Light Falls Like Bits: The Photography of Trey Ratcliff

by Trey Ratcliff, Maura Reilly (Editor), Michelle Bogre (Introduction)

Photographer Trey Ratcliff crosses borders to find beauty—both literally and figuratively. In a world where people are inundated with images of despair and violence, Ratcliff seeks out life’s gorgeous moments all over the globe and captures them to share with others. As a pioneer of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, Ratcliff mixes technology and art together to make each photo as stunning as the real-life experience. Trey Ratcliff’s new eBook Light Falls Like Bits will be released in October of 2015. This innovative multimedia book presents his meditative photography along with text summaries and audio captions (for iOS only) read by the author himself creating a rich immersive digital experience. Ratcliff’s images are more than just pixels on a screen— they are a sweaty climb up a spiral mountain, or a surreal sunrise in a sleeping bag by the water. Each photograph captures a moment in the faceted world where we live, work, and explore. Light Falls Like Bits is an eye-opening memoir, geography lesson, and metaphor, mixed perfectly to create a book that showcases the beauty of Earth. The book also lends insight into the photographer’s process, and the making of the images. These are not merely fleeting instances, but chances of personal reflection on the sometimes arduous, draining, or mundane happenstances of life that allow for us to step back and realize the truly beautiful things all around us.

173 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 18, 2015

About the author

Trey Ratcliff is an artist on a somewhat quixotic mission to help spread consciousness and mindfulness to the world through photography and creativity. Running the #1 travel
photography blog in the world, StuckInCustoms.com, has taken him to all seven continents over the past decade. Google has tracked more than 140 billion views of his photos, all while he’s been building a social media presence with over 5 million (170K on Instagram).

Chris Anderson, curator of the TED conference, called Ratcliff a “pioneer" of the now ubiquitous genre of high-dynamic-range photography. Ratcliff’s photograph, Fourth on Lake Austin, was the first HDR photograph to hang in the Smithsonian Museum. Subsequently, sales of his large-format, limited edition prints to fine art collectors worldwide have grown into a multimillion-dollar business. In 2012, Ratcliff moved his photography business to Queenstown, New Zealand (before it became a trendy doomsday contingency plan). He lives there with his wife, three children, and their dog, Blueberry.

To learn more about Trey, visit www.StuckInCustoms.com/Trey-Ratcliff

Reviews

[Paul Lindstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember when I first came across Trey Ratcliff's photos, but I immediately was "stuck" (sorry, this is a pun on his famous web site "Stuck in Customs"). Since I'm a keen amateur photographer I wanted to learn how his amazing photos were taken. This book is a must for people who loves his photos. You learn more about him, and in the eBook version you can click on links and hear him talk about some of his photos. And there are many incredible photos to watch, with a short explanation of where, how and why he took the photo. If you are new to Trey and his way of taking photos I'm sort of envious of you – you have an unique experience ahead of you.