I planned a trip to Tahoe for this weekend about three months ago. I assumed that there would be snow like usual….and it turns out that this is the driest year since snow records have been kept. Its sunny but still chilly. Our first day up we went for a small hike since our Heavenly passes are blocked out today for MLK Day weekend. It’s weird to be up here right now because it doesn’t even feel like winter. There is absolutely no snow on the ground and the skies are completely clear. And people say rain is depressing….

I brought up my Canon 5D mkii and Fuji X10 but didn’t realize that I forgot my CF cards in my other camera bag with my 1D back at home because I was using that this past week. So this weekend is a good chance for me to get a little more familiar with my Fuji X10. This weekend is also a good chance for me to think long and hard about selling all my Canon equipment and switching back to Nikon for the D4. Ever since I sold my D3 and picked Canon back up I have consistently been frustrated by little things here and there. Don’t get me wrong, Canon makes great equipment, but for me it comes down to what feels better in my hand and what is more intuitive to use. Nikon won me over with the D3 and from what I hear the D4 (minus the price) wont fail to impress either.

Enjoy the photos!

Still playing around with some processing techniques.

Here is the first time I’ve attempted tilt-shift processing in Lightroom. I think it turned out decent but I think I can do a little better.

And this is my first infrared processing. The branches on the right are not branches…they are the roots from a toppled tree.

Watch out for Big Foot.

7/10/10 – Paris, France – A scenic view of the Camps Elysees from atop the Arc de Triomphe.

For five weeks this summer I was backpacking through Europe with my brother. With the Eurorail passes that we had we were able to travel anywhere in Europe that the trains went. We went to Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Venice, Rome, Siena, Florence, Nice, Montpelier, Barcelona, and Madrid.  Check out the video recap below that I made for our trip. If you want to take your time and go through the photos that I took you can view them here. Enjoy!

The N-List from Scott Roeder on Vimeo.

7/10/10 – Paris, France – Leonardo DiCaprio signs autographs at the Paris premier of Inception.

My brother and I just happened to walk by this. We saw a huge crowd of people and headed over to check it out. I got on his shoulders to see what was going on and soon after the cast of Inception was walking around and signing autographs.

7/13/10 – Amsterdam, Holland – Thousands of Dutch soccer fans celebrate the return of their national soccer team and second place finish at the 2010 World Cup.

We got up that morning and started walking around the streets just to find that everywhere we went there were hundreds of people dressed in all orange wandering around. I knew something was going on but every time we followed a big group of people it didn’t really lead us anywhere. We almost gave up but after following the right group of people we were led to a huge park where a celebration was going to be held later in the day. We had a few hours before the start of the celebration so we took a tour of the Heineken Brewery, and when we came back the park was packed.

7/29/10 – Venice, Italy – Two gondolas was docked and covered from the gloomy weather while a gondolier in the distance paddles by.

Venice….definitely didn’t need four nights here…but its still a beautiful place and I have the photos to prove it.

8/4/10 – Florence, Italy – The amazing sunset view from the famous square, Piazzale Michelangelo.

8/6/10 – Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre, Italy – This is the hostel room that we stayed at in Riomaggiore when we visited the Cinque Terre.

It looks a little messy, but that what happens when a bunch of girls do laundry and there aren’t clothes lines to hang stuff on.

8/10/10 – MACBA, Barcelona, Spain – At one the most famous skateboarding street spots, the MACBA, police arrive and kick everybody out. No matter where you are some things just never change…

Check out all the photos!

When in Rome we saw every famous sightseeing location. I took a lot of photos of the buildings and architecture, which is very interesting and very unlike anything you get to see around here in Orange County.

Check out the photos below.

The first thing that came to my mind was to attach my camera on the outside of the plane somewhere, preferably the wing. I know that its possible because I’ve seen it done before, and I was confident that I could pull it off too. Bruce was also skeptical when he heard what I wanted to do. When Pablo and I got to the airport I check out the plane and it turned out that there wasn’t really anywhere to attached a camera. The plane was very smooth and rounded on all surfaces. No poles sticking out anywhere or anything to clamp onto.

I ended up shooting everything from inside the plane. We flew around the bay and then went over to Half Moon Bay for dinner. I sat in the back on the way there and in the front on the way back. It was hard to get the wing out of the frame which was a little bit of a bummer, but I think a lot of the shots still came out pretty good.

Everything was shot with a Nikon D3 and a 14-24mm lens. This was my first time up in a private airplane and it was definitely a lot of fun. Something I will always remember. And I’m not going to give up on trying to set up a remote on an airplane at some point. Check out the slide show below.

There aren’t as many tourists in Valencia as there are in the bigger cities such as Barcelona or Madrid. Not as many people speak english either, which made things more interesting see as that I didn’t remember anything from high school spanish.

Here are some photos of where I stayed and from around the city.

Photos from my side-trip to rome will be up soon too.

The internet here is very spotty, seeing as that I am stealing it from a nearby apartment, which will explain the lack of posts. I am also leaving for Rome today and will not have my computer with me for the next 4 days until I come back to Valencia.

According to my returning flight, I am supposed to be here in Europe for two weeks, although hopefully I’ll find a reason to justify staying longer.

I have never really had an interest in shooting architecture, or citys, or pretty much anything else other than sports or portraits. I’m going out of my comfort zone on this trip and am trying to develop an eye/appreciation for some new aspects of photography. I brought my 1D Mark IIn, 17-40mm, and 50mm 1.8. We’ll see what happens.

Check my twitter for *hopefully* regular updates.