Trey Ratcliff (treyratcliff)'s Pinterest Account, Images and Ideas

The road trip continues to the North Island of New Zealand! I figure this is a pretty good and safe place to explore... so why not get out and go for it? Even though I've lived here 10 years, there's still huge parts of the two main islands I haven't seen. If you have any suggestions on the North Island (black sand beaches... weird places that tourists don't visit... spiritual places... etc), I'm all ears! I'm mostly going up there to work on an art commission around Gisborne. I'm super excited.

My son, Ethan, who just flew back here to New Zealand and is stuck in quar at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland for two weeks. He was tested on Day 5. It was negative. Anyway, he had to sign something that gave them permission to do the test. That is, he was allowed to refuse the test. Now, who would choose to refuse the test? I have no idea... (Also this is a favorite photo of mine when Ethan joined me on stage here in Queenstown... happy and proud dad.) #TreyRatcliff

This is the most mathematically complex fractal I’ve been working on for a few months. If you’re a math nerd, it’s a variant on the Menger Sponge but I ended up messing with the coefficients so much that you will only occasionally see the source pattern. For this one, I decided to use one of my favorite Jon Hopkins tracks. It’s quite glitchy and full-on, but it works more than enough for me. This song (Everything Connected) is from his latest album. #TreyRatcliff

My son has just flown back here to NZ. Luckily we're all citizens because I'm pretty sure they're not letting anyone else into the country to keep the Covid at bay. There's only been a few cases here in the last four weeks, so that's pretty cool. Ethan is headed down to Southland to begin a new adventure in his life. He's probably gonna be the local samurai, making money by plying his ninja skillz. It's a fast-growing job category. I'm excited to see him in two weeks when he gets down here. :)

Here's a photo I took a few days ago after one of our first landings in a fun helicopter adventure! This is here in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. We made other landings on glaciers, on the west coast near Milford Sound, and many other cool secret mountaintop lakes. We just dropped another level of lockdown here in NZ so now anything goes! Unlimited crowd sizes... everything can open. I think it's been about 15+ days with no new cases, so that's a bit of good news. #TreyRatcliff #NewZealand

Good job New Zealand! No new COVID-19 cases in the past 10 days. Everything is pretty much open now and we had a big party at Slow Cuts with 100 people the other night... That's the legal limit now for gathering so it was nice to get out and about a bit, even for an introvert like me. This photo here is of a cool little pond that is a place I walk too not very far from my home. You can't tell from this perspective, but the pond is in the shape of a heart. #TreyRatcliff #Landscape #NewZealand

I'm about to take a photo road trip across New Zealand for 3-4 weeks to visit new and old places, especially now that we have no one in the hospital with Covid-19 and 5 days with no new cases. It seems pretty safe to explore. I'll start here in Wanaka and meander my way up to the North Island. My plan is to visit little nooks and crannies all the way that I've never seen... from the fjords up to everything from volcanoes to black sand beaches. Will probably be offline for a while. #TreyRatcliff

Here's a view of the Southern Alps while we were in a helicopter ride with Choppy from Over the Top towards Milford Sound. It was an epic day and the lighting gets better and better the later you fly. #TreyRatcliff #NewZealand #NZ #Alps #SouthernAlps #MilfordSound #Queenstown #Landscape

Here's a new photo from the lake that I live near - Lake Wakatipu. This is a 9-photo panorama, stitched together in Lightroom. It was shot with a drone, and the final image is even higher rez than my best Sony camera. This exact spot is about halfway between Glenorchy and Queenstown. Pretty soon, we're gonna get some snow... so I'll head back out here with all the mountains are icy white. #TreyRatcliff #LakeWakatipu #Glacial #NewZealand #Panorama #Landscape

Hey pretty cool news from New Zealand in that we've had 0 new infections for the last 3 days. We just arrived at Lvl 2 now which means pretty much everything is open like gyms, movie theaters, restaurants, salons, etc. While that sounds incredibly awesome, the economy is still in the tank and will be for a while. It's especially bad here in Queenstown where about 70% of the population depends on tourism... and this makes everyone feel, and rightly so, quite terrible and helpless. #NewZealand

In New Zealand we go to Lvl 2 lockdown in about 36hrs, so that's pretty exciting I guess. It basically means we can go to restaurants and some stores again and more domestic travel. Oh, we can gather with up to 10 people. I just thank god I'm not a politician and I don't own a cruise line. This photo here is from Milford Sound where I think it will be QUITE a while before we see another cruise ship sail into the fjord... #TreyRatcliff #MilfordSound #Fjord #Mountain #Pink #Sunset #Landscape

I'm working on a tutorial to show how to use this incredibly complex software that was used to create my last video. It's super niche and I'm sure only a half dozen people would find it interesting... It's a free download and might only be of interest to math geeks like me. This shot is from an upcoming fractal animation that will be released as soon as the music part is finished... maybe a week or so? #TreyRatcliff #Fractal #Mandelbulber #Art

Here's one of the spots I visit on my "long walk" days... this one is about a 13km round trip walk. I'm glad there are so many good podcasts to listen to along the way! 🙂 #TreyRatcliff #NewZealand #Isolation #Hike #Reflection

Sunrise walk after doing yoga in the dark... I try not to read the news or anything until after I meditate then tea then yoga then walk... And then I watch a Masterclass or two before getting to email and projects. And THEN I read all the depressing news out there. And then the rest of my day is a bit scattered where I don't accomplish much other than finishing off good TV series and movies! #TreyRatcliff #NewZealand #Sunrise #Hike #Walk

With one more big wind storm here we're gonna lose all the pretty autumn leaves and head into a cold and snowy winter... #TreyRatcliff #Autumn #Queenstown #NewZealand #Fall #Colours #Colors

It's Super Tuesday here in New Zealand, which means it's the day that we can finally get takeout food! Cooking for myself has been a real disaster because this is a critical skill set I never learned. In RPGs and other video games, I'm an amazing chef, but this does apparently not translate to real life. Anyway, this is my route to Arrowtown where I'm gonna grab some Slow Cuts goodness. I've ordered way too much I'm sure! I'll bring it back to the cabin and gorge myself while finishing some TV.

The colors are really changing here now. This is normally the time when I have my New Zealand photo workshop, but of course, we canceled it a bit back for obvious reasons. It's too bad because it's always exciting to share this place with photographers from around the world. #TreyRatcliff #NewZealand #Autumn #Colors #Colours

Here's a photo I took today on my daily walk... The Autumn colors around here are really starting to pop... I have a good audiobook I'm listening too also which makes the walks even more enjoyable. Tomorrow I'll see if I can keep it going for 4+ hours! #TreyRatcliff #NewZealand #Autumn #Fall

Since I obviously can't travel anymore, it's given me a chance to process photos from many years ago. Here's one of the space shuttle on the night before its final flight. NASA was nice enough to invite me out to this high-security area. Just before I took this photo, I was over there to the right hooking up my camera to do a remote-shutter for a good close up of the shuttle at launch.It totally failed and the camera melted. It's just one in a long list of failures that involve melted equipment.

Here's a view from my daily walk here in Queenstown yesterday. I try to pick slightly different routes each time to make some new local discoveries. If you watch my silly Instagram stories, then you already know this... Also thanks for the feedback on my fourth COVID video. The last one was about Living Alone/Suicide and the others have been on Despair, Anxiety, and Conspiracy Theories... those are all on my YouTube or Facebook if you wanna watch. 🙂 #TreyRatcliff #Lockdown #MentalWellbeing

Here's my friend (& roomie on the El camino de Santiagohike from Portugal to Spain!) Matt Mullenweg. He's on Sam Harris podcast this week... love you Matt hang in there! #TreyRatcliff

Civilization VI anyone? Since I'm stuck alone in isolation for 4 weeks here in New Zealand (this photo is from Monkey Creek in the fjords), I guess I'll just play a lot of games! Every day, I'm doing a yoga, a hike, some art creation, reading, and carving off a lot of time to play old and new games! If you wanna join us for a massive Civ VI game, let me know via FB (just a few slots left!). There's this fun mode where we do ONE TURN PER DAY. It's quite a fun way to play... #TreyRatcliff #NZ

New Zealand is in Level 4 Lockdown now... meaning self-isolation for 4 weeks. For INTJs like me, this is a dream come true; plus, they say it will save 10,000+ lives! I'll be here alone in my cabin in the mountains like the Unabomber reading books in front of the fireplace, writing, doing yoga & meditation, working on photos, and playing video games. #TreyRatcliff #Queenstown #NewZealand