My images done showed up on iPhone cases!

But only cuz I put them there...

Earlier in the week, I passed along a few iPhone wallpapers with that parallax dynamic madness in celebration of the iOS7 release, and now that the new iPhone itself has been released today, figured why not...I've gone to Society6 and done some fancy shmancy cases using some of my photographs you've seen on these pages and on my Google Plus page to protect them buggers!

Oh, and if you use this link to order before September 22, you'll get free shipping...

Ok, that's about as much shameless self-promotion as I feel even mildly comfortable with, so I'll back off...for now...

...and the next part of the 3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 weeks, 1 Crap Bag story coming early next week...

Happy iOS 7 Day! Here's A Fresh Wallpaper For That Parallax iPhone Action!

So to continue in what I hope to be an ongoing tradition (all depends on how my memory decides to treat me week by week...), here's another one optimized for an iPhone background so you can play with all that new iOS 7 dynamic parallax 3D wallpaper psychotica in style. This one's from Utah, just on the outskirts of Zion National Park on the way to Bryce Canyon National Park. Looked in our rearview mirror as we were driving and I hit the brakes immediately. If you missed the latest blog post from yesterday which tells the story of this adventure "3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag - Entering The Narrows," click HERE. It's the 3rd part in an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, click HERE.

Anyhow, have fun with iOS 7. All you gotta do with the images below is just simply drag n' drop or right click and 'Download Image as...' or 'Save As...' You'll notice the parallax versions are a bit larger, so if you've got a 4s or newer, I recommend downloading those ones - you'll see why when you start to play... I've also added parallax versions of last week's wallpaper on that post as well. Click the 'Continue Reading' button below the image to access all available versions for your device.

And again, if I get enough interest for other devices, I'll gladly begin to format for those as well. Feel free to drop me a line...

3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag - Part 2 - Almost Used The Crap Bag

Zion National Park, Utah. Wasim Muklashy Photography

We were quite exhausted as the sleep the night before was less than optimal, and to top it off, we were forced to rise around 6am to get in line to ensure securing one of the limited number of backcountry permits they issue each day for the overnight option of hiking the Narrows, so after a quick oatmeal breakfast and a cleansing and refreshing dip in the river, decided we'd take a midday nap before using our first day in Zion National park to climb Angels Landing.

Now if you don't know Angels Landing, I implore of you to look it up…read a bit about it…and hot dammit people, don't look down! I'd try to explain a bit about it here, but I'd likely get vertigo just typing the description.

Zion National Park, Utah. Angel's Landing. Wasim Muklashy Photography

It was about 4pm when we hopped on a park shuttle that dropped us off at the trailhead and we began making our way up the steep climb with the goal of reaching the summit for sunset. Now, I'm all for a fairly strenuous 2 hour, 1700-foot climb along some of the most spectacular ridge side switchbacks you'll ever find yourself conquering. The views of the canyon in its entirety are incredulously awe-inspiring to say the very least. The color palate alone - everything from deep browns to bright oranges to ruby reds, forest greens, neon greens, and turquoise blues - was enough to make an Andy Warhol piece envious.

What I'm not all for is flirting with death.

And that's where I hit a crossroads.

Call me what you will, but you don't really realize what you're in for until your wobbling knees are looking ahead at 2600 feet of 3 foot wide ridge line flanked by a 2000-foot drop on either side…and your cajones depending on nothing but chains and rebar drilled into the side of the ridge. If we didn't leave them in the car, those crap bags might have come in handy right about now. Sure there was some consolation in seeing the groups of people that did it and were on their way back, but that consolation proved only half effective once you saw the ridiculously concentrated look of horror mixed with anxiety-ridden focus on everyone's dilated pupils as their white-knuckled hands finally let go of the chain at the base upon their return.

Nope. Sorry. Screw that crap.

Angel's Landing. Zion National Park, Utah. Wasim Muklashy Photography

So while my buddy decided to brave it, I did what I felt was the smart thing for my no sleep, tired, made-the-mistake-of-looking-down-first self - waited. And that led me to a realization - this was another situation that reminded me why travel is so vital to personal growth - for putting yourself in situations that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable help you learn more about yourself than when you're isolated to your comfort zone. Those situations are necessary in teaching you things about yourself that you can't otherwise learn…and in this case, I learned that I'm much more afraid of heights than I ever thought before. I sat there and asked myself a question "Would you rather risk your own safety for the reward of a sunset from atop the heights of Zion National Park, or swallow your pride and enjoy the same sunset from a slightly different perspective on more solid ground?"

One day I will conquer that fear. Today was not that day.

We got back to camp around 10pm, just in time to get our packs ready for the overnight backpacking trip through the Narrows that we'd begin the next morning, cook dinner, enjoy a couple swigs from the dedicated scotch bota, and finally get ourselves some real, restful shuteye.

The Narrows…been trying to get this checked off the list for over a decade. I'm hyped!

To read the next part of the journey, “3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag - Entering the Narrows,” click here.

To start from the beginning, click here.

Below are a few images from the climb up to Angel's Landing, and if you missed Part 1 of this saga, CLICK HERE.

Happy iPhone Day! Here's Some Teasers & iPhone Stuffs

So I'm sitting here writing the entries and processing photos for the next few blog posts for my recent series "3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag," and ran across a few images that I couldn't help but think to myself, these would be pretty sweet iPhone backgrounds. So to break up that series of posts, I figured I'd throw these out to everyone if you want 'em both as teasers for the blog posts and just because I've had a glass of scotch, the new iPhones just got announced, and I'm in a sharing mood. I'll try to post one every other week (if I remember). These are sized for iPhone 5 and iPhone 4, and if I get enough interest and comments, I'll resize for other mobile devices as well. If you wanna, just simply drag n' drop or right click and 'Download Image as...' or 'Save As...' Click the "Read More" button below the image for all the download options...

And make sure to watch out for Part 2 of  "3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag" tomorrow...

3 National Parks, 3 States, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag - Part 1- Curing An Extreme Case of Wanderlust

Zion National Park, Utah. Road Trip. Wasim Muklashy Photography

So we got the call…our friends were getting married…and they were doing it where? In Colorado?

ROAD (read: PHOTO!) TRIPPP!

It had been quite some time since I've taken a trip really worth calling a 'trip,' so needless to say, I was hyped! Not only do we get to knock a few things off the proverbial 'bucket list,' but it would all culminate in a super celebration with all of our friends in one place…away from everything they knew. It was hard enough to get them together in the same town, but a different state?! I didn't know what would happen, but what I did know that this was gonna be good.

So a couple of buddies that were able to take the time off before the wedding got together three weeks before and over a 12-pack, decided we'd drive in through Utah where we'd hit up Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and then head into Colorado where we'd hit Rocky Mountain National Park before heading into the Loveland / Fort Collins area to visit a friend, then down to Denver to visit another friend, and finally back over the Rockies into Durango, Colorado for the wedding.

And that was the only time we met.

And that was the only plan we had.

And there were no beers left at the end of that meeting.

Next thing you know, it's 3 days before the trip, one of the trio had to unexpectedly drop out due to pressing family matters, and we're suddenly scrambling around to put together any logistics, but, if there's one thing I can count on with my friends, logistics just don't matter. We knew where we wanted to go, we've all done enough camping and backpacking to have an idea of what we'd generally need, so bought a bunch of non-perishables, threw our GSI Dualists and MSR Pocket Rocket into our Osprey packs, chucked it all into the back of the Explorer, and off we went. The 101 to the 134 to the 210 to the 15 through Vegas (can't tell you how good it felt to go right through Vegas and not stop…) where there's a whole lotta nada before finally getting into Utah with just enough time and light to secure one of the last 4 campsites, set up, cook up, and rest up just a 1/4 mile from the entrance to Zion National Park.

The next morning, we got up early to hit the Visitor Center to get backcountry permits to hike the Narrows (where a park ranger treated me to my inaugural introduction to my first back country crap bag - yes…a bag for your crap for the overnight trip through the Narrows) and to find a campsite within the park right along the Virgin River, which we'd become MUCH more acquainted with over the next several days. That's when I got my first daylight peek of what we were in for…insanely ridiculously grand orange and red sandstone peaks and valleys as far as the eye can see in either direction.

Zion National Park, Utah. Wasim Muklashy Photography

There's a moment when you're traveling when everything you're so used to thinking about day in and day out, your monotonous and cyclical comfort zone, just washes away within milliseconds, and you realize that, whether you like it or not, you just have to let go…

This was that moment - the 'ohhhh damn…here we go…' moment.

Finally!

For Part 2 of this adventure, CLICK HERE.

Zion National Park, Utah Entrance. Wasim Muklashy Photography.

Rediscovering The Joy Of Photography Prints

I hit a new milestone with my photography last week…I know this might not sound a like a big deal to most, but to me, it was huge:

I made my first proper art print from one of my digital images.

When I attended Scott Kelby's "Shoot Like A Pro" seminar here in Los Angeles a few months back, one of the perks was that we got a coupon code for a free 16x20 print from one of the sponsors, Mpix, on some madness they call Fuji Pearl photo paper. Regardless, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Despite the fact that I took photography in high school, my father taught it, we had a darkroom at the school that we'd use on the weekends, he had a darkroom at home that I wasn't allowed to touch, and hell, my first science fair entry was a shoebox pinhole camera, and from all of this, I spent a good chunk of time developing film and photos, all in black in white, none of which I still have before taking off to college where my time got eaten up by…ahem…studying, I held off for a while because I was nervous about how it would come out - perhaps dealing me a blow if it came back and thought to myself 'this is shite!' I had made 8x10s at Costco and they actually turned out fairly well (especially considering the price at $2 per), but twice the size? Never. Will the pixels and my processing hold up?

But I finally suppressed the nerves to a level low enough and for long enough to upload the image and hit 'checkout.' And boy am I glad I did! I got the thing delivered to my door in a few days, opened it and just stared. Smiling. Immediately hit up target and grabbed me a frame for the sucker. I've been so caught up in devices and screens and i this's and i thats strewn about from our pockets to our coffee tables to our desks, I forgot what it's like to hold up a tangible physical print. It felt great. And hanging it up on the wall felt good. Real good. Was actually a nice little confidence boost.

I don't need to say it, but it's pretty apparent photography has come quite a long way since them there high school daze. As has the paper. This stuff was slick, shiny, and elegant. I purposely chose an image (that you've all seen here before) that i thought would best do that sort of feel justice - my 'Slice of Yosemite Layer Cake', an image that has 3 starkly contrasting layers and textures; a background of slick snowy mountainside, a foreground comprised of a set of silhouetted pine trees, and a layer of rolling clouds that just hovered right in between them. Proved the perfect centerpiece for a few other 8x10s from that infamous winter Yosemite trip…

Onward and upwards!! Next stop...canvas?

My Best Photograph Was A Mistake!

So last week I was hired to photograph a Scion FRS that was completely and insanely modified by Megan Racing's Race Division. The day started with some closeup detail images from underneath the car of the various modifications they performed for a presentation that the company would be doing to show off what they did with this thing. In effect, they turned an already sweet looking ride into a growling piece of art that I'd be afraid to let out of it's cage.

But once we finished the close-ups, it was time to get the entire sucker, so they brought it down off the lift and unleashed it into the parking lot. It was like letting a lion out of it's cage. While they wouldn't let me take the POV shots I jokingly (not really) suggested, they did let me position it around the buildings and lot adjacent to the shop, so I got to work. The time of day was still about an hour away from optimal, but I had to work with what we had, so just went for it, gambling on the game of numbers, if I shot enough, I was bound to come away with a few keepers. This was another instance in which my Eye-Fi card came in handy...that sucker has yet to leave slot two!

Anyhow, I definitely came away with what I thought were some solid keepers, but what I didn't expect was that the shot I ended up liking the best was one that, at the time, was a mistake - a painfully obviously underexposed image as I was trying to compensate for a very bright sky, but I went too far on the right side of the dial.

Yet, for some reason, I didn't delete it.

When I got to my laptop, and loaded them into Lightroom and started starring and flagging the obvious ones, my eye kept glancing over, but eventually passing by one particular shot. "But it was almost a completely solid black frame," I kept telling myself. Regardless, every time I scrolled thought the images, I'd instinctively slow down when I got to that image. So finally, after about 20 minutes of this, I said screw it, I'm gonna play with it. If anything, I can get it out of my system.

So I opened the Develop pane in Lightroom, viewed it at 100%, and RIGHT AWAY knew exactly why I kept subconsciously coming back to it - the highlights. The cars contours were just about perfectly highlighted from a backlit sun. So I decided that's exactly what I'd focused on. Ironically enough, I ended up further under exposing an already underexposed image...I figured it was the mysterious highlights that were drawing me to it, so why not magnify the effect of those very highlights.

That's what I did. I brought up the highlights, I emphasized the shadows, and that created an beautiful contrast with the sky and the silhouette of the background and surroundings - skyscraper stacks of discarded wooden shipping palates.

Yes, the car is insane!! Absolutely. And I'm sure Megan Racing was none too happy that my featured image on a car that they spent so much time and money and energy on was an image where, well, you couldn't see the car, but if you're like me, after seeing this image, you just want to see more, whereas if the car was shown clearly right off the bat, you would have already absorbed the payoff!!

The moral of the story? Make more mistakes!

Without any further adieu, here are the finals:

I Spy With Eye-Fi Lots Of Things That Are NOW IN FOCUS!

Spoiler Alert: Super fan boy mode is about to be engaged. Reader discretion is advised.

Eye-Fi Mobi. 

In a word: frickin' brilliant!

Ok, that was two words. Well, one real word and one, eh…you get the point.

It was a common frustration for DSLR shooters such as myself that the only means of checking for focus and composition is on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, at least until you get home and look at them on your computer and then want to shoot your computer in the face because that critical point was actually in soft focus!

Sure, that's a huge step up from no screens at all and having to wait to get the prints back from a lab hours, or even days, after, but still, this is 2013, and we're demanding madness, so Eye-Fi has delivered, well, madness (optimized for mobile of course).

So I was recently sent to photograph some rental cabins on property in the National Forest bordering Yosemite, and I've been reading and hearing so much about this bugger that I figured it was finally time to make an upgrade to my camera bag that I can afford. Their new Mobi card was right within that budget. 50 smackeroos.

Verdict?

Best thing ever. Well, that and tacos.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the basics of what it is and what it does, the Eye-Fi is an SD memory card for you camera. The magic in it rests in what else it contains - wi-fi, effectively turning it into an adhoc wifi network between your camera and your mobile device, be it a smartphone or a tablet.

Why? Well, when you snap a photo, it automatically send the jpg version to your mobile device. GONE are the days of the 2 inch LCD monitor and RUE THE DAYS of excitedly uploading your recent batch of photos only to realize the BOOM one wasn't in focus. Now, you can immediately, no matter where you are, use your mobile device as the viewer screen for your shot as soon as you take it. Not only that, but if you feel so inclined, you can now immediately Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/smoke signal your DSLR images from your device as if you shot them on your phone...

For my process, I set the Nikon D7000's LCD screen to show just the histogram, and then used my iPhone as the viewer screen to check for critical focus and composition. It took me 5 minutes to set up in a taqueria parking lot, and now it never leaves slot 2 in my camera. While the Mobi is designed for mobile use, if you'd like a version where the RAW images can be sent directly to your computer as well, they have the ProX2 version that covers that base!!

The one thing that took me a minute to figure out was that I shoot in RAW in order to post-process later in Lightroom and/or Photoshop, so wasn't sure how that would work, but a quick Google search gave me the 'duh!' answer to shoot RAW+JPG. Then it beams the jpgs to your device, and you have your RAWs for later. The Nikon D7000 conveniently has two slots, so I set it to shoot RAW to slot 1, and JPG to slot 2, and that was that.

And the slideshow below is a selection of what happened.

For the full blog posts on my escapades in the Sierras (less fan-boy, more gushy), start here with part 1:

Far Meadow - A Photo Trip? (Part 1)

Ok then.

Now go and get your Eye-Fi card by clicking here.

And for more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

The Giving Lens Gets Focused - Philanthropy and Photography Do Mix!

So I haven't written a proper article in quite some time, but The Giving Lens, an organization started by serial altruist photographer Colby Brown that mixes philanthropic pursuits with photography, inspired me intensely. For those of you who have known me for a long time, through starting Kotori Magazine back when print magazine were still a 'thing,' and whatever other crazy pursuits I've delved into over the years, this sort of work is the kind of thing that I hold dear to me and the very reason I wake up every day with a semblance of hope in me, so it was quite a treat to be introduced to The Giving Lens, Colby Brown, Kate Havercroft, and everything that they are doing. Truly inspirational.

Anyhow, thanks to Kotori for running the piece, click here to read it. Trust me, this is worth knowing about:

The Giving Lens Gets Focused

Late Night Fun With Photo Filters…and Scotch.

So had a house I had to shoot this week for Airbnb. It was actually the second of two units on a property I shot before, but I hadn't seen the second unit as it was occupied that first time. Anyway, not important…so after I was done shooting the interior, I figured, no one was here, I was going to take advantage of the moment and just kind of chill for a minute. When you're standing on a deck with nothing in front of you but a gorgeous canyon that opens up to the Pacific Ocean (see image at bottom of this post), it's hard not to force yourself to take a break and soak it in. So as I sat down and took a few gulps of my warm ice tea that had been sitting the car since I showed up, I saw this ridiculously quaint and charming little candle holder with a pile of little rocks alongside it, being draped PERFECTLY by a grapevine. And when I mean, perfectly, it's as if it was staged. For some reason, my imagination took me to the Mediterranean coast, perhaps Spain, maybe Italy, I don't know, but my wanderlust got the best of me and I started snapping a few shots of it as if I was actually on that coast. So when I got home and started processing, I began doing what I normally do…Lightroom…Develop pane…etc…and I just wasn't feeling it. None of it. To top it all off, my favorite shot as far as composition wasn't exactly exposed too well. But I figured, let's see what we can do with it anyway…let's hit the 'reset' button.

First step..grab a glass of scotch and a chunk of smoked gruyere cheese (hot damn, if you haven't had smoked gruyere cheese…you haven't had cheese!).

Second step…lean back a bit and let's look at this from a different set of eyes.

Third step…NO! Not a different set of eyes…let's look at it exactly with the eyes that I was looking at it with when I snapped the shot…my imagination.

Fourth step…refill scotch.

Fifth step…get crazy.

And what you see up above here is what came of the madness.

Yeah, it has a lot of filters, yeah, it's super processed, and yeah, I added a flame! But I had to remind myself that it's okay!

So my favorite composition of the thing was one of the poorer exposed shots. So I felt the need to do something to 'cover up' what otherwise would have been a throwaway. But that's only one way of looking at it...

The other way is that, if I processed it the way I normally do with my normal workflow, then perhaps it wouldn't have worked, and if it did, I would have had a decent image, but not the image that was in my mind as I was taking that picture. It took me having to find a way to 'cover up' a poorly exposed photograph to tap into the creative side of me and find a way to get closer to that visual I was envisioning as I was shooting it.

I guess my lesson here is to not be afraid and not really give a mouse fart about what anyone might think or what any purist might criticize. I get so wrapped up in what's 'right' and what's 'proper,' I often forget that, well, there's really no such thing in art.

I suppose certain things do happen for certain reasons. This time something happened to remind me not to take things too seriously and to do what got me so passionate about photography to begin with…have fun.

And c'mon...you have to admit, that final version of the image above is kinda Mediterraneany...

Boom!

From Frustration to Elation - Photography Therapy

Just another small reminder that patience, adaptation, and going-with-the-flow can pay off. Finished a gig yesterday and turned to get on the freeway to get home. It was packed. Nothing but an endless sea of red brake lights. My only other option was to add an extra 15 miles to my trip by driving through the hills on a side road that runs parallel to the freeway. So I said screw it…that's what I'm doing. Would rather look at the hills than a million other cars on the 101. Not only that, but the sun was getting ready to drop behind the mountains…and that's enough to turn on any photographer.

So there I go, drove past the freeway entrance and into the hills. As soon as I was out of sight of the freeway madness, the initial frustration of adding time and distance to my drive home melted away…immediately! And when I say immediately, I mean IMMEDIATELY - I went from frustrated and tense, to calm and relaxed in significantly less than an instant. Told myself that I had to somehow document the day and moment with an image to remind me of that mental transformation and how powerful a simple trigger can be to the mind.

So with that...this is what I found just as the sun was getting ready to drop behind the hill. I know it's nothing special, and hell, I don't know what Fox Creek Farms even does, but the lighting, the fence, and the situation made it seductively charming to me. And taking that picture made me smile. And standing outside in that sunlight made me smile. And quite honestly, that's what this photography thing is to me - a reliable impetus to get in a good headspace, no matter what's going on outside that viewfinder. Sometimes it's the process, and not the image, that's important.

Plus, sure as hell beats sitting in traffic.