Visit Ian Brodie at HobbitonTours!
Little did I know that one of my newsletter subscribers is also an HDR enthusiast and one of the guys at www.hobbitontours.com/! How cool! He sent me a nice note before I came, offering to take my family and I on a private tour of the Shire. Anyway, I wanted to make sure to link back to his website, even though he did not ask me for any favors. Also, I should tell you that Ian Brodie made the official guidebook for the Lord of the Rings tour around New Zealand, and it shows where every scene was filmed... kind of a fun way to do a travel guide!
One of the coolest things about this is that the set is currently being rebuilt for the two-part move of The Hobbit! The landscaping crew is already there, moving around trees, shrubs, and they even have the stakes in the ground to rebuild the Green Dragon. I understand that tours of the Hobbiton Movie Set will still go on, even while they are getting ready to film The Hobbit.
Much of the original set has been destroyed from rain and storms and general wear-and-tear, but you can still see where many of the main Shire shots were taken. If you are a fan of Hobbits, then you simply have to go!
New Video Soon
I took a behind-the-scenes video while here about the setup and execution of this shot. My internet connectivity here has been sketchy, and I have not had time to edit/upload the video... but stay tuned!
Daily Photo - Bilbo's Hobbit Hole and the Party Tree in the Shire
I showed my 8-year-old son all the Lord of the Rings movies prior to our trip to NZ. He then re-watched the first one three times on the car trip... so he was just as excited as I when we arrived.
You might remember Bilbo Baggins' hobbit hole and all the scenes with Frodo and Gandalf inside. That is it right there, on the right hand side at the top. The huge tree on the left is the "party tree", which was the centerpiece for the big party for Bilbo's birthday. It was the one of the main reasons that Peter Jackson chose this remote farm outside of Matamata on the North Island.
from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com
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Statesman Texas Social Media Awards
I was awarded one of the 25 winners without even knowing I was nominated. Cool! Really, it's thanks to all of you... All I do is try my best to put up an interesting photo every day and share a little bit about the circumstances and the process. I'm glad it resonates!
Be sure to check that list - you are bound to discover a few other people in the Texas landscape that you may find interesting...
The Bridge - Edited with Topaz Adjust 4
I used Topaz Adjust 4 (try it on the Topaz Website) to help add a nice touch to the bridge photo today. Have you guys noticed much difference between it and the previous Topaz Adjust 3? I notice the UI is better, and a few other things, but no other big bullet points I can think of. Adjust 3 was already good enough! It has caused a few graphics problems for me from time to time, like it doesn't quite complete processing the image. Has anyone else noticed that?
Daily Photo - 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?
from Trey Ratcliff at www.stuckincustoms.com
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When I was in a little town called Matamata, which Peter Jackson’s team selected as the perfect place for Hobbiton, I was lucky enough to receive a private tour from Ian Brodie (see Hobbiton Tours for more info!). Ian is also quite the HDR enthusiast (see Ian’s Photo Website), so it was great to spend several hours with the guy! I put a video of us together below… and we talked a bit about taking photos of the party tree.
After that, we got to adventure inside of Bilbo’s actual hole! Cool! I turned around to take a photo from the inside out. The huge tree there is the famous party tree, where Bilbo had his birthday party with Frodo before he slipped on the ring.
Tags: New Zealand travel
How perfect is this water mill? It would sit there all day, gently turning the water over itself. I don’t have to tell you the wish-wash sound it made, because you already know and can imagine it without effort. If that is you, then I took this photo just for you.
This is one of the photos that I processed in our HDR Video Tutorial. I hope you like the final result!
- Trey Ratcliff
Click here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Tags: 2014 january p2014 sony nex-7 horizontal day color landscape cfiled44notposted daily lord of the rings bridge shire fantasy river cottage australia & new zealand new zealand north island waikato matamata hobbiton