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This is Vespucci I'm leaving Italy today... Between meetings I had time to explore around with my camera and iPod in overdrive. I saw a lot of interesting faces, so I collected a series of portraits that I have collected into a little portfolio set on Flickr called "What they Dream and What they Do". If I ever saw someone with an interesting face, I thought perhaps they might have an interesting story too, so I've organized the set by the motif of what people do with their lives. Here are the first eight pictures from the series. I will probably add to this collection in the future, or at least until I ask to take someone's picture and they punch me in the face.Vespucci's dream is to find his son and tell him important things. He twists his head quickly at me with a lost and quizzical look, and then he returns to a thoughtful gaze.Vespucci is currently homeless and cannot remember where his son is.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Morning Seagull over Vesuvius This was the morning that made me never question getting out of bed before sunrise again. It's always a painful thing to do, but once you get out there, it's usually worth it. Even if you don't get the perfect shot, you still have a nice early start to the day. I shot this in Naples, Italy, where the bay looks across to the cratered Vesuvius. This shot was an HDR taken from a single RAW, as you can tell from the seagull which was caught in flight. Moving subjects usually require the use of a single RAW file for the creation of the HDR. Otherwise, there would be a staccato ghosting of the bird across the sunrise.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo Ahhh Rome! I love it there. Everywhere I walked was filled with art and inspiration. One of my hobbies is ancient Roman history, so the city had forever held a mythical romanticism place in my mind. I have a bad (good) habit of circumnavigating structures before taking photos to find the right angle. I say bad because some of these structures are so big that it's a major commitment to walk around the thing. Finally, however, it paid off and I found some wet pavement just outside one of the subways.That purple streak in the upper left is very mysterious. I don't really remember what happened during the shot to cause that, but it was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
The Airy Doom of the Duomo The most difficult thing about this shot was hiding my tripod from the security guards. The second hardest thing was the HDR processing from this shot melting my CPU core.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
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.
Milan Train Station at Midnight If you want to see how I made this (and how you can too!), visit my HDR Tutorial. I hope it gives you some new tricks!I had a super-long day in Milan. I was tired and just wanted to go back to the hotel to have a cappuccino in the bar and edit photography on my laptop. But I remembered the really pretty train station and how I wanted to get a shot with nobody around.I went in around midnight, found the perfect spot, and then shot away.The HDR process always takes that slick concrete and makes it extra-reflective. Reflective ground is always great for photography. Also, people always think that I "colored" the lights up at the top, but I did not. In fact, I never "paint" on my photos. Any color that you see in them was actually there, except in the cases when I apply a texture treatment.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo


Ahhh Rome! I love it there. Everywhere I walked was filled with art and inspiration. One of my hobbies is ancient Roman history, so the city had forever held a mythical romanticism place in my mind. I have a bad (good) habit of circumnavigating structures before taking photos to find the right angle. I say bad because some of these structures are so big that it's a major commitment to walk around the thing. Finally, however, it paid off and I found some wet pavement just outside one of the subways.

That purple streak in the upper left is very mysterious. I don't really remember what happened during the shot to cause that, but it was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

- 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(742620378,'',XLarge,'',1024,681);">Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo Ahhh Rome! I love it there. Everywhere I walked was filled with art and inspiration. One of my hobbies is ancient Roman history, so the city had forever held a mythical romanticism place in my mind. I have a bad (good) habit of circumnavigating structures before taking photos to find the right angle. I say bad because some of these structures are so big that it's a major commitment to walk around the thing. Finally, however, it paid off and I found some wet pavement just outside one of the subways.That purple streak in the upper left is very mysterious. I don't really remember what happened during the shot to cause that, but it was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo


Ahhh Rome! I love it there. Everywhere I walked was filled with art and inspiration. One of my hobbies is ancient Roman history, so the city had forever held a mythical romanticism place in my mind. I have a bad (good) habit of circumnavigating structures before taking photos to find the right angle. I say bad because some of these structures are so big that it's a major commitment to walk around the thing. Finally, however, it paid off and I found some wet pavement just outside one of the subways.

That purple streak in the upper left is very mysterious. I don't really remember what happened during the shot to cause that, but it was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

- Trey Ratcliff

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