Archive for the “Personal” Category

 

We’d like to share pictures from a vacation we took only a month ago – this is absolutely unheard of! :) It usually takes us months and months to get to our personal images because there’s always something more important to work on. Well this time there are too many people who’ve been asking to see the images and so this weekend I decided to go through our loot and share some of our favorites. Let’s start at the beginning:

This April we went on a last-minute trip to Colombia. We really didn’t plan to travel anywhere far this year, but a few of our friends were going and when everything came together the temptation was just too hard to refuse :)

I’ll start with answering the most common question we get asked: Yes, Colombia is safe. After decades of civil conflict not only it is finally safe to visit, but it’s a must-visit country. Colombia is one of the most well-developed countries in Latin America and has amazingly diverse landscapes – from the gorgeous beaches of the Carribian to snowy mountains in the south. It was close to impossible to pick favorites and decide what to see during our two weeks trip, but below are some of the highlights.

 

Cartagena was the first city we visited and we were amazed at the history and colonial architecture we found there. Charming and old Cartagena quickly became our favorite city in Colombia. We stayed at a super cute tiny hotel within the old city walls and spent our days walking its quiet 16th century streets and plazas trying to soak in all the colors around us.

 

 

The view from the roof of our hotel Casa Gloria during twilight:

 

We came upon this church while searching the streets for a place to eat one night. There was a wedding ceremony going on inside and of course I had to snap a shot of it :)

 

 

Colombia’s food is amazing! I think we liked everything we tried there :) From delicious breads and buns for breakfast to amazing seafood for dinner, and tropical fruits sold on the streets as snacks in between – we just couldn’t stop eating.

 

 

We took a short day-trip from Cartagena to get to the famous mud baths of Volcan de Lodo El Totumo. The crater of the volcano is filled with warm mud with the thick consistency of sour cream. We spent most of our time laughing and trying our best to sink further then buoyancy would allow :)

 

A few more Cartagena scenes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After this we spent a few days camping in Park Tayrona – one of Colombia’s most popular national parks. This scenic park is located right on the Carribean coast and has gorgeous uncrowded beaches frequented mostly by locals. There are no roads in the park so all the visitors have to hike for a couple of hours to get to the beaches and campgrounds. It was definitely worth it!

 

In Tayrona there was the option of renting a hammock for the night:

 

As romantic and tempting as sleeping in the hammock on the beach sounded, most of us wisely decided to stay in tents.

 

While traveling, we always try to visit the local markets – not the souvenir markets intended for tourists, but the markets where locals buy their food. Plaza de Mercado de Paloquemao in the capital city of Bogota was the real deal wholesale market with livestock and produce. We spent a couple of hours wondering the labyrinth of its rows, enjoying all the colors and smells of an incredible variety of locals fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

 

 

 

 

 

We absolutely loved Colombia and cannot wait to come back to explore it further! I can’t recommend visiting this beautiful country enough.

We are now in the middle of our busy season – there are going to be three weddings and an engagement session shoot within next five days, but we’ll do our best to keep the blog updated with all of the recent events! Hope you had a great holiday weekend!

 

As promised, here is another update on what we’ve been up to. This series of images is from a couple of weeks ago when we decided that it would be a great idea to go up the mountains in the middle of a storm. And… the landscapes were truly breathtaking (we saw a glimpse of them when we dared to take our eyes off an icy road and look around :) The trip was super fun, but a bit too stressful. Next time we’ll wait until it’s sunny to go up to 8,000′ elevation.

 

We stopped on the shoulder just for a second to take some pictures, but immediately got yelled at by a snowplow driver. I can imagine how sick they are of these photographers stopping to snap a photo :)

 

 

 

When we finally got to our hotel we decided that it’s easier to walk to find some food than to drive on ice.

 

Love fresh snow!

 

 

 

 

 

Five feet of fresh snow sounded too tempting to not push Mike into it :)

 

The revenge:

 

 

 

Mike had his hands full in the morning. I kept myself busy by taking pictures :) Can you believe how much it snowed overnight?

 

Oh, I could have spent half the night walking the night streets of snowy South Lake taking pictures! If only it weren’t so cold…

 

In the day time we had a great time snowboarding at Kirkwood. Do you guys go up to Tahoe to ski or snowboard? It’s become one of our favorite wintertime activities since I learned how to ride a few years ago.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

We like to travel light and religiously follow the expression “Take half as much stuff as you think you’ll need”. Our discussions about needing to take certain items with us usually result with leaving said item at home. There’s only one exception to that rule: we absolutely do not travel without a camera. Or two. (Otherwise we’ll fight :) Some kind of a camera is always with us: if we are too lazy to carry the big guns with us, we just take our handy point-and-shoot.

Our stream of personal pictures is constant and never dies down. Well, what do you want? We love love love taking pictures! Unfortunately, because we place priority on our clients images, we rarely ever have time to cull and edit our personal work. We have tons of fun shooting and would really enjoy looking through the photos (often in-camera), but then we put them into the bottomless “Personal Images” folder on the computer at home and that is it. Many of them never see the light of day again.

Last week I found thousands of pictures that have never been shared with anybody: hikes and camping trips, BBQs and Birthday parties, vacations and work trips. I’m making it my goal to put a dent in those pictures and share as many as I can.

I’ll start with pictures from this October. As many of you know, we weren’t able to go on our honeymoon right after our wedding and to compensate ourselves, we decided to have two honeymoons: a warm and a cold one :) The warm part took place on the island of Kauai where we spent seven days being busy doing nothing. We drove around in search of beautiful views and yummy food, we hiked, slept and just relaxed. Here are some of the highlights from the trip:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any guesses where we went to for the cold part of our honeymoon? :)