The Church in the Wilderness before an Icelandic Summer Storm I drove from one end of Iceland to the other by myself, going down almost any road except the main one.  I traveled down a little gravel road for a long way until I found this tiny church and graveyard.  I jumped out to shoot this before the afternoon showers came down.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Miracle in Iceland I knew if I took enough HDR pictures of churches that I would eventually get a miracle. You know, the odds are technically and scientifically in my favor. The sound the miracle made was about the same sound as when they hit that emergency switch in the hatch on Lost.This one was a five-exposure HDR. The cloud streaks were subtle, but nice, and the tone mapping certainly helped them to pop.This was taken from inside the cemetery, whose egress was made through this nice little white gate.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
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.

The Church in the Wilderness before an Icelandic Summer Storm


I drove from one end of Iceland to the other by myself, going down almost any road except the main one. I traveled down a little gravel road for a long way until I found this tiny church and graveyard. I jumped out to shoot this before the afternoon showers came down.

- Trey Ratcliff

Click here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Click here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog." href="javascript:openLB(742623111,'',XLarge,'',1024,682);">The Church in the Wilderness before an Icelandic Summer Storm I drove from one end of Iceland to the other by myself, going down almost any road except the main one.  I traveled down a little gravel road for a long way until I found this tiny church and graveyard.  I jumped out to shoot this before the afternoon showers came down.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Church in the Wilderness before an Icelandic Summer Storm


I drove from one end of Iceland to the other by myself, going down almost any road except the main one. I traveled down a little gravel road for a long way until I found this tiny church and graveyard. I jumped out to shoot this before the afternoon showers came down.

- Trey Ratcliff

Click here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
See photo in original gallery.