Yellowstone Day 3

Our our drive home from Yellowstone we stopped at the awesome Yellowstone Bear World park!  We LOVED driving up close with the bears and seeing the baby bear cubs play.  Next time I am driving through I am going to pay the extra money and feed a baby bear a bottle.  I just wanted to hug those baby bears! We had a great trip to Yellowstone and saw so much wonderful nature and wildlife.

Baby bear cubs Buster and Angus wrestling - SO CUTE!!

Yellowstone Day 2

On day 1 of the Yellowstone trip, I just brought my camera and my fixed 50 lens because I didn't want to lug around the heavy lens all day.  On day 2, I just brought the 24-70mm lens because the landscape was worth the weight.  As we were driving around Yellowstone, if we saw something cool we just pulled over and got out and took pictures.  At one point we even saw an osprey fly from it's nest with supposed babies inside it (according to the man with binoculars).  The cool misty rain made for excellent weather and picture-taking.

Here is a baby bear we saw from the side of the road. Made sure to keep our distance!

Yellowstone Day 1

I have had a lot of amazing opportunities this summer to travel.  One of the perks of having the summer off!  Karl's cousin just got married and we decided to take a little couples trip over a weekend.  We got a condo up at Yellowstone and spent the weekend playing games, eating, hot-tubbing, and touring Yellowstone National Park!  I brought my camera and took a ton of pictures in the beautiful and picturesque landscape in Yellowstone.  Here are some photos from Day 1.

Old Faithful:


Mystic Falls - a "short" hike but beautiful waterfall:

Lauren Rae

I love going home and visiting California for many reasons, but one great reason is because I have a beautiful little sister!  I love taking photos of her for many reasons: 1) she is so photogenic, 2) she lets me experiment with her (try this pose, wait while I set this setting, lay down over there, etc), 3) she sits still (it is very refreshing after taking photos of Dean) and 4) her photos are so fun to edit!

I made a goal this summer to do some more experimenting with my external flash.  Shooting with a flash is different for me because I am used to just pushing the shutter button all the time and taking pictures extremely quickly.  With the flash you have to wait a few seconds between each shot; guess I am a little spoiled!  I experimented on this shoot adjusting the stops to my flash and seeing how light was able to be bounced off of Lauren's face in different ways.  I used my flash diffuser on the flash to blend the light a little and make it less harsh.

On a second note, I also made a goal this summer to keep experimenting with different photoshop edits on pictures.  So, each edit has a different feel but I liked the eclectic nature of these images.  Lauren you are beautiful and I love you!

Big Island Day 8

Our last day on the island we were able to just take it easy and relax!  The most insane coincidence happened - my friends Kristi and Diane happened to be on the SAME island at the SAME time that Karl and I were on the Big Island!  How amazing!  We met up on the day that our trips overlapped and had a fabulous and fun lunch at the Kona Pizza Brewery which was amazing.  It was so fun to catch up with them.

Kristi, me, Diane

We had an amazing trip and just chilled the rest of the day - went on a walk, went out to dinner, watched TV, laid in a hammock at the resort, and watched the sun set.

Karl refused to wear shorts or flip flops on this trip!!!!!! 

On our way out to the parking lot to go to the airport we saw this hilarious bumper sticker that I had to take a picture with:

Hahaha

Hawaii was incredible and I can't wait to go back!

Big Island Day 7 Part 2

After ziplining, we continued driving around the island.  We passed through Hilo and it was raining.  Karl was so happy and wondered why we weren't staying on the rainy side of the island since he loves the rain so much.  Mental note for next time to get him to come back to Hawaii with me.

As we were driving, we passed a little polynesian cemetery.  It was so interesting so we pulled over and got out and walked around and appreciated the cultural differences in this little cemetery on the side of the road vs. the cemeteries that we see in Utah.  I took some pictures (not to be touristy or disrespectful) but to record the beauty and peace of this place.

We hopped back in the car and drove south until we got to Volcano National Park.  Karl and I had been "ehhh" about visiting (I had looked at the volcano webcam online and saw it) and so many people told us that it is incredible and we couldn't miss it so we decided to go.  We were so happy we did because there is nothing like it.  IT WAS AMAZING!  We went and ate at the Volcano House restaurant that has a giant window that you can watch the volcano smoking while you eat lunch.  Incredible - we couldn't take our eyes off that window!

The waitress told us that this volcano was a "friendly" volcano.

After lunch we visited a few of the sights around the park.  We saw the steam vents where hot steam is coming out of the earth, a lookout where you can see the crater and volcano "close up", and the thurston lava tubes where hot magma traveled before the outside hardened into these cave-like tubes.  Half of the park was closed at the time while we were there due to dangerous sulfur emissions.  Cool!

Me at the volcano!

Karl at the volcano!

It started raining on our hike and we LOVED it.  We had to put my camera up our shirts and we looked a little strange.

Me with a tree

Here are some pictures from my camera that I took on these hikes around volcano national park.

Incredible entrance to the Thurston Lava Tube: