Destination Google!
On Monday Feb 1, I'm speaking at Google for their Authors@Google program. The whole thing will be recorded, so I'll be able to share it back with the world here once it goes up. You can find out more by following @GoogleTalks. And thanks to Mike Wiacek @MikeWiacek who is the head of the Google Photog Club and to Cliff Redeker @mcrsquared for getting the whole thing set up... I am excited!
Later that afternoon, I'm giving a private photography workshop to people at Google back in one of their secret rooms... That should be a lot of fun too. I'll be going through, in person, what I have in the HDR Tutorial here on the site.
There is a public photowalk and talk on Thursday, Feb 4 at Stanford. We'll meet at 4 PM at the The Oval, and then meet at 5:30 in one of the auditoriums for the talk.
Private Tour at Hearst Castle
I'm driving up the coast towards Silicon Valley, and I decided to take my time and leisurely drive up Highway 1. I'm doing my best to fill the trip with planned and unplanned adventures.
I spent a big chunk of the day up at Hearst Castle. I was given a private tour whilst guarded by one of LAPD's finest, who is now a security guard at the castle. I had carte blanche to go anywhere and shoot everything - it was totally amazing! I got into the wine cellar, into the top two spires where there are tiny bedrooms, and all over the place. It was just amazing -- I have not had time to process the photos yet... but... you won't believe it!
Daily Photo - Big Sur in the Morning
5:30 AM. Alarm goes off. It's always painful. People that say they are "morning people" -- I think they are lying. But, when in a beautiful place, I always force myself, military style, to pop out of bed. There are hikes to be made and photos to take!
I stayed at the Ragged Point Inn. My room had a little fireplace and everything (which made it even harder to get out of bed!). After I got downstairs, I started a little hike to get a good vantage of the coast and the sunrise. Of course, there was a fence blocking the best bit, so I jumped over it like Carl Lewis (a much older, whiter, and less jumpy Carl Lewis), and edged along the rocky coast to get a good spot. I forgot to put on my hiking shoes and mistakenly donned my Cole-Haans while in the dark. Big mistake. Those don't make for good hiking shoes, especially after five minutes of getting soaked in morning dew from the foliage I was ripping my way through.
But, I had on my earphones and was blasting away music... all was good... the sun came up, the clouds were perfect, and I took this photo.
from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com
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Daily Photo - A Great Day at the Google HQ!
Wow that was a cool experience. Those guys and gals over there are super-nice. You never know... I guess maybe Google seems somewhat intimidating from the outside, but after I met guys like Cliff, Brian, and Chip -- I felt right at home.
I gave an hour-long talk in one of their theaters there. It was super-packed and people were standing all around because seats were gone. We were graced with the presence of one Sara Jane Todd from @Peachpit to help out selling books - and we sold out! Also, my Brazilian friend Fabio, the editor of Abduzeedo was there too, so it was great to see him.
The Authors@Google (video link) program has a neat deal where they subsidize books, so Googlers don't have to pay full price. I saw all kinds of cool stuff and took a lot of pics. I have to get most cleared with Google Corp Comms before I can release... but I nabbed shots of a spaceship, a new pseudo-holodeck, and more mysteries await! We even got to eat lunch there in the Google cafeteria, which had some of the most excellent food I've ever had in such a setting... they even have a small organic farm on the campus... well, I could go on and on... but I was very impressed and happy to meet so many enthusiastic people!
The video should be done in the next 2-3 weeks or so. We've got good-man Brian at Google slaving away on editing the whole thing together!
from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com
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See you all today at the Google HQ!
I'm excited to meet a lot of my Google friends in person! The talk is today, and I've got everything ready for it. For reference, here are a few links I will mention during the talk:
HDR Tutorial - Free tutorial here on the site - you'll be up and running with a pretty pic in an hour!
Jill Bolte Taylor - about the Right and Left Brain on TED
HDR Spotting - a site with the Attention Distribution Engine to drive more traffic to other HDR Artists sites (still in beta - you have to get an invite code from existing member)
Textures Tutorial - The textures and a video showing how I got those textured-photos
Videos - A collection of free videos showing how I take HDR Photos in the field...
Twitter and Human Evolution - A longer treatise on what it suggests...
Daily Photo - The Azure Blue Indoor Pool at Hearst Castle
I mentioned yesterday that I was able to get a private tour throughout Hearst. It was a long and great day! Thank goodness I had a mass of memory cards... I got so much footage it was crazy!
I could have picked a bunch of shots to be the "first", but I thought this one was particularly wonderful. There are two enormous pools at Hearst Castle, and this is the indoor one. This is a nice vantage point because this spot is actually quite difficult to reach! There is no door behind me... so I had to "shimmy" along that edge you see... It was NARROW... the shimmy was like a video game, except while holding a $10,000 camera! Sketchy! But I just had to get over here because I could visualize the shot before it happened...
Here's a cool fact about this pool. Part of Hearst has now been gutted so there is room for the IT department. The IT department uses the water from this pool to cool their equipment... wild, eh?
from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com
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Shot on the beaches of Los Angeles... a colorful and perfect evening!
This one uses textures from my textures tutorial at stuckincustoms.com/a-world-of-textures/
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Win my book over on Layers Magazine
My friend RC Conception tweeted me about a contest he is running on Layers magazine along with Brad Moore to give away a copy of my book. You can see more by visiting his contest post on his website.
Reminder of Kelby Article
Speaking of Brad Moore, he was the nice gentleman that helped me with this long guest post on Scott Kelby's blog a few months ago. If you missed it the first time, you might enjoy it now. It's called "Being an artist sucks. Being an artist is awesome."
Daily Photo - The Sunset in San Clemente California
We had a great photowalk down in San Clemente! Thanks again to everyone that came along... I enjoyed it very much. Now I am finally getting a chance to post-process some of the images. If you were there, you may remember when I took this one!
The sunset was just as good as you can get, which was very lucky after many days of rain before. We were all quite worried about a rain-out! But, the gods shined on us and everything turned out great. It's always nice to walk around with other photographers and geek out on this stuff!
The sky got a bit noisy for me in this one. I used Noiseware to get rid of it - for more info, see my Noiseware Review here on the site.
from the blog at www.stuckincustoms.com
Tags: sanclemente beach sunset california stuckincustoms trey ratcliff stuck customs blog photography hdr high dynamic range digital imaging travelblog Nikon d3x color travel north America united states USA west coast pacific san celemente photowalk scenic relaxing clouds leaning tree umbrella pier January 2010 palm tropical serene sand ocean water waves