Travel

What to See in Paris, France →

November 19, 2016 · 11:11

Psu:

A long time ago my friend Eric asked me what to do in Paris. Since I live to serve I wrote a web page for him that contained some humble suggestions. Over the years whenever anyone asks me what to do in Paris I trot out that page, because we always do the same things.

Recently this happened again, when my friend Lesley asked for a list of things to do. So I went and looked at the old list, but found that it’s not quite what I would write now. Paris is not (quite) hermetically sealed in a glass bottle, so things come and go and stuff changes. Therefore, the old list now has some mistakes on it, so it’s time to do it over again.

The general ground rules still apply though. I am not much of a tourist. My idea of a good time on a trip is to eat a lot, walk around and stare at the natives, and take pictures of buildings when the light gets good. This list reflects this bias. Most of the major monuments are not here. Hopefully there are a few out of the way places that you might not have found on your own.

A more than decent guide, including where to stop to eat.

Instagram Stories is Missing One Feature, Which I Would Love to See

August 6, 2016 · 15:17

While I can understand being inspired by something and putting your own spin on it, I hate blatant copying. It’s hard to judge the new Instagram Stories any other way — they took what Snapchat created and integrated it into Instagram. While it’s true that some things are a bit different, it’s still theft. The surprising part is that I haven’t started hating Instagram, which has always been the preferred way to share my photography with the world. There is one feature that I would like to see added to Instagram Stories (or Snapchat for that matter), which would make it a better storytelling tool than it currently is…

Continue reading →

My Photography (4) — Balloon Festival, Bielawa, Poland, 2016

May 2, 2016 · 22:09

We drove down to Bielawa today, which is more or less south of Wrocław in Poland, for the Balloon Festival. I did not expect to get the shots that I did, despite the weather not playing nice. The sunset, some two hours after the above photo was taken, was close to perfect.

Shot with DJI Phantom 4 @ f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 100.

The Real Story of Germanwings Flight 9525 →

April 12, 2016 · 12:42

Joshua Hammer:

One year after a young pilot crashed a German airliner into the remote French Alps—a suicide and mass homicide that transfixed and horrified the world—Joshua Hammer investigates what really happened that day.

I’ve had this one sitting in the queue for a while now — a tragic story, but worth reading nonetheless.

My Photography (3) — Encore, Las Vegas, USA, 2009

March 29, 2016 · 13:40

I travelled to Las Vegas in 2009 for NAB. The trip there took close to 24 hours from Europe, and I went straight to bed when I got to my hotel room in the evening. I woke up around 5:00 in the morning, surprisingly fresh after the long journey, and looked out of the window — the sky was already showing a hint of blue, and things to come. The first rays hit the Encore hotel at 5:47, and I got the shot above four minutes later. I’m partial to it because of the missing three windows, creating an anomaly in the otherwise serene mirror of the Encore façade.

Shot with Canon 50D + Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS — f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 1250, ~168 mm.

What It’s Like to Fly in an Apartment in the Sky →

March 10, 2016 · 08:50

Chris Guillebeau:

Earlier this year I identified a new travel goal: to fly in the Etihad “Apartment,” a full-on suite that’s included on their A380 aircraft on certain routes.

Well, as of last week I can now say “mission accomplished”—I flew in The Apartment from Sydney to Abu Dhabi, a 15-hour journey. The short version of the flight is: it was amazing.

Here’s how it all went down.