Being busy is a good thing and the fact that we’re approaching 2 months without a post just means that the three of us have full, productive lives. So, instead of a paragraph full of “sorry,” here’s a statement full of “excessively busy lives leave less time for hobbies.” While summer should hopefully give Tucker and Giacomo a bit of a respite from classes, a huge project of mine will go into production and I’ll disappear for a while. But, before then, I’ve got a trip to Hawaii to look forward to and the annual Yosemite reunion has been (significantly) relocated to Maine in late May so there ought to be some fresh sights associated with those… somewhat beautiful travel destinations.
That being said, I’m checking in again with a straightforward image from the documentary shoot in China last summer — hard to believe it’s already been about 11 months since then! I couldn’t possibly describe where in the Forbidden City this was, but I think we were in the process of being shooed out the North entrance around closing time when I saw a handful of these ornate pavilions. This one had a cool tree next to it. And, as was the case with most of our stay in Beijing, it was “sunny” but the outrageous pollution tends to sap just about all the blue out of the sky.
This is about 5 minutes before we dropped about $0.15 worth of coinage for some seriously refreshing watermelon on a stick just outside the gates: Beijing, China
Posted in 16-28mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Beijing, China, Handheld HDR, Outdoor |
posted by andrew
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Bet you’ve never been coast-to-coast in under 5 minutes. Me neither, but this post should hopefully accomplish something similar.
St. Simon’s Island has been a staple get away for my family for as long as I can remember. Growing up, summers were filled with 6 hour drives from Atlanta to Georgia’s Golden Isles to visit with grandparents. Sandcastles were built, lighthouses were climbed, and french fries were tempura-battered. Thanksgiving was synonymous with the island for a long time for me. Most years we’d use the holiday as an excuse to load up the White Chrysler Town and Country LXI and make our way down to the beach. Thanksgiving lunch was always at the sumptuous King and Prince and dinner was usually the comatose affair of living off our fresh fat reserves from earlier in the day.
Unfortunately, going to college in and ultimately moving to Los Angeles makes rocking up at St. Simon’s on a whim significantly more difficult. Thanksgiving has often been forfeited the last several years, opting instead for a longer Christmas home stay, but last year I was able to do both. To celebrate my first Thanksgiving at home in ages, we arranged for a return to the Georgia Coast. A fantastic few days of relaxation, unhealthy southern seafood, and trying to play tennis. One of the highlights of the weekend was waking up extra early the day after Thanksgiving to see a proper East Coast sunrise. I walked down past East Beach around 6:30AM and found a bench between the King and Prince pool and the nearest public beach access at the end of tiny Neptune Road.
A very peaceful morning to ease into a day full of digestion: St. Simon’s Island GA
And woosh. Fast forward three months and 2,500 miles to arrive at a sunset on the other side of the country at my other favorite beach. I must exclude Hawaii as it would be like allowing a dictionary to compete in a spelling bee.
In Los Angeles, March’s idea of coming in like a lion is a balmy 80 degrees at Manhattan Beach. Ice cream cones and beach frisbee… sounds a lot better than the snow my sister was getting in Alabama. Surprisingly, we arrived on the beach to find the ocean full of sail boats, something I’d certainly never seen at Manhattan Beach before. Unfortunately they had all moved south down the coast by the time I set up shop under the pier for the shot that evening.
I’ve seen this angle executed many times before but I’d never done it myself. Not an extremely flattering angle for the iconic pier but a textbook example of when HDR might be considered an appropriate tool: Manhattan Beach CA
Posted in 16-28mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 16-35mm f/2.8L II, 7D, Andrew, Andrew's Favorites, Los Angeles, Outdoor, St. Simon's Island, Sun in frame, Sunset |
posted by andrew
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I’m not sure what it is about Vegas but there always seems to be something interesting to photograph there… It’s a pretty crazy place I suppose, a bit heavy on the visual stimuli so I guess it’s not all that surprising that I like bringing a camera when I go. At any rate, we had a couple things that needed celebrating last weekend so we did something truly irresponsible: an evening in Disneyland followed by a midnight push up to Vegas. The drive was simple enough, doable in under 4.5 hours but we were shocked to look up and find ourselves plunging along through a desert snowstorm! We rolled up to the Hard Rock Hotel’s parking deck around 4am and passed out in the car until morning.
If I haven’t mentioned it already, the Hotel Tonight app is a game changer. If you don’t mind a little drama, you can wait until noon on the day that you need a room and the app will release an assortment of incredible deals for the area. In Vegas, there’s literally no telling what could come up but there’s so many amazing hotels you’re likely to find great values. A room at Caesar’s for $69 last Easter, for example. This time we pulled the trigger on a room at the very small and off-strip Artisan Hotel for $45… not bad at all for a Saturday night. With a very out-of-the-public-eye vibe, it seems to cultivate a massive after-party scene with a spectacularly dark club that really only cranks up after 2am or so. In fact, upon checking in, the front desk warned that no room in the hotel would be “quiet” that evening because a DJ was playing (loudly) up until 10am the following morning…
The Bacchanal at Caesar’s was in full form. Crab legs, veal, sushi, and I was more than happy to help myself to the lava cake and gelato on the dessert buffet. As we sat there recovering and planning our hunt for $5 blackjack at reputable casinos, I reflected on the ridiculous decor we’d seen earlier that day. Most striking were the Bellagio conservatory, always a crowd pleaser, and the lobby at the Wynn, both decked out to celebrate the coming of the Chinese New Year last Sunday. While the Bellagio had actually placed a massive boat in their exhibit, I was still won over by the Wynn’s straightforward dragon dance costume. Suspended among their light-wrapped trees under the skylight, it really made for an impressive welcome sign at the Wynn.
This place exudes lavishness. Look at this walkway. Lavish: Las Vegas, NV
And as it happens I really couldn’t decide which of these two pictures to post. Fortunately I know the site’s administrator and we worked it out where I could just do both.
The amount of detail in the costume is awesome, in particular the texture of the teeth. I’d never really looked at one of these things for long until I was working with these images… Happy New Year! Las Vegas, NV
Posted in 11-16mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 16-35mm f/2.8L II, 7D, Andrew, Andrew's Favorites, Handheld HDR, Indoor, Las Vegas |
posted by andrew
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Andrew and I found this picture while looking back through some of the pictures we’ve taken and I honestly have no idea why I didn’t post it then. Probably we all had great shots from that day (I mean, look at those clouds), and so I worked on something else. Anyways, I reprocessed it to see what I could make of it. Enjoy!
The lake has a great view of the downtown skyline, and we were lucky enough to have beautiful clouds in the sky to complement the view.
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 50D, Atlanta, Giacomo, Outdoor |
posted by giacomo
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Earlier this summer my family flew out for an impromptu rendezvous in Vegas. Shows were seen, pools were swum, and buffets were endured. I had always been partial to Bellagio’s trough but in another Vegas trip in late October the brand new “Bacchanal” at Caesar’s won me over. 500 dishes outputting an reported $100,000 worth of food every day. It’s so ludicrous they have a crêpe chef to help you build silly deserts on which to pile a limitless supply of gelato.
But over the summer the highlight of the trip was none other than Celine Dion’s outrageous production at Caesar’s Colosseum. With the repertoire split about half originals and half covers (including a spectacular rendition of “Goldfinger”) I really enjoyed getting to hear plenty of her early songs in French. We left with gift bags full of CD’s, playing cards, and throw blankets… but the real un-necessity was the atlas-sized coffee table book! It was an early show and, stopping by our room afterwards, I set up to nab the last fountains show before the sky went completely dark.
Probably not alone in this, but I can’t look at the fountains and not think of Ocean’s 11… Las Vegas, NV
Posted in 16-28mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Landscape, Las Vegas, Night, Outdoor |
posted by andrew
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We are currently having some odd things happening with the site, including spam links being inserted in existing posts and posts being removed/shifted around. We’re working hard to figure out what caused it, to prevent any further issues, and to fix the problems that currently exist. Please bear with us… Thanks!
-Tucker, Andrew and Giacomo
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posted by tucker
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- A few weeks ago we had a birthday on our hands. Traditionally, this means a quick jaunt up to Vegas. However, on a different Vegas escapade this past spring, we got a little fresh and mixed in a couple nights of camping in Joshua Tree immediately beforehand. The resulting juxtaposition made the bottomless buffets all the more outrageous so we gave the pairing another shot. I am now fully convinced that Joshua Tree is my go-to destination for camping in Southern California. It’s not backpacking, just simple car camping and and the pleasures of building massive campfires. They’ve got a ton of campgrounds, several with 150ish campsites and the weather this time of year was WAY more comfortable than in March (when we met with rain, snow, hail, and general frigidness over the course of 36 hours). I’ll vouch for the Ryan and Jumbo Rocks campgrounds, but there’s really no shortage of firepit campsites nestled in amongst these wild rock formations in the park.
- The evening before we left we asked around and discovered an easy, natural arch trail behind one of the other campgrounds…
A five minute walk from the back corner of the White Tank campground, Arch Rock and the small little rock valley it sits in make for some interesting shades of orange and blue as the sun gets lower: Joshua Tree, CA
Posted in 16-28mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 7D, Andrew, Joshua Tree, Landscape, Nature, Outdoor |
posted by andrew
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As the title says, it’s clearly been too long since we’ve posted. It just seems like when we started this project over two years ago, we all had a lot more time on our hands and a lot less on our plates. Now we’re all finishing school and looking for jobs, making it that much harder to devote the time needed to post on any sort of regular basis. At any rate, I recently took a trip up to the Adirondacks to do some rock climbing with my girlfriend, and I of course had my camera with me the entire time. We spent the weekend out climbing, but at night we came back to a cabin belonging to one of my girlfriend’s best friends, affectionately called The Hut. I do have some HDRs to post that I took while out on the mountains themselves, but I thought I’d start with these because it seems hard to choose which one is the best. We were relaxing after a day of climbing, playing some boardgames and listening to music, when I looked out the windows in the back of the house and saw this tree just shooting up like a lollipop into the landscape. Up north, as some of you probably know, when the light starts to change toward the end of the day, it changes fast. There is no “twilight” really, like we have down south, so you have to be quick. If you see light you like, you’d better hope you’re within running distance of your camera. I kept mine by my side and every half our or so would go out and shoot some brackets of the scene. The issue I came across is that I really wanted to have the “lollipop tree” in the center of the composition (yes, going against everything they teach you in beginning photo classes… but hey, rules are meant to be broken!) but I would then lose the really nice reddish-brown color of the fallen pine needles and leaves in the foreground. But, in order to get that extra color, I had to contend with this large unsightly rock that was just off to my left…. So I just did what I always do, make sure to shoot every angle possible and ask the tough questions later during processing! I’ll post three here so you can see not only the changing light but also the different compositions.
Oh.. also, we got a nice comment a few days back in which the suggestion was made that we start posting the “original” shots along with the final, processed HDR versions. I really like this idea, so I’ll talk with Andrew and Giacomo to see how we should do this (i.e. should we post all 3 from the original bracket or just the middle exposure). Anyway, thanks for the comment and we’re going to take it into consideration for sure.
The initial view, around 6pm just as it was starting to get cloudy. No foreground here, just the mountains and trees.
This next one was the toughest, as it was much later in the night with much less light, meaning the exposures were just about at the limits of what’s possible to hand-hold. Because of this, the final shot is amazingly blurry… do not zoom in on the full-resolution image! You have been warned! You will see no details!
The view about an hour later, as the sun was setting and making some nice colors in the foliage and clouds. This one’s a compromise, cutting the top of the tree in order to get a bit of the foreground while not having the rock here at all!
The final image that I think I settled on as my favorite.. although this is easily debatable! It wasn’t an easy shot to frame. I’m still not even sure this is my favorite…
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Adirondack Mountains, Landscape, Nature, Sunset, Tucker |
posted by tucker
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Happy 4th! We hope everyone enjoyed plenty of picnics and fireworks on Wednesday, odds are you had a lot more fun than the poor folks who turned out for San Diego’s famous fireworks spectacular. To anyone who’s ever wondered what it would look/sound
like if you accidentally set off an entire fireworks show in a matter of seconds, whip out the Googles and watch the video.
We are, unfortunately, fresh out of gaudy, dripping-with-America Independence Day imagery but I will blame that on Tucker since he was recently in Baltimore, placing him physically and chronologically closest to the nation’s capital for the holiday and therefore responsible for representing it. TAG has dropped the patriotic ball this year so I’ll just own it and talk about China.
For the first official China entry I thought it fitting to start with something traditional. Having just returned from shooting along the Wall with a couple days left in China, we opted to take advantage of Beijing’s unusually clear weather and paid a visit to one of the most recognizably Chinese locations in the world, the Temple of Heaven. From what I remember, the complex is located is southeast Beijing and is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 years old, or, 2.5 USA lifetimes to put that in a timely context. Full disclosure, the iconic Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (below) is actually much younger since the original structure burned down and was rebuilt in the late 1800′s. The area’s ample park space is now a little bit of a tourist trap in places, but is without a doubt a beautifully serene place to just spend an afternoon soaking up the sun.
One of the more recognizable pieces of Taoist Chinese architecture, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven always attracts a mob of awestruck visitors: Beijing, China
Posted in 16-28mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Beijing, China, Outdoor |
posted by andrew
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So this time it actually has been too long since a post. So much has happened in the past month it’s difficult to believe I’ve only been away from LA for 33 days.
We’ve just returned from shooting a promising documentary with material split across Pennsylvania and China. Not really planning on plugging it here, but if you’re at all curious, look up a man named William Geil from Doylestown, PA — if you aren’t just a little but impressed by what he accomplished 100 years ago, there may be something wrong with you. At any rate, yes, there’s a ton of awesome stuff to come soon from Beijing (with impossibly, miraculously clear weather!) and remote areas of the Great Wall but while I take some time to get back in the right time zone, I wanted to share a fuller version of something I shared a few weeks ago just as we closed out the PA leg of our trip. Our stay there granted us two weekends: the first was spent gearing up for and watching the Game of Thrones finale, and the second was spent goofing off in Manhattan after a $15 train from a nearby NJ station. (If that isn’t a travel deal, I don’t know what is…) Our time was spent following bubble blowers and rollerblade performers in Central Park, making the pilgrimage to the cubic Apple store, meeting a homesick USC friend for a spin through an authentic NYC comic store, Times Square, and an amazing dinner at Southern Hospitality, catching up with a NYU friend after photos in Grand Central Station and breakfast in Bryant Park, standing angrily outside the HBO retail store as we realized we didn’t have time to browse, and finally grabbing some last minute filters and gels at the foolishly massive B&H store.
And somewhere in there the following photo was taken.
Never know what you’ll see just walking around the sidewalk: New York City, NY
Posted in 16-28mm f/2.8 (Tokina), 7D, Andrew, Andrew's Favorites, Architecture, Handheld HDR, New York City, Outdoor, Sunset |
posted by andrew
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Getting a unique shot of a subject like Half Dome in Yosemite is no easy task. Millions of tourists, many carrying good cameras and armed with a good grasp of photography, visit this location every year. The plethora of photographs taken from all angles at all times of day really does make this a challenge, but Andrew, Giacomo and I set out to do it anyway. In doing some night photography on the previous nights, we noticed that there was a window of about 10-15 minutes where the light “lingered” in the sky; the sun had officially set, but there was still a decent amount of light left, enough to provide depth in the foreground and a gradient of color above. Timing, however, was critical, as it wasn’t always obvious exactly when to start shooting, and we only had one shot as we knew we’d need close to a 30 minute exposure to achieve the star trails we wanted. The second we pressed the shutter, we were committed to that time window for that night. Too early and we’d have too much light in the sky and be unable to see the stars; too late and we’d have a normal star trail image which would lack any detail in the foreground. We knew we were going to be at Mirror Lake the next night, and the view of Half Dome from that spot is perhaps the most awe-inspiring and iconic, so we wanted to have the perfect shot lined up, which would require learning precisely when this window of light would occur. That final shot came out well, but it was thanks to our observation the night before that we were able to get that critical window of light. This shot, from Glacier Point, is another single shot HDR, and as such required a good bit of Photoshop to get it the way I wanted it. Other byproducts of these ultra-long exposures include sensor-level noise, as you can see in the lower left corner of the shot, as well as a distinct loss of detail in moving objects, which can be seen in the “clumpiness” or softness of the tree. Despite all of this, the final shot is just how I like it: surreal but not insane. It makes people stop and say “wait a minute…” and you get to explain to them why it’s not just a photograph. At that point they either write you off as a talentless hack or beg you to teach them how to use Photomatix…
The band of yellow light just above the horizon is what we were going for by waiting for that moment just a few minutes after the sun set directly behind us.
I know I make this point very often (indeed, as often as I can!) but here, yet again, is an example of why I value HDR as much as I do. Take a peek at the original shot… at best it is “eh, kinda cool.” Definitely not blog post material. But with a lot of tweaking, all that data in the 30MB+ RAW file can be turned into, well, my new desktop background anyway 
Those streaks in the sky that are clearly not stars are airplanes… unbelievably annoying to remove! Next time I do this I will set up AA guns next to my tripod…
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Landscape, Nature, Night, Outdoor, Single-Shot, Tucker, Tucker's Favorites, Yosemite |
posted by tucker
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In a sudden burst of concentrated irresponsibility, my roommate and I decided to go have Easter dinner at The Buffet at the Bellagio. Now, there are several arguments to be had about why this was an unorthodox decision, but easily the most questionable was the fact that we were literally eating lunch at Bubba Gump’s at Universal CityWalk when the idea went from conversational joke to finalized plan in less than 10 seconds. On a whim we quickly looked into staying the night (since driving 4 hours in the ultimate food coma is simply not a good idea) and thanks to the Hotel Tonight app, we locked in a room at Caesar’s Palace for a paltry $69 less than 8 hours before check-in.
The Buffet itself did not disappoint: bottomless Kobe beef, lamb shank, sushi, king crab legs, manicotti, and beef Wellington were among my favorite items on the menu. We decided to eat until the moment when it actually becomes uncomfortable, put in an extra 20 minutes, and then headed around the corner to the Conservatory to decompress.
The Conservatory is a seasonal showcase but I have no idea what those tiny shoes are about. Stuff gets reused of course, I think the umbrellas on the ceiling actually hung above the Via Bellagio shops last year: Las Vegas, NV
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Indoor, Las Vegas, Night |
posted by andrew
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Road trips are amazing things. You could jump on a plane and pay to check three duffels… or you could pile ten duffels into a sedan and enjoy the drive across the country. I’ve made the LA/ATL drive twice now and each time has been a complete adventure. Two very different adventures, but two nonetheless. Unlike our first marathon-style 3-day trek two Decembers ago, we opted to turn it into a more leisurely vacation. I’ve been to Yellowstone twice before, but each was well before I was anything much into photography. This time, though, I was able to appreciate it in a whole new way. One thing I’ll always remember is getting to do the Lake Yellowstone Hotel “photo safari” one morning with my mom. She had done it the first time we visited Yellowstone (back when I was nine, I think) and it was really special for her to get to do it again but this time with me tagging along.
At some point during our stay in Yellowstone, we found ourselves driving through the Lamar Valley at sunset. (Typing this now I realize I’d like to “find” myself there a little more often.) We pulled off for a minute to climb a foothill and had no choice but to enjoy the stunning view the valley’s still water offered.
Yellowstone is definitively NOT on the way from Atlanta to Los Angeles… but I'm so glad we made silly plans and came back to YNP anyways: Yellowstone National Park, WY
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Andrew's Favorites, Landscape, Nature, Outdoor, Sunset, Yellowstone NP |
posted by andrew
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I mentioned in my last post that there’s very little to shoot in the dead of winter this far north. I was proven wrong, however, and I could not be happier about it. I was leaving the Clark Art Institute a few weeks ago at around 4 when I noticed some unbelievable colors in the sky. I decided it would be worth the cold, snowy hike up Stone Hill (in my gym shoes, no less!) to capture the sunset in all its glory. I arrived at the top of the hill with my feet literally soaking wet and numb, but that didn’t concern me as much as the sight that I was greeted with. I’ve been up the hill many times before, and the last time I went up there was during the fall, where I did a bracket of this exact same tree and the ending shot captured all that is autumn in Williamstown quite nicely. I normally would not return to a place like this, much less post the shot on the blog, but in this case it’s different enough to warrant a post, and I think it’s a fitting representation of just how different and beautiful each season is up here.
This one took a TON of editing to get right. There was a flag waving from the large branch that was ghosted horribly and ended up needing to be removed altogether.
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Handheld HDR, Landscape, Massachusetts, Nature, Outdoor, Sunset, Tucker |
posted by tucker
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A brief reminder that winter does come to an end. At the end of last summer, I went to visit a friend’s beach house on the Georgia coast, and brought my camera out on a walk one day. Hopefully the sand and the sea can help ward off any winter chills…
A lonely conch shell in the sand. Many of the ones I saw had little inhabitants, but they were all too shy to let me take pictures of them
Unfortunately I didn't have my tripod, so I couldn't shoot a bracket. However, I liked this boat enough to do a single-shot process on the photo. I especially like the name, "Rip Tide"
Posted in 50D, 85mm f/1.8, Giacomo, Outdoor, Single-Shot |
posted by giacomo
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And now for some new material...