Texas

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So on this girls’ trip, we had 6 girls. With so many of us, we are obviously going to have different sleeping schedules. There were about half of us who were earlier risers and the other half who likes to sleep in. I was in the early riser category so the first morning I woke up my fellow earlier risers and asked if they wanted to go on a walk.

It was perfect that we were staying in the downtown area so there were a lot of interesting things to see. We ended up walking to the Texas State Capitol and then made our way to brunch. On the way to brunch, we ran into this colorful wall with a few cute sayings on it, like “I <3 Austin” and this one, “The only magic I still believe in is love”.

I took a few pictures of the different parts of the wall and as I looked up, I noticed this man who was about to walk by. I took a few steps back and held my camera low so he wouldn’t notice I was taking a picture. For some reason, it immediately reminded me of this image I took in Aruba. Andrew had always liked that picture so when I got back from our trip and showed him this picture he said that it was cool. Without even mentioning anything, he referenced the Aruban image as well. LOL.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/125 sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

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I forgot to mention on the blog that my girlfriends and I were going to go to Austin, Texas. As you may know, I went for the first time earlier this year to help my friend, Sue move. She’s all moved in and invited my friends and me to come visit her for a fun girls’ weekend in the south. I had a blast!

But since it was a girls’ weekend, I decided to just keep it simple and only bring my camera. That’s it. Meaning, I didn’t bring my drone, tripod, GoPro or anything like that. I just had my camera and two lenses and to be honest, walking through the airport with such little equipment/baggage felt so nice. I don’t think I’ve ever traveled so light.

The first two nights we spent at the Wyndham in downtown Austin and one of the best parts of the room was the outdoor patio. This image was from our first sunset. We were hanging out by the pool when I saw the clouds and color start to come in. So I quickly ran to the elevator to go back to our room and tried to capture it all from an above level perspective. I love this view and thought the buildings were all so different and interesting.

I had a blast in Austin and looking forward to sharing more images from our trip.

My camera settings for this image are F22 at 0.6 sec and ISO 125 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

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There is a possibility that I’ll be back in Austin sometime before the end of the year. I LOVED it the last time I was there so I’m really looking forward to going again. Obviously, I’ll be there to visit my friend, Sue who was the reason why I went to visit in the first place, but can you believe that it was my first time ever visiting Texas? In fact, neither Andrew or I have really spent time in the lone star state so he’ll be coming with me.

One of my favorite places in Texas was Hamilton Pools. I really wish we were able to spend more time there but if you’ve never been, it’s a pretty unusual park. Unusual in the fact that you had to get tickets to go and you’re only allowed to hang out for a certain amount of time. When you’re time is up, the lifeguard comes and basically makes sure everyone leaves.

So if you’re planning a visit, get your tickets online and go early. Make sure you can maximize your time at the pool because it is so cool.

This image was captured inside the cave. You can basically walk around the pool 360 degrees and it’s a really cool point of view from wherever you’re standing.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/80th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm

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With all the cherry blossom excitement this season, it took me a while to go through my Austin road trip images. As soon as I got home I hit the ground pretty hard with the pink flowers and kind of forgot about the Austin pictures.

To be honest though, I wasn’t able to capture as much as I would have liked. The reason we went on the trip was to move my friend, Sue there so that took up a lot of time and energy. But that also means that I need to go back soon. I fell in love with the city and am so looking forward to bringing Andrew there. I haven’t stopped talking about it since I’ve been back.

Fortunately, we had one day where we were able to just chill out and relax a little bit. We were pretty tired from all that driving and moving that we decided to go to Hamilton Pool Preserve and take some time to be outdoors. This place was amazingly beautiful. The water is just so blue and I loved being able to hike all around. Although, the water was really cold so I have no idea how this lady is just standing in the water like that. LOL. Regardless, I thought her swimsuit went so well with the environment. I love the way she’s standing and just taking it all in.

This is definietly the place to be on a hot summer day in Austin Texas.

And I just completed a youtube video from our trip. Click here if you want to see more from our week long adventure. To be honest though, I showed Sue this video before I published it and she said I should have put food in the video. She’s right though because the food – bbq and tacos were so good. OMG.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm