The Forbidden Wooden City How long did this full model of the Forbidden City take to build? Can you imagine doing something like this for a school project? And it seems so… flammable!I took this photo inside the city planning museum in Beijing. Across the street in Tiananmen Square, there were tens of thousands of people, but this museum was totally empty. If you ever do visit one of these Chinese mega-cities, I think they all have these strange “City Planning” museums – they all are filled with really cool models like this. - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Queenstown from the Air I’m happy to be back home in Queenstown!It’s strange to me to come “home” to the kind of place I used to go on vacation. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. There is a very nice feeling when the airplane approaches this place. If you ever have a chance to fly in here, then you will know what I mean.Airplane pilots have to go through some kind of special training or planning before an approach here. They have to spiral down and get between the mountains. I don’t know much about it, obviously. But I do know there is a very nice pilot on Air New Zealand that is a frequent reader of the blog! He came up and said hello to me when I was on his plane one day. Hi Captain! :)- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
View from the Google Offices in Downtown Tokyo It was a great event at Google that day and night! After my tech talk, we stayed up in their skyscraper till dark, drinking and eating and taking photos. Luckily, the office windows aim in directly the right direction out of the Roppongi Towers.The windows were all crowded with photographers, and it was a great time. Between shots, I got the chance to talk to a lot of enthusiastic Japanese photographers. I even set up a future-photo-date with the great Takahiro-san… and he would take me to one of his secret bridge locations in Tokyo! That photo will be coming up soon…- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
The Dramatic Chateau I took photos of this side of the chateau twice. Once in the morning when the clouds were heavy, and once again in the afternoon when the clouds parted. I ended up liking this cloudy one better. There was a bit of a natural vignette, but I decided to enhance that a bit in the post processing.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Kayaks Along Lake Wakatipu I’ve never taken a kayak out onto that lake. I’m not much of a kayaker, but also, I’m not a big fan of deep bodies of water. Actually, I will just go all the way from “not a big fan” to “outright afraid”. You never know what kind of nonsense is happening underneath you, you know? I don’t like swimming to being in a little boat on top of deep water. I don’t mind being in a big, sea-worthy boat. That’s fine. But swimming and being in a little boat… that’s not for me. This is strange, because I know it’s irrational. And I don’t really have any other irrational fears… but I can’t figure out a way to get around this one (nor do I see the need to do so, which is probably part of the problem itself).- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Fun with the Fisheye in Paris This is a close up of one of the two chandeliers in the entry way of my hotel in Paris. I was still getting used to the fisheye at this point, so it took me about five shots to get this exact one I wanted.By the way, I like how Paris likes to fill “empty space” with red velvet. It’s like the go-to thing for interior designers there…- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Under the Bridge in Central Park Here is one of the final images from the second video here.  This was shot when I was hanging out with Clayton Morris in New York.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Another Bridge in Melbourne I like these cities that get all fancy with their bridges. Melbourne certainly does! Each bridge tries to out-do the next. There’s no common theme and its sort of a mish-mash of styles, to say the least. I think that not everyone likes this, but I do. I don’t mind all the variety, especially from the perspective of photography.It’s kind of the same way with the buildings and other decorative elements around downtown Melbourne. There are so many styles, most of which are one flavor of “modern” or “contemporary”. I enjoy mixing and matching different elements into compositions, but it is not easy. There is a challenging aspect to it that I don’t get in many other cities.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Wild Horses in Queenstown This is Max Patte’s latest creation. I saw them by accident while I was playing golf at The Hills here. I came over the hill to this little par 3 and I thought they were real! I was so shocked… it was a very strange reaction, actually. I’ll never forget it. It was surreal… and I love that feeling of not knowing if something is real or fantasy, and really getting lost, even if just for a moment.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Forbidden Wooden City


How long did this full model of the Forbidden City take to build? Can you imagine doing something like this for a school project? And it seems so… flammable!

I took this photo inside the city planning museum in Beijing. Across the street in Tiananmen Square, there were tens of thousands of people, but this museum was totally empty. If you ever do visit one of these Chinese mega-cities, I think they all have these strange “City Planning” museums – they all are filled with really cool models like this.

- 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(2501484546,'',XLarge,'',1024,758);">The Forbidden Wooden City How long did this full model of the Forbidden City take to build? Can you imagine doing something like this for a school project? And it seems so… flammable!I took this photo inside the city planning museum in Beijing. Across the street in Tiananmen Square, there were tens of thousands of people, but this museum was totally empty. If you ever do visit one of these Chinese mega-cities, I think they all have these strange “City Planning” museums – they all are filled with really cool models like this. - Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Forbidden Wooden City


How long did this full model of the Forbidden City take to build? Can you imagine doing something like this for a school project? And it seems so… flammable!

I took this photo inside the city planning museum in Beijing. Across the street in Tiananmen Square, there were tens of thousands of people, but this museum was totally empty. If you ever do visit one of these Chinese mega-cities, I think they all have these strange “City Planning” museums – they all are filled with really cool models like this.

- Trey Ratcliff

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