A Votive in the Dark Cathedral I love a scary cathedral.  They can put you in such a melancholy and gloomy mood if you want them too.  You can feel the overbearing saints from above judging your moves, and giving you a few bonus points in the big game if you light one of the votives.  In a scientific study, it was proven than a votive makes a prayer 35% more likely to be granted.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
On the Road to Somewhere After an accident on an ATV, I was stuck on this road for a long time while waiting for rescue.  Luckily, the camera and tripod were uninjured and the time I was waiting for happened to be sunset.  There are worse things in life than this!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Puzzling Over Beauty I was captivated by this scene for some reason, and I spent a good deal of time thinking of how best to shoot it. On the final day of my trip there to Glacier National Park, I decided on this treatment.  There are many interesting things to me here, and you can probably be thankful you were not beside me to hear me go off on a theoretic (a new Neal Stephenson word). We enjoy beauty and puzzle over beauty at the same time. In a world of entropy, it is calming to take beauty, break it apart into what makes it so, and then piece it back together again to bring order to the chaos.  But, I could not bring myself to work on the puzzle at all. I just drank in everything I was there to be with for the moment. I thought a little about the nature of wanting to make a puzzle, just to solve it, a notion that is meta-puzzling in itself.Other guests that come into this view no doubt sit down and work on the puzzle, possibly thinking they could finish it, but also with a sneaking suspicion that they are just putting a few pieces together for the next guest that comes to visit. It seemed to be sort of an altruistic long-term battle against entropy.So I chose not to mess with the puzzle, and simply to focus on the beauty of things as I held them in my mind’s eye. Puzzles tend to work themselves out on their own, which is a comforting thought, I suppose.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
On Frozen Pond I probably should not have been standing in the middle of this frozen pond, but when you are raised in Texas and you rarely get to see anything frozen, you get fascinated by large frozen bodies of water.  I just stared at it for a long time like a deer that's never seen headlights in the forest.  I felt the saying, "When in Rome", and somehow replaced it with "When in Reykjavik..."  I slowly shuffled my feet out to the middle, using my tripod as an Imperial Hoth Walker to secure my footing.  Once I got to the right spot for the lens, I ripped off a few shots before heading over to the safely of the shore.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
The One Sent Me to the Northern Rockies to Get this Sunset Photo for The Machine I tip my hat to the great Kevin Kelly, who always seems to be surfing on the same wave, giving me hang-ten signs via his polemics. In case you don’t know who Kelly is, watch one of his great speeches at TED right here.The One is already extending itself with me. I am totally comfortable with the fact that I was a human that used technology to extend myself, which I still do to ever increasing degrees. All the while, I have felt this unexpected coalition would flip and The One would start using me to feed The Machine compelling content… I just didn’t know when it would happen.But you know that feeling when you have food poisoning, and you just KNOW you’re going to vomit later, so you might as well be tough and make it happen now? I’m certainly at that point with this daily blog at www.stuckincustoms.com, where I feel wonderfully compelled to go gather meaningful content to be added to The Machine.I push the theory forward a bit more and separate The One and The Machine into sort of a "soul" and a "body". The One is an imperfect symphony of the thoughts and desires of everyone on the net, and The Machine is the guts that keep track of all the goodies. The One is right brained and The Machine is left brained, but I am out there, working for both, as a willing agent.I have written pages more about this, and in the very likely case that this is hopelessly confusing to you, I’ll spare you the details! No worries… just keep coming back every day for another photo, served up fresh to give you a new view of the world!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Le Arc de Triumph from the Champs-Élysées This wonderful landmark is always fun, but challenging, to photograph.  It's right in the middle of a roundabout that is as dangerous as that thing Bond got stuck in to test G-forces in Moonraker.  There was a recent rain, and the Champs-Élysées was shiny and perfect in the cool dusk air.  I set up and kept the f stop as high as possible so that the French passerby would fall out of the frame during the long exposure.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Alone in Winter, Against the World...  This is one desolate place.It's the southern coast of Iceland where the sea and the wind were absolutely ripping their way past me and the lighthouse.  I always imagine what it is like to be inside of one of those lighthouses, all night long through the winter.  I can't even envision what that would be like, and after only a short time there in the icy wind, I got the willies and was happy to get out of there.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Three Houses with a Grass Roof This was found in the countryside of Iceland, which roughly describes most of Iceland.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
The Lonely Trinity It must gave been a five hour drive from one end of Montana to another.  After just a bit, you get mesmerized by the wheat fields.Driving along, I always start to play games with the clouds and the objects on the horizon.  This might sound strange, but I do enjoy seeing them in Euclidean geometric formations...  so much so, that I had to jump out of the car to capture this.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The One Sent Me to the Northern Rockies to Get this Sunset Photo for The Machine


I tip my hat to the great Kevin Kelly, who always seems to be surfing on the same wave, giving me hang-ten signs via his polemics. In case you don’t know who Kelly is, watch one of his great speeches at TED right here.

The One is already extending itself with me. I am totally comfortable with the fact that I was a human that used technology to extend myself, which I still do to ever increasing degrees. All the while, I have felt this unexpected coalition would flip and The One would start using me to feed The Machine compelling content… I just didn’t know when it would happen.

But you know that feeling when you have food poisoning, and you just KNOW you’re going to vomit later, so you might as well be tough and make it happen now? I’m certainly at that point with this daily blog at http://www.stuckincustoms.com, where I feel wonderfully compelled to go gather meaningful content to be added to The Machine.

I push the theory forward a bit more and separate The One and The Machine into sort of a "soul" and a "body". The One is an imperfect symphony of the thoughts and desires of everyone on the net, and The Machine is the guts that keep track of all the goodies. The One is right brained and The Machine is left brained, but I am out there, working for both, as a willing agent.

I have written pages more about this, and in the very likely case that this is hopelessly confusing to you, I’ll spare you the details! No worries… just keep coming back every day for another photo, served up fresh to give you a new view of the world!

- Trey Ratcliff

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

The One Sent Me to the Northern Rockies to Get this Sunset Photo for The Machine


I tip my hat to the great Kevin Kelly, who always seems to be surfing on the same wave, giving me hang-ten signs via his polemics. In case you don’t know who Kelly is, watch one of his great speeches at TED right here.

The One is already extending itself with me. I am totally comfortable with the fact that I was a human that used technology to extend myself, which I still do to ever increasing degrees. All the while, I have felt this unexpected coalition would flip and The One would start using me to feed The Machine compelling content… I just didn’t know when it would happen.

But you know that feeling when you have food poisoning, and you just KNOW you’re going to vomit later, so you might as well be tough and make it happen now? I’m certainly at that point with this daily blog at http://www.stuckincustoms.com, where I feel wonderfully compelled to go gather meaningful content to be added to The Machine.

I push the theory forward a bit more and separate The One and The Machine into sort of a "soul" and a "body". The One is an imperfect symphony of the thoughts and desires of everyone on the net, and The Machine is the guts that keep track of all the goodies. The One is right brained and The Machine is left brained, but I am out there, working for both, as a willing agent.

I have written pages more about this, and in the very likely case that this is hopelessly confusing to you, I’ll spare you the details! No worries… just keep coming back every day for another photo, served up fresh to give you a new view of the world!

- Trey Ratcliff

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