trees

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It’s been a busy fall season already! But I’m enjoying every minute of it. I love just driving down around my neighborhood and seeing all the colorful trees. So I obviously had to take a quick run down to Shenandoah National Park to check out the foliage around there. It’s become a tradition that my friend Larry and I will make a trip down and photograph the sunrise along Skyline Drive. This year, our friend Brande came with us too. It was a beautiful morning with photo friends.

In general, the trees were looking a little green along the drive so I think we were a bit premature in going. Regardless, it was great to watch the sunrise over the mountains. There were even little pockets of fog along the mountain range that made it even more special. But I didn’t get the shot I was looking for. I was either hoping for a really foggy morning making images look extra moody and gloomy or very colorful trees lit up by the sunlight. So since we didn’t get either of those, I’m thinking another trip to Shenandoah is necessary. Hopefully sometime soon!

My camera settings for this image are F11 at 1/30th sec and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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Is it just me or is it easier to wake up for sunrise when you’re traveling then it is when you’re home? Before I went to bed, I set my alarm for 5:30 am. I woke up the next morning before my alarm, bright-eyed and ready to go. It was amazing.

I had every intention of visiting Cucumber Falls Waterfall in Ohiopyle State Park but what I did not expect was all this amazing morning fog. I couldn’t help myself. I kept on pulling over every 5 minutes trying to capture it. I was pulling over on the side of the road or turning into little roads along the way. There was one road in particular that looked like it was half foggy and half not so I had to pull over. While I was taking pictures, I noticed a couple walking their two dogs. Turns out one of them was a puppy so I had to wait for them to come closer so I could ask to pet the puppy. LOL. Well, the puppy was 5 months old and so playful. After talking to their owners for a little while, they said that they lived on the property on top of the hill and told me that I should go up there for an even better view.

OMG this was the view from their hill. Long story short, I did not make it to the waterfall. LOL. And this was the gentlemen and the older dog walking by on the road I met them on. That sunrise glow though!

My camera settings for this image is F10 at 1/200th sec and ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

 

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While we were photographing the sunrise, Andrew mentioned that he would like to be able to walk on the beach. It was perfect because I had planned a hike for us to do just that. So after I was done capturing the sights from the Ecola State Park viewpoint, we went back to the hotel, packed up all our stuff and picked up Frankie so we could go on our first hike in Oregon.

The Crescent Beach Trail started right back at the Ecola State Park viewpoint. It’s a 2-mile hike that at first didn’t seem too bad but what we quickly learned that a lot of the beach trails that are along the Oregon coast are very steep. What’s beautiful about Oregon is that there are over 300 miles of untouched coastal land meaning you won’t see beach houses or anything like that on the coast. It’s all just natural trees, dunes and gorgeousness. But it also means getting on to the beach is quite strenuous.

This image was taken towards the beginning of the hike before it got to be too bad. We were still getting some of that early morning glow coming through the trees and I asked Andrew to stand in it. It’s funny because at first I didn’t remember which hike this was, but noticed Andrew was wearing jeans so I knew this was the first hike we did. We both made the mistake of wearing jeans. I say it was a mistake because climbing up and down those hills was hot, sweaty and sticky. After this, it was all athletic shorts all the time. Of course, Frankie didn’t notice the hills at all. He had a free ride everywhere he went.

My camera settings for this image are F6.3 at 1/40th sec ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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This image was captured almost 2 years ago but it is still one of my favorite mornings in Washington DC. I remember it like it was yesterday. The day before we were supposed to get snow but ended up getting a few flurries. So I just assumed that the following morning weather was going to be a good sunrise. It ended up being too cloudy with no color, so pretty much two disappointments in a row.

But when the sun actually rose and started to shine the light down on to the National Mall, it warmed up the air so much that it actually started to get a little foggy. And somehow all that fog was got captured within this walking path in between the two rows of trees. As a result, the light was so warm and yellow and I couldn’t help but notice all the shadows the sun was creating as well.

It was honestly like walking through a dream. I had never seen this walking path like this before and ever since that day, I always find myself looking to see if it will happen again.

Plus I love how the trees at the end of the pathway form a little heart <3

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/320th sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle.

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We had a couple of thunderstorm warnings last week but for some reason, none of them really came to be. I’m still on the hunt to capture a lightning strike this summer so I tried my best to get out there to try to capture the weather. But when the actual rain didn’t happen, I was fortunate enough to still be able to at least capture this beautiful sunset.

I love how the colors in the sky are in line with the trees and it just looks like a band of color stretched across the entire image. I will be honest and say that I got rid of some of the people on the left-hand side. Just one small group of people because they were wearing really bright clothes and it was distracting to see them in the dark trees. I wanted to make sure that the focus was entirely on the Lincoln Memorial and the amazing sunset.

Hopefully, the storm warnings we have this week will actually come to be.

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My camera settings for this image is F16 at 1/4th sec and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

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Just another image from walking around downtown Chicago. For some reason, I ended up next to this parking garage several times. It wasn’t intentional but I thought it was such a cool wall. So the first day we were walking around, kinda close to sunset time and I noticed this row of trees. I loved the way the light was hitting it so I asked Andrew if we could stop to wait for someone to walk past. I don’t think he knew what I was talking about because he was looking around to see what I was seeing but we stopped immediately.

It wasn’t long before this lady with a red jacket walked by. It was perfect. I love that color pop and how it adds so much scale to the trees and wall. It really is scenes like this that makes me excited about street photography. It may seem so simple, but the timing seemed perfect.

As soon as I captured this, we started walking again to our final destination that night, Lou Malnati’s pizzeria. OMG so good!

On another note, I’ll be in Richmond, Virginia this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it. If you didn’t know, I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA a longggggg time ago and I haven’t been back to the capital city since. I know it’s changed a lot and am really looking forward to seeing all the changes. I definietly want to go check out the campus and all the apartments I used to live in just to see if any of those have changed. It’s going to be crazy and a trip down memory lane FOR SURE!

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/200th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.