Teaching, celebrating & shooting
Hi everyone! we’re currently in the greater Tampa area and I just wrapped up a fun week, which started all the way across the country in Seattle! Last week was Creative Cloud Fundamentals Week at creativeLIVE, and I was teaching the Photoshop segment of it. This was just a one-day class, and if you missed it, you can get it HERE, or get it as part of the whole CC Fundamentals bundle.
While we’re still on the topic of creativeLIVE, I’m excited to announce a new class I’ll be teaching next month, July 21-23. It’s called Post-Processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers. This topic is extra special to me because these are two of the main types of photography I do. We’ll be using both Lightroom and Photoshop in this class, and you can learn more about it or enroll for free HERE.
I arrived back to the Tampa area after a redeye flight and landed the morning of my birthday! Aside from a much-needed nap, Karen had some fun things in store for the day including breakfast at one of our favorite places in the area, a cake she made completely of fruit (because that’s my favorite!) and a visit to a local brewery. (I’m a huge fan of craft beer and love to visit different breweries as we travel about.) Near the end of the day, we embarked on a sunset cruise that left from Clearwater Beach. While the actual sunset wasn’t overly spectacular, the sky put on quite a show for us afterwards. It was a great mix of storm clouds lit by what was left of the golden light. We even got to see a waterspout (a water tornado) nearby. Pretty cool! At the end of the night, we had dinner at a tapas place we like in Clearwater Beach.
An iPhone pano I shot of the post-sunset clouds in Clearwater
Karen and I on the sunset cruise
As implied from the title of this post, I also got to do some shooting this week. If you read this blog often, you know about my service station project. I have researched and located over 250 vintage service stations around the country and my plan is to photograph each one. I had been conversing with the owner of this Polly Station in the greater Tampa area and we finally set up a time this week for me to head over and shoot it. The shot below is just an iPhone shot that I also processed on the iPhone. The actually shots will take much longer to process.
Well, that’s it for now folks. The upcoming week will be more on the mellow side, where I’ll be catching up with work and some image processing. More to come!
Travels & Training Events
Hi gang! I just wanted to give you the weekly update on where I’ve been and what I’ve been teaching, as well as a heads up on an upcoming event (that anyone can attend online, for free!). I started out the week with a flight to Sacramento to teach my one-day Photoshop Creativity Seminar. This seminar covers things like compositing, adding dimension to your images, masking, blending modes and more. We’ll be adding more dates and cities to this seminar tour soon, and you can learn more about it HERE. Flying into Sacramento, I also got an extra treat because I was picked up at the airport by my good friend and fellow photographer Lewis Kemper. It had been a long time since I had run into Lewis at an event we were both teaching at, so it was nice to be able to catch up!
My Sacramento Photoshop Creativity Seminar.
Me and my good pal and fellow photographer Lewis Kemper
My stay in Sacramento was very brief, and from there I flew to Eugene, Oregon, where my vintage bus is getting its custom interior installed. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I’ve been making lots of periodic visits to work on this ongoing project. The interior is really coming along though, so it’s nice to have an end in sight! I was recently able to acquire the rubber fittings that will go around the windows. This might not seem too exciting, but considering the bus is older than I am, things like that aren’t always the easiest thing to find! The Epson printer that we’ll use on the bus also arrived, and I was happy to see that it fit perfectly into the drawer that was designed for it. This drawer is underneath my workstation seat, so whenever I need to print something I’ll just be able to open the drawer, load it with paper and be good to go.
The new Epson printer fitting perfectly into the drawer that was specially designed for it.
The rubber fittings that will go around the windows on my vintage bus.
After leaving Eugene, I flew back to Tampa, FL, where Karen and I will be hanging out for most of the summer. I did want to give you a heads up on another one-day event I’ve got coming up, and this one is easy for anyone in the world to attend, because it’s online. And when it’s live, it’s free! The class is called Photoshop CC Fundamentals and I’ll be teaching it at creativeLIVE. In this course, I’ll demonstrate essential tools and concepts that will get you successfully using the program. You’ll learn about everything from selections and masking to layers, filters and adjustments. I’ll will also point you to the best options for the crucial technical settings such as resolution, color spaces and file formats. Click here to learn more about this class or to register for free.
More to come!
Contrasting ports in Malaysia
Yep, even though I’m physically on a multi-stop domestic trip at the moment (more on that in the next post), the blog is still in Southeast Asia. I wanted to show you some images from two very different ports in Malaysia. It was interesting how so many of the ports we visited contrasted with each other. It was actually refreshing for me and Karen, as we embrace all kinds of experiences. We would spend a few days in one place that was maybe a bit more rugged and not set up for visitors, and then we’d be in a bustling city with Louis Vuitton stores and Starbucks. That was the case as we went from Yangon in Myanmar (Burma) to Kuala Lumpur, which is the most bustling city in Malaysia. This was actually one place where we wish we had more time. It was a one-day stop for us, and we had wished it would be more like two or three.
We explored as much of the city as we could in that short time, and the first place we headed was, of course, the iconic Petronas Towers. I think that when post people think of Kuala Lumpur, they visualize these towers. Whether that’s because they were the tallest buildings in the world for a while, or because they were featured in the movie “Entrapment” a while back, I don’t know. But they’re pretty famous, so we wanted to photograph them. You can actually get some nice compositions there because the neighboring park makes for some beautiful foregrounds. Then we took the light rail to Kuala Lumpur’s China Town, where we wandered for a bit. We actually weren’t into this China Town because it was mostly cheezy souvenirs and knock-off labels, but we did find a really funky reggae bar and stopped for a drink. Then we continued to wander around from there, exploring some historic buildings and temples. Like I said, had we more time there, we would have gotten a much better feel for the city.
After Kuala Lumpur, we stopped at the beautiful little town of Malacca. Malacca is not only tiny in comparison to Kuala Lumpur, but it is a UNESCO Heritage Site, so many of its historic areas have been preserved. It has a quaint, relaxed feel with shops and restaurants lining a little waterway, lots of artists and craftsmen, small cafes and very old, historic buildings. And then there are the pedicabs. Boy oh boy. A pedicab is basically a 3-wheeled bike with seats in the back and a guy who pedals you wherever you want to go. There were pedicabs in most of the ports we visited, but none like the ones you’d see in Malacca. It’s kind of like they take pride in decorating their “rides” to the nines, with fake flowers, uniquely-shaped umbrellas, and Hello Kitty… LOTS of Hello Kitty. Just check out the photos and you’ll see what I mean. We really got a kick out of these guys. In Malacca, we spent the first part of the day visiting St. John’s Fort, which is a VERY old structure at the top of a hill near the port area. We photographed here for a while and then spent the rest of the way walking around the historic town, visiting art shops and shooting the old buildings. Despite the heat (it was easily over 100F) we spent the whole day exploring and shooting and had a blast!
Here are some images of Kuala Lumpur and Malacca:
Myanmar: Markets, Monasteries & Monks
As you can tell, this post is focused on another one of our many stops in Southeast Asia last month. After sailing out of Phuket, Thailand, we headed north and docked at Yangon, Miramar (formerly known as Burma). We stayed at this port for three days, so we were able to do a lot of exploring. Two of the days were spent exploring on our own, and the other day was spent on a tour.
Like some of our other ports on this trip, Yangon does not really cater to tourists (except at some of the major sights) so you better have a good map if you want to get around. The language doesn’t even have characters that we recognized. The signs look more like swirly hieroglyphics! We did have a map, and we used it to walk ALL over the city. We literally walked about 10 miles the first day… in the 100-degree heat! As tiring as walking can be, it gives you a better idea of what a place is truly like. If you just cab it from one major sight to another, you miss all the “life” that’s happening in between.
The biggest attraction in Yangon is the insanely huge Schwedegon Pagoda, and we spent a good three hours exploring it. The place is like a buddhist village in that it’s so big, with a giant 325-foot stupa, surrounded by loads of temples, shrines and Buddhas. It was actually hard to photograph because there was just so much going on there, visually. We started exploring in the morning and had to stop by 1pm or so because the sun was making the marble floors so hot that we literally had to run from one shaded spot to another (as with most Buddhist temples and pagodas like this, you can’t wear shoes or socks while inside.)
On the day we went on a tour, we took a 2-hour (ish) bus ride to Bago, where we made several stops, the first of which being a monastery. That was really interesting because we got to see the daily lives of the monks, including the very young ones. They were very gracious about letting us take their photos, so it was quite a treat. We then walked through a small village where some of the young monks lived and saw some fabric weavers. They were so young, yet so skilled at operating these huge looms.
Finally, we walked through a few of the local markets up in Bago. It was interesting, because the people were SO not used to seeing tourists (Westerners, especially). The markets were so colorful and full of things I had never seen before. I think we were looking at some of the produce there with a similar expression to how they looked at our cameras!
Here are some of my (and Karen’s) images from Myanmar….
Stateside travel & training events
Hi everyone! Lately, I’ve been dedicating the blog posts to our recent international travel images, but I wanted to take a little break from that to tell you what’s been going on here in the States, and what’s coming up. After being abroad for a few months, I arrived back in the U.S. and literally hit the ground running, diving head-first into lots of fun Photoshop training and photography events.
The Photoshop Creativity Tour
I basically had time to unpack and repack to fly out to my Photoshop Creativity seminar in Chicago. This is part of an ongoing tour with KelbyOne that hits cities all over the country. At this event, I teach you how to get a little more creative with Photoshop with techniques like compositing, complex masking, 2D and 3D and creating special effects with blending modes. It’s a fun full-day event and I’ve got a few more cities coming up, so if you happen to be in any of these areas, I’d love to see you there! Click HERE for more information
- Philadelphia: May 7
- San Francisco: May 9
- Sacramento: May 28
Photoshop for Photographers: Beyond the Basics
Vintage Bus Visit
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The Palm Springs Photo Festival
Philadelphia & San Francisco
Boat rides & cave temples in Thailand
If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you can see that we’re just checking off one country after another on this incredible trip! My last post covered the photogenic, Malaysian town of Penang. From there we sailed north and docked in Phuket, Thailand. (Pronounced poo-ket) We decided to do a tour at this port as many of the interesting things to see were a ways from our docking location.
Our tour took us north from Phuket to the province of Phang Nga, where we visited a temple that was actually built inside a cave. The entrance to the cave was crawling with these goofy little monkeys looking for handouts…and with all the visitors there, they certainly got them! Once inside the cave, it opens up into a very large area with a huge reclining Buddha and several seated Buddhas, all in vibrant gold. If you continue on, you get to a more narrow and inclined part of the cave where you can explore the interesting rock formations. We spent about an hour exploring and photographing here before moving on to our next stop.
We then got on a small boat and cruised around Phang Nga Bay, which is a national park and home to many small islands, the most famous of them being James Bond Island, named after the two films that were shot there. The island is tiny but amazing to look at, with giant rock spires shooting up out of the water. After cruising around for a while, we visited a floating village, which was interesting because the whole “town” was build over the water on dock-like platforms. There was a market, a school, restaurants and homes. It was all pretty rugged, of course, but it’s amazing to see how differently some people live.
Finally, we finished our tour with a delicious Thai lunch at a hotel in Phang Nga. You just can’t visit Thailand without having some of that amazing food!
Our next stop would be Myanmar (Burma) so more on that soon! For now, here are some of my images from Phang Nga:
A Day in Penang
As our South-east Asian adventure continued, we sailed from Singapore to the Malaysian city of Penang. Like many of the other ports, we explored on our own here instead of taking a tour. This town was amazing for street photography, so I’m going to let the photos do most of the talking, but there was such a great mix of color, texture and light here. Many of the buildings were old and worn but still charming, and the temples were colorful and plentiful. We also found some fun and unique shops in the town, including “Ben’s Vintage Toy Museum” (not kidding) and a store dedicated to owl things, which Karen went nuts for.
After exploring the town, we took a cab up to the Kek Lok Si temple, which is the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. It was situated on top of a huge hill and consists of several structures surrounding the 7-story main pagoda. It was truly a feast for the eyes and the lens! If there was anything worth pulling ourselves away from the amazing street photography in Penang, it was this.
Here is Penang in photos. Enjoy!
Singapore: Shopping Malls, Food & Gardens
Some of the busiest days we’ve had on this international trip so far were spent in Singapore. There is just so much to do there that we were often off the ship first thing in the morning and returning late in the evening. We were lucky in that the Crystal Symphony was docked there for three full days, and then made a round-trip voyage returning to Singapore two weeks later, this time docking for two full days. That made for five days of exploring time, and it gave us the chance to really get to know the city.
Our arrival into Singapore was really interesting in that it was one of the few times the two Crystal Ships have ever shared a docking location. The Crystal Serenity had docked there a day earlier and on the morning of our arrival, we pulled up alongside her on the Crystal Symphony. They had arranged it so that all guests and crew could move between the two ships that day. That was pretty special, and we’re lucky to have been on board when the two ships met like that.
The ship’s shuttle bus dropped guests off at the Marina Bay Sands hotel, which has become one of Singapore’s iconic buildings, with its three towers topped off by a massive sun deck that contains a bar, restaurant, viewing deck and infinity pool. Attached to the bottom level is a massive, high-end shopping mall. We would quickly see that this is a theme in Singapore, as there are more shopping malls per square mile here than any place in the world. I have never seen so many Louis Vuitton stores in such a small area! Karen and I aren’t really the shopping type, though, so we were happy to find that there are loads of other things to see and do in the city. On our first day, we visited the historic Raffles Hotel, and had the obligatory “Singapore Sling” cocktail. The hotel is beautiful, and named for the explorer who founded the city.
We then took a ride on the giant observation wheel, which is located right on the water and offers spectacular views of the city. Each car is like its own glass room that you can walk around in as you slowly make your way up and around. The only unfortunate thing was that, during the time we were there, Singapore was experiencing high levels of smoke and haze. This was a result of the plantation burning that takes place at this time of year in Indonesia. It made for hazy photos that were less than ideal.
On that first day, we also had the unique experience of trying out a fish spa. This is where you dangle your feet in large tanks of water that contain hundreds of these little “doctor fish” which nibble away at dead skin and are supposed to heal all kinds of foot ailments. It’s a very strange experience, especially so if you have ticklish feet. Karen could barely sit still while we were doing this!
On our second day in Singapore, we spent a lot of time walking around Chinatown, which was extremely visually interesting. There are loads of vendors selling everything from cheesy souvenirs to fine chopsticks, teas and antiques. There is also a “food street” there that is just wonderful. It is mostly covered and is completely lined with beautiful food carts selling all kinds of asian food. Being that it’s Singapore, it’s also extremely clean and well-maintained. This was a very different kind of Chinatown experience than you’d get in other cities. Everything in Singapore is clean and beautiful. The residents take great pride in the cleanliness of their city, and we were just thrilled with that. Even the public restrooms are spotless!
In the evening, we took a river cruise on the waterway that runs through the city. It was narrated by a guide that showed us many of the historic parts of the city, throwing in some history as well. Part of this waterway (the Clarke Quay area) is lined with beautiful restaurants, bars, pubs, etc. and it really comes alive at night. All of the restaurants have waterside dining, and we couldn’t resist spending an evening away from the ship’s dining room to try one of these great local places. There are loads of ethnic options, and we ended up going with Indian.
Singapore also has some great garden locations, and we spent a lot of time at them. First, we went to the Botanical Gardens, which are located close to the edge of town. It’s a huge park, separated into different areas like the Ginger Garden, The Orchid Garden (which is huge), etc. And then there is Gardens By the Bay, and I would really recommend visiting this if you’re ever in the area. Located right on the water, Gardens by the Bay is a HUGE expanse of gardens, parks, conservatories, etc. And then there’s the “super trees.” These are gigantic tree-shaped structures completely covered in different types of plants and flowers. You can take an elevator to the treetops and follow a walkway around the canopy as well. One of the super trees even has a restaurant and bar, and we spent a sunset at the top with a cocktail, watching the city light up. There are many different gardens within Gardens by the Bay (the Chinese Garden, the Indian Garden, etc.) and then there are two gigantic conservatories, one for flowers of the world and another called the Cloud Forest, featuring a mini mountain with a waterfall coming off of it and walkways on all the different levels. Everything is covered in plants. It’s kind of like a man-made rainforest under a gigantic dome. To be honest, it’s quite hard to explain to someone who has never been there. Hopefully some of the photos do it justice!
As you can tell, we did a lot in Singapore, some of which I didn’t even write about (including the Duck Tour, Little India and the Jurong Bird Park). It’s definitely the kind of place you can spend a lot of time exploring in. Now, I’ll leave you with some photos:
Brunei: Sultan Splendors, Water Villages & Mosques
Our next port of call would provide a stark contrast to many of the previous ones in Indonesia. Whereas in earlier ports, we saw a lot of extreme poverty, in Brunei we saw a lot of extreme wealth, especially when it comes to anything relating to the sultan, who is one of the richest people in the world. His palace has a whopping 1,788 rooms! He does spread the wealth around, however. Both healthcare and education is free to all citizens, and there’s also no personal income tax. The city is very nice and the streets are very well-maintained.
In Brunei, we visited a museum focusing on the life of the sultan and displaying various items belonging to/given to the sultan, most of which were either solid gold or gem-studded. We then walked around the downtown area, photographing some of the water villages, which are unique to Brunei. The highlight of our visit, however, was the Omar Ali Saifudin Mosque, which is considered to be one of the most beautiful in Asia. It features giant gold domes and its own lagoon. We spent a lot of time photographing there before returning to the ship. Here are some images from the day:
Kota Kinabalu: Our first Malaysian Port
After visiting several Indonesian ports, we finally moved on and stopped at Kota Kinabalu, our first port in Malaysia. We decided to explore on our own here, as we did for many of the other ports. What’s nice is that Crystal usually runs a shuttle service from the ship to the center of town. (The only exceptions are when the country we’re visiting has restrictions against it.) This makes it easy to explore a lot on foot… if you don’t mind long walks in the Southeast-Asian heat!
In Kota Kinabalu, we first walked to the local market and actually ended up spending a lot of time there. Markets in different parts of the world can be fantastic for photography, and this one was especially good. It took up an entire city block, with the stalls facing the street making for the best photography (because of the light). There were crazy meat stalls, vibrant spices and loads of colorful chilies. The people were also great, and generally open to having their photos taken.
After exploring the market for a while, we took a taxi to a Malay museum and heritage village. The village featured different kinds of homes and structures that you would have seen in different places and time periods around the country. I didn’t shoot as much here, but it was nice to visit a place less bustling than many of the downtown areas we had been exploring.
Finally, we returned to town and went up to a viewpoint that overlooks the city. It’s at the top of a very large hill that you can hike to via a series of staircases that wind through the trees. There’s a little cafe at the top and that’s where we spent the final part of our day in Kota Kinabalu.
Here are some of the photos I shot there, many of which were from the local market:
