Flashback Friday to one of the most memorable hikes I’ve been on in my life. I loved this hike in Åndalsnes and it was definietly a test in endurance. Pretty much 6.5 straight uphill and downhill but totally worth it for a view like this. If you’re ever in the area, I’d highly recommend this hike – Rampestreken. I also recommend getting your hiking partner to carry your backpack of photo equipment during the hike. It makes life so much easier. LOL.
I was going back through some of my older images for fun. But I distinctly remember going through these images and not be totally satisfied with them when I first returned from our trip. There was something about it that I couldn’t get right. After playing around for a bit, I love the way this one turned out in particular. The difference between this image and others was that I used a gradient filter to bring out the clouds so much more. I feel like that completed the whole image and framed it very nicely.
Another reason why I am sharing this is because we’re planning on going hiking this weekend. Not in Norway (I wish) but in the Shenandoah mountains and I’m really looking forward to escaping to the outdoors for a couple hours. What are your memorial day plans?
Hope everyone has a happy and safe Memorial day weekend!
My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/640th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.
Holy Smokes. 2018 is almost here. I can’t believe it but I’m sooooo excited. 2018 is going to be the best year ever. EVERRRRRRR.
But before the ball drops, I love going through and picking out my favorite images from the past year. I think they’re interesting to see since most of my favorites are probably not your favorite. And I don’t have a top 10 or anything like that. It’s so hard to narrow it down to 10. I imagine it’s like your parents choosing who their favorite child is. So here it is, in no particular order, here are my 14 favorite image of 2017 from Washington DC.
And if you’re interested, click on each of the images to go back to that original blog post. I think it’d be interesting to see what I had to say about them at the time of taking the images.
Still remember this day like it was yesterday. It was amazingly foggy and I had spent a good 1.5-2 hours just walking around the National Mall. I was about to call it quits and walk back to my car when I saw the Jefferson Memorial looking like a dream. You know I had to stop and take a few more images.
The Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Hirshorrn was a HUGE highlight of 2017. I waited sooo long to see it and was honored to have been able to go twice. This image was from my first visit. I’m still amazed I got to go in the room by myself. Click here to watch my youtube video of the experience.
Our first real snow of 2017 happened when the cherry blossoms were about to bloom. Oh man, I think this was the first time I really didn’t want it to snow. But in the end, it all worked out for the better.
YAY for cherry blossoms. You know I had to add at least 1 or 2 in here. I love this particular image because it’s so different from what I usually do. OMG there are people in my images. LOL. But my favorite part is the guy walking right on the sunburst. I was 100% lucky to be able to capture that.
From one of the best days ever of 2017. The crazy foggy cherry blossom morning at the Tidal Basin.
So if you are subscribed to my newsletter than you already know, but I’ll be in San Diego, California for the New Year! So excited to be in warm weather! The beach is calling my name. And Andrew’s and FRANKIE’S! Frankie is coming with us too. It’s a whole family adventure and I can’t wait!
This time last year I was preparing for my trip to Iceland. Talk about total opposites. LOL. Iceland was a blast but for some reason I feel like there are better photo opportunities in colder climates than there are in warmer climates. What do you think? Agree or disagree? Either way, I’m pumped to be going to California. Can’t wait to be hanging out on the beach with a camera in one hand and a fish taco in the other with no gloves on either hand. Nom Nom Nom.
This particular image was taken at sunrise right before I took this image. This was honestly my favorite day from the trip. It was my first time visiting the southeastern part of Iceland and it blew me away. Can we just talk about how gorgeous this place is? Iceland as a country is amazing but my favorite so far has definietly got to be Höfn.
My favorite part of the image is that you can see two people close to the water. I’m not exactly sure, but I think they are my friends, Ed and Alejandra. At first I didn’t even notice them but to see them in relation to everything around them, just wow. It really makes you think how tiny we are in this big, big world.
So you know that one of Sue’s highlights from the trip was the Ocean Path. If I had to pick mine, it would have been the airplane tour we did on our last night in Maine with Acadia Air Tours. We booked the “airvan” for 35 minutes at sunset. It was perfect because the plane was actually built for sightseeing.
But if you have never been on a scenic airplane tour, I have 2 photo tips for you:
1. Constantly check your images. The beginning of the flight was perfect. I had the correct settings to make sure I wasn’t getting any motion blur in my images. But as the sun was setting towards the end of our flight, I did not realize how much the light had changed. I should have bumped up my ISO or something because all the images towards the end of the flight were so blurry. I wasn’t upset or anything, I still had a rockin’ time on the flight. Just check your images as you go!
2. Zoom lens all the way. I brought my 70-200mm just in case, but didn’t feel like I needed it at all. We were only up 2000ft max in the air and I was still able to get pretty good zoom-age with my 28-70mm. I say zoom instead of a wide angle because there were times when there would be a lot of sun glare on the windows. Especially when we were faced a certain way, it was very difficult to avoid it. At least with the zoom lens, I was able to avoid those spots as opposed to a wide angle or something that would have captured it all. Sue was taking pics with her phone and said that the sun glare was really difficult to avoid the entire trip. All of her photos had at least a spot.
So if you’re in Acadia National Park and want to see it from a different point of view or even have a totally different experience, I’d highly recommend Acadia Air Tours. Bernard was our pilot and he was so nice. It was very easy to talk to him and I didn’t feel like I was bothering him with the million and one questions I was asking 🙂 And if you do book a trip with them, tell them I sent ya!
This was taken at the beginning of our flight and my camera settings for this image is 1/25th of a second at F5.6 ISO 640.
For this trip, we stayed in Brooklyn which turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It was great because every morning we would take Frankie out to a park or something and wear him out. Then we’d spend the rest of the afternoon/evening exploring on our own. I’d definietly stay in Brooklyn again. It was so much quieter than Manhattan but still really easy to get into the city.
On the actual day of my birthday it rained. But the good kind of rain. It didn’t start until the middle of the afternoon so we were still able to explore in the morning with Frankie. Then when it was raining the hardest, we were already inside the MoMA. The perfect escape. Out of coincidence, Andrew made dinner reservations near Times Square. It was perfect because I really wanted to check out this rootop bar on top of the Hyatt Centric afterwards. It’s the tallest rooftop in Times Square and you get these amazing views of lower Manhattan while sippin’ on some adult beverages. It was still a little wet when we got up there but I didn’t even care. The rain clouds were still hovering over the city and I was having a blast. I think my favorite part of this image (besides the clouds) have to be the reflection in the tall H&M building. So crazy to see how big this city is and this is only a little piece of it.
The settings for this image was F/8 at 1/30th of a second ISO 1000. It was so dark that I had to bump up my ISO up even though I was also leaning against the railing.
We had a change of plans to our original travel itinerary. When we arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico we were exhausted! Like barely can hold a fork up to my mouth but I’m so hungry, kind of tired. Luckily we were able to switch hotels up and stay one extra day in Santa Fe. We just lost a day in Los Angeles which is no big deal since both of us had been before. That allowed us to sleep in the next day and explore Santa Fe a little more. Neither Sue or I had been anywhere in New Mexico but we immediately fell in love. Santa Fe is such a cute little city with so much character and charm. I also liked how there weren’t a lot of people there and you felt super safe just walking the streets. So we were happy to be spending an extra day there.
Using her pinterest skills, Sue found this place, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. It’s about an hour away from the city but so worth the drive. It was a beautiful hike around these amazing white rock formations. If you’re thinking about going, try your best to make it to the second half of the trail. That’s where you encounter all the slot canyons and at the end you will see the ‘christmas tree’ rocks. Rocks that look like little tents or christmas trees 🙂 It was beautiful. But HOT! Bring plenty of water. What was also nice was standing in the middle of the slot canyons. There was just enough shade to protect you from the sun but the breeze through the canyons was unbeatable. It almost felt like air conditioning. ALMOST.
As soon as we were done with the hike we drove immediately to the gas station for popsicles. The most excellent reward for such a hot hike.
