to get in close with this lens, and I felt a little strange getting so close to such a strange beasty. Anyone know what it is?

- Trey Ratcliff

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