Category Archives: Travel

One Busy Winter! San Francisco, Phoenix & Summit County

It’s no secret that the winter in Minnesota is the slow season for wedding photography.   Although I did shoot a couple weddings this winter with other local photographers, I spent many of my weekends in warmer climates.  Here are a few of my travel snapshots.

In early April I met my sister and her family in San Francisco.  Much of my time was spent babysitting, but we did get out and do a little sightseeing.  The Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park was in bloom and so beautiful.

I went to Arizona twice this winter ~ once to visit with my college girlfriends and families and once to run the P.F. Chang’s half-marathon.  Both trips were a great escape from the cold.

I also returned to Colorado for a few ski trips this winter.  We got really lucky with snow conditions on both of my visits to Summit County!  I took the photo below with point-and-shoot camera.  Someday I’ll take the d700 with me on the slopes.

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Winter Vacation: Riviera Maya

This winter I was fortunate to travel a lot, and I’m slowly catching up on editing and posting some of these personal travel pictures.  Here’s a trip to the Riviera Maya area of Mexico.  We started our trip in Isla Mujeres, which is a short ferry ride away from Cancun.  I absolutely adored this quaint island.  We rented a golf cart and used that to take us everywhere we needed to go.  The streets were just so colorful, it was a photographer’s dream!

We parked our golf cart right next to this chicken that posed so nicely for me!

The boats in the harbor were so weathered and beautiful.

Our hotel was across that wooden bridge from the rest of the island. It was nice to have a sheltered area for swimming and fishing. That night was the last street festival of the season.  We ate some elote (corn) and these delicious marquesitas, which are like a rolled crepe.  Yum.

We spent the rest of the trip in a resort south of Playa del Carmen.  We made a couple trips into Playa for shopping (and photographing).  You just don’t find this color in Minnesota! 

I always have the hardest time deciding which camera lenses to bring on vacation.  I want to bring them all, but it’s just too much to pack (I only travel with a carry-on) and I worry about my equipment being stolen or damaged.  One lens that I played around with was a super cheap ($35!) Diana lens.  It’s a plastic toy lens that doesn’t really focus ~ and that’s the point!  It created some dreamy images like the ones above and below.  What a fun effect! 

I snapped so many photos of the textures.

We went on a sunset birdwatching tour through the Sian Ken biosphere reserve near Tulum.  We cruised around as the sunset and then waited for all of these birds to flock to one magical island.  It was incredible!    We saw so many different species: Roseated spoonbills, egrets (reddish, snowy, and great), herons (little blue, great blue, great white, boat bill, tri-colored and wurderman’s), anhingas, royal terns, frigatebirds, goldenfront woodpeckers, and as you can see in the photo above, an American crocodile (one of several we saw!).

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Postcards from Mexico

As the Twin Cities prepares to spend another weekend below zero, I thought it would be a good time to post a few scenes from my trip to Mexico a month ago.  Our destination? The Occidental Grand Flamenco Xcaret, about 15 minutes south of Playa del Carmen, on the Maya Riviera.  So many bright colors:

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Lots of blue, turquoise and yellow:

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Happy Holidays!

Happy Hanukkah menorah

Merry Christmas

merrychristmas

I’m going on vacation . . .

pool

I’ll be back in 2009 with a New Year’s day family session!

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