Tag: Travel

Historic Posts, Our Life

Travel Series: Home Sweet Home

by sbeachphoto

As much as I love traveling, I love returning home too. When it comes right down to it, I am a homebody.
After all the new sights, tastes and experiences, after all the flights and inevitable long hours waiting in airports, I look forward to returning to my home and bed. Having my things around me when I need them and being able to contact friends and family when I want to (and be contacted when they want to).

All that being said, I always feel a little sad after returning to my normal day-to-day life after a trip. All of the planning and excitement that preceded the trip, the amazing  travel itself, the people you met along the way, the culture, environment and experiences you were immersed in and then all of a sudden it’s all over. All of those are just memories and collection of photos and knickknack souvenirs.
Whether it’s a two-week vacation, a world-wide trip or a weekend getaway, you have likely removed yourself from your normal routine just long enough to forget all about it. Then, just as quickly as you left it, you are thrown back into your normal, seemingly boring life. And to make matters worse, there is only so  much you can do to help this. Talking about the trip with friends and family may help a little, but eventually that is going to get annoying – to them that is. So how do you deal with this sudden lack of travel?

Plan another trip of course!

As I mentioned before, we have a few trips planned over the next year or so. Some of them are booked and others are still in the initial stages, but they all need more attention before they will be ready for us. And that, along with editing my literally thousand of images (75.87GB worth to be precise) from our trip to Seattle and Alaska (as well as BC and the Yukon), should tie me over until our next trip. And if it doesn’t I will just have to plan a day trip here and there.

Until then, this series will be on hold, but you can enjoy the below photo. It was taken on our Alaskan trip during a helicopter trip in and around the Juneau glaciers and icefield (I believe the Gilkey Glacier is coming into view here).
Alaska Skyline with Glaciers and Mountains

Historic Posts, Our Life

Travel Series: Flying Worries

by sbeachphoto

As I previously mentioned, I love traveling. That being said, taking my gear through airport security and then onto the plane worries me. I don’t use film, so the scanners they use in the security screening don’t destroy gear, but I still get a little worried when they are in there. I remember the first time I put my gear through, I literally watched it the entire time while crossing my fingers. Then when I put my gear in the overhead compartment, I spend most of the flight worrying about it tossing around up there.
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So how do I resolve this you might ask? When it comes to security, there isn’t anything I can do. The technology used doesn’t damage dSLRs so there really isn’t anything there to worry about – my fears are mostly artifact fears leftover from the good ol’ film days. When it comes to the overhead compartment, I always keep my camera and lenses in proper camera bags with lots of padding and make sure to have them packed with little to no empty spaces so they don’t really have anywhere to go around the bags.
Checked bags is a whole other beast. To date, I haven’t had to check anything other than tripods or other less fragile equipment. I have also never had any bags get lost in transit (whether or not they had photography equipment in them). When purchasing gear bags I try to keep size in mind and keep an eye out for ones that are a suitable size to act as a carry-on.
All of this being said, I tend to be a worrier, so perhaps I need not worry about all of this so much. Either way, I have been lucky to date and I haven’t had anything get damaged while traveling and hopefully I never will.

Our Life

Happy Birthday Sweety!

by sbeachphoto

Today is my hubby’s birthday!
He is an amazing man who I love with all my heart and soul. I know it is cliche, but I honestly don’t know where I would be without him.Ottawa Portrait Photography Billings BridgeHappy Birthday Hubby!The above photos are from a morning we spent with some co-workers at the NCC park across from Billings Bridge here in Ottawa. The area is great and the weather was absolutely gorgeous!! And I couldn’t resist taking a few shots of Dave when he climbed up into the tree with his ‘Dutch shirt’ on.
I wrote this post earlier this month and scheduled it for today as we are actually on our cruise to Alaska right now. I entered his birthday as a special event in our cruise timeline. I am not entirely sure what that means, or if we get anything from the cruise line because of it, but I am hoping they do something nice for him because he certainly deserves it.

Historic Posts, Our Life

Travel Series: Intro

by sbeachphoto

I love traveling. Planning, scheduling, packing, traveling, coming home and editing photos – every aspect of it fills me with happiness and joy!!
For the past few years, Dave and I have pretty much always had something to save for that prevented us from traveling. Don’t get me wrong, I love the things we saved for like our house and wedding, but I missed traveling. Since the wedding finished up, we have been savings for travels and I am super excited! This year and next, Dave and I have a bunch of trips planned. So many that I have decided to start a new blog series here about how I travel with respect to photography. From what I bring and how I pack that gear to keep it as secure as possible, to what I look for when I am out and about in a new location.
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The first of these series will be starting tomorrow as we have left for our second honeymoon trip to Seattle and Alaska (the above photos are from our first, low-budget honeymoon to Niagara Falls). It is going to be an amazing trip and I look forward sharing the photos and memories with all of you, including a helicopter ride around some glaciers!!
(and for those of you who are worried that I have just announced to the world that we are not home, keep in mind that we don’t live by ourselves so the house is far from empty)

Historic Posts

SOOC #7

by sbeachphoto

This week’s SOOC is a little bit of a sneak peek as well!

Below is the before and after of a shot taken at the Diefenbunker here in Ottawa. We visited it last weekend after wanting to visit it for quite some time and never being able to make it out to see it, but that is for a future post.

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The before shot, on the left, was a little dark. This is primarily due to the low lighting in the Diefenbunker (it is completely underground afterall) and the fact that flash isn’t allowed in the facility (which makes perfect sense really). So I took it into Photoshop, brightened it up and added some additional contrast, and voila – lightened image of the model showing the layout of the bunker!