st john

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So this ends the week long look back at my adventures with my friend, Sue. If you haven’t been following along, she has been one of my best friends for forever and is moving to Austin, Texas this week. I’m grateful she asked me to take the long drive down to Texas with her so we can spend a little more time together but also I get to check out Austin since I’ve never really been to Texas before.

It’s crazy because looking back at our first cross country road trip, Spain, Maine, and now this image from St John, I’ve realized we’ve done so much together. And this doesn’t even scratch the surface. We’ve been on plenty of girls trips and have spent so much time just adventuring around the Washington DC metro area. I’ll miss her lots but I also know it won’t be for too long before I see her again.

This image is of St John Virgin Island. It’s funny because this was our first ever vacation together and probably one of my favorites. I mean how can it not be? I’m all about that island life. LOL. I remember the exact moment I took this too. We were actually staying on St Thomas, took a ferry to St John and then a bus took us to the local beaches from there. Fortunately the bus stopped at some beautiful places along the way for us to take pictures. I leaned over Sue to take this image but I’m pretty sure that she’s used to me doing stuff like that by now. Not much longer after I took this pic, we were down on that beach laying out 🙂 Sounds perfect right about now.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/640th sec at ISO 80 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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One of my new years goals this year was to take a photo trip at least once I quarter. I’m telling you all this so you can help keep me accountable. So winter photo trip- check. Iceland was amazing. I don’t know how much more wintery photo experience you could get.

I have a few more places where I’d like to go this year. Nothing is booked or anything yet, so they’re all just ideas right now but I’ve noticed a common theme. They’re all cold weather places!! If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll know that the beach is one of my favorite places to be. As soon as I figured out all the layers I’ll be needing this year, I started questioning all the places that I was excited for. My mind immediately went to Caribbean islands, piña coladas, and flamingos. I had to go back and look at some of my sunny beach photos to make myself feel better.

So this was taken at Cinnamon Bay in St John, USVI. The water is particularly calm in this bay so I felt comfortable going into the water with my camera. I was probably in chest high water when photographing this inflatable raft when I decided it was time to hide the camera in a spare towel I brought. Then this bird flew onto the boat and was posing, waiting for me to take his picture. So back out of the water I went to get my camera and into chest high water for this shot. I think my favorite part of this image is the clarity of the water. You can see all the little lines in the sand on the very bottom. It just looks so peaceful and WARM! Now I gotta make sure that there is some kind of beach trip in 2017.

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This is going to be a 3 part series that will be going on my blog for the next 3 days. Why 3 days? Because I shot so many images this year and I love them all but I can’t choose one absolute favorite. I think I ended up with at least 30 absolute favorites. It’s like how do you choose your favorite pizza delivery place? Who knows! They’re all so great, delicious and you like them all for different reasons. That’s the same thing with this!

Part 1: Travel

So here are my 10 favorite images from travel in 2016. I am SO lucky that I was able to travel to Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean this past year. Like is this really my life?

In order of when I visited these amazing places, here are my favorite travel images of 2016. Woop Woop!
Click the image to find the original blog post and the story behind it.

electronic megastore, japan, akihabara, escalators, electronics, camera, electric town, shopping district, manga, computer goods,

The electronic Super Store in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. You could spend hours in this one place and I think I did. Obviously, most of my time was spent on the photography floor. Yes, that’s right. A whole floor devoted to photography!

shinjuku, gyoen, national garden, asia, tokyo, japan, garden, park, shibuya, green, water, pond, monochrom, popular parks, walk

One of my favorite places in the city of Tokyo, Shinjuku Gyoen. I love all the variations of green in this image.

Fushimi Inari Shrine, kyoto, vermilion torii gates, shinto, japan, kimono, girls, walking, light, Senbon Torii, gate, shrine, girls

This image definietly took a lot of patience. It was that decisive moment that Henri Cartier-Bresson talks about.

motorcycle, bike, hello kitty, bicycle, japan, asia, black, street, pink, garage,

The contrast of these two bikes in Tokyo cracks me up. I can imagine these two riding down the road together having the best time.

st john, cinnamon bay, trunk bay, beach, palm tree, rocks, white sand, clear water, virgin islands, usvi, caribbean, travel, beach bum

OMG Can we please go back? St John was like heaven on earth.

st thomas, virgin islands, margaritaville, jimmy buffet, sunrise, morning, beach, umbrella, chairs, ocean, caribbean, usvi

This was taken at the resort we were staying at, Margaritaville. I didn’t have any margaritas but I had plenty of vodka. They should change the name to Vodkaville 🙂

st john, virgin islands, usvi, caribbean, territory, travel, beach, clear water, blue water, island, clouds, boat, visit, visit, cinnamon bay

YES to all the above

ft lauderdale, south florida, beach, seaweed, ocean, atlantic, america, florida, fl, seagulls, sunrise, walk, shore, peace, calm, water, sand

In August, Andrew and I spent a long weekend in Ft Lauderdale. It was a great end of summer get away.

london, england, parliment, sunset, thames river, united kingdom, palace of westminster, house of lords, house of commons, meeting place, sunset, central london, british polictics, royal palace, night, car trails,

Oh Snap! Don’t you love it when big buses pass you by while taking a long exposure. They always create the coolest lines with their lights.

la sagrada familia, BasĂ­lica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada FamĂ­lia, gaudi, roman catholic church, barcelona, spain, interior, architecture, holy family, Antoni GaudĂ­,

La Sagrada Familia: The most awe-inspiring interior I’ve ever seen. My girlfriends and I made a pact to come back to Barcelona in 10 years when to see this place when  it’s all complete.

 

So there it is. My top 10 travel images for 2016. What did you guys think? Come back to the blog for the next two days for more of my favorites.

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If you ever find yourself in St John, head straight to Cinnamon Bay. Don’t bother with Trunk Bay because its way more crowded. Plus you pay to enter. Cinnamon bay is bigger and far less people there. They also have a restaurant so you could spend the whole day there. Trust me. Cinnamon Bay.