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The Tolkienesque Bridge I normally don't put two photos from the same city (or even country!) back-to-back in consecutive days, but I decided to award Queenstown this honor. It is very high on my list of cities to move to! I just need to check on a few things like broadband availability and a good spot to plop the family down, and I'll be in business!This is from the main park in Queenstown. It was as quaint as could be. The evening light made everything a little bit extra-colorful, and some clever little hobbit-engineer, found it fitting to put this nice little stone bridge across the pond. It is all quite nice, no?- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Anyone Want to Join Me at the Beach for a Good Conversation? I’ll take the seat on the left… no… okay, the one on the right. It’s alright… sit in whichever one you like. Where should we put our drinks? Ahhh the grass will be fine… okay, now, what to discuss? So many places to start!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Adventuring Deeper into Patagonia After a four-hour plane ride deeper into the Andes, we started to get further into the wilds of Patagonia. Perhaps I should explain that I was on this trip with a very good Russian friend named Dima, who is also a photographer. He brought four other Russians with him. Despite our friendship, he had given me a non-English-speaking roommate named Yuri that never ceased to amaze. Within five minutes of dropping him off in my room, Yuri was in his underwear and I noticed his approximate size to be that of a smallish beluga whale. This ended up propagating many other problems For example, on the flight to El Calafate, our small plane had a bit of a hard landing because I was not sure the pilot was fully informed of Yuri's weight.After setting up camp in El Calafate, we went out to the edge of Lago Argentino tonight to shoot the sunset to shoot the Perito Moreno glacier. Every few minutes, you could hear giant shards of ice cleave off and drop into the lake below.See all of the dark bits of ice floating in the water? Those are actually the clear bottoms that were once underwater, but recently flipped over. In the midst of all this, and from out of nowhere, Yuri produced a giant bottle of cognac, which seemed to keep the Russians happy in the freezing cold. When I posted this photo on the blog and across the various social networks, many of my Facebook and Twitter friends requested a photo of Yuri. That night, while he slumbered, I endeavored to take a panorama of him. I considered the glacier as practice, since it was also big, white, and cracked.This was shot with the Nikon 14-24mm 2.8 lens. The second of the five exposures (the -1 EV shot) was at f/8.0 with a shutter speed of 0.033 secs and a 250 ISO. As for the coal length, I think I had it cranked all the way to 14mm to take this shot. I'm always flummoxed as to whether or not I should take a panorama of these places, which essentially means I'd have to map out an invisible grid and then take a photo in each cell for later stitching using post-processing software. For this photo, I did use a Nikon D3X, which already has a 24 megapixel sensor, making the final product a fairly detailed 6000 pixels across or so. There is some invisible point when enough is enough, and I never quite know what it is. One limiting factor is time-of-processing. Panos take a long time to both shoot and post-process, so that comes into the decision making tree fairly early on.- 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.
Running to the Storm Cellar on the Farm The visions of a farm bracing against a storm had come true that afternoon. I'm sure the last thing I was supposed to be doing was taking a photo of the swirling maelstrom, but I couldn't help it. What else are you going to do with a good tripod and a nice Nikon? I don't carry around this stuff so I can go inside when dire and picturesque events are about!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
A Godly Dance at the Taj I was barefoot like the rest of them.The day must have been around 95 degrees and as stuffy as can be, but the cool marble seemed to keep me from being drenched in sweat. After a long walk, I had finally made it to the inner core of the Taj Mahal, around the main tomb structure where pilgrims from all over the country had gravitated. The faithful coiled in long lines and snaked their way around the complex, waiting patiently to reflect at the megamausoleum and communing with the god of their choice. How could a billion people be wrong?When I travel, I actually always enjoy talking to Indians (or whoever) about their religion. Here is a little thing I do... I'm not sure it's totally ethical since I say the same thing over and over, but I enjoy seeing people's reaction as a probe a panoply of personalities. Inevitably, when I'm in a taxi or man-powered trike-mobile, there is some sort of deity that is jiggling about on the dashboard or handlebars. It can be anyone from Shiva to Brahma to Vishnu to Krishna to Ganesha and beyond.So, I always ask, "Who is the god to whom you pay reverence?"They respond quickly and directly, usually naming one from of the top ten from the pantheon of possibilities.I respond back, in all seriousness, "Oh! He is a very powerful god!"To this, they always turn to me and nod gravely.My guide there was from no from one of the traditional Hindu sects -- he was a Jain. The Jain don't recognize the divine origins of the Vedas (made popular in the US from Oppenheimer's re-quote after testing the Bomb), nor do they believe in any one supreme deity. They instead revere Tirthankaras who have raised themselves to divine perfection. So anyway, if you ever try out the little trick above, don't bother with a Jain because they will just give you a funny look and a wobble of inconsequential solitude.So if any of you get the chance to go, I recommend it. The people are all nice as can be and very eager to engage in conversation about just about everything. Or, of you've already been, then you know what I mean!By the way, this comes from my new Lucis Tutorial.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Tolkienesque Bridge


I normally don't put two photos from the same city (or even country!) back-to-back in consecutive days, but I decided to award Queenstown this honor. It is very high on my list of cities to move to! I just need to check on a few things like broadband availability and a good spot to plop the family down, and I'll be in business!

This is from the main park in Queenstown. It was as quaint as could be. The evening light made everything a little bit extra-colorful, and some clever little hobbit-engineer, found it fitting to put this nice little stone bridge across the pond. It is all quite nice, no?

- 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(799847390,'',XLarge,'',1024,721);">The Tolkienesque Bridge I normally don't put two photos from the same city (or even country!) back-to-back in consecutive days, but I decided to award Queenstown this honor. It is very high on my list of cities to move to! I just need to check on a few things like broadband availability and a good spot to plop the family down, and I'll be in business!This is from the main park in Queenstown. It was as quaint as could be. The evening light made everything a little bit extra-colorful, and some clever little hobbit-engineer, found it fitting to put this nice little stone bridge across the pond. It is all quite nice, no?- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Tolkienesque Bridge


I normally don't put two photos from the same city (or even country!) back-to-back in consecutive days, but I decided to award Queenstown this honor. It is very high on my list of cities to move to! I just need to check on a few things like broadband availability and a good spot to plop the family down, and I'll be in business!

This is from the main park in Queenstown. It was as quaint as could be. The evening light made everything a little bit extra-colorful, and some clever little hobbit-engineer, found it fitting to put this nice little stone bridge across the pond. It is all quite nice, no?

- 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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