When I saw the tag on Stuck in Customs, “Welcome to the #1 Travel Photography Blog,” one of my first thoughts was a paraphrase of Buddy the Elf: “You did it! Congratulations! The #1 travel blog! Great job, everybody! It’s great to be here.”
Then I read more about Trey Ratcliff, the blog’s author, on his “About Trey” page and learned that his photos register over a million views each week. I guess that probably does make him number one.
And somewhere along the way, I added to his view total by looking at a bunch of his photographs. His work is pretty amazing. Not only does it span the globe, but he is an expert in—and proponent of—high dynamic range (HDR) imaging. By Ratcliff’s definition, HDR “is a post-processing method of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.” The result is a picture that better imitates what is actually seen by the eye, and remembered by the brain, with a fuller range of light and color. If you’re interested in creating your own HDR masterpieces, take a look at Ratcliff’s free tutorial (in nine languages).
A gallery of Ratcliff’s photos are at his online portfolio or at his Flickr account, or you can follow his blog and see a photo a day.
Oh, yeah. The other part of Ratcliff’s blog that caught my attention is its name. For a site focused on global/cross-cultural content, Stuck in Customs is quite possibly the #2 title out there.
Customs: If you can’t clear ’em, enjoy some photos while you’re stuck in ’em.
[photos: “Farewell India,” “Miracle in Iceland,” “River Runs through the Andes,” and “A Moody Evening at the Great Wall,” by Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs, used under a Creative Commons license]
Clearing Customs 
Thank you so much for this message. Babu.
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