Road Trip Photography

The end of the road….for now ; p

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:20:06 +0000

As I sit in Hawaii, listening to the rain and waiting for the hurricane, smelling the grilled cheese Brad is making in the kitchen, it is the bittersweet time to enter the last entry (for now!) in the road trip photographer blog. There are many more trip planned in the future, and I just got my tentative acceptance into the Peace Corps! You know you can count on me for some interesting photographs for many years to come!

For now, I’ll upload a gallery of some faves from the last month of the trip, and just say that it was a nice last month indeed. Lots of quiet time and solitute and national forests for me and the doggies. We picked up a hitchkiker for the last 1200 miles, so that provided some fun entertainment and some savings on gas $$! Poor guy hit a deer in the middle of nowhere Wyoming! In a crazy bit of luck, he was trying to get to Bowling Green IL, which is literally 1.5 hours from my mom’s house (my destination).

In the last month, we traveled through Washinton state and the Cascades, through Idaho (surprisingly stunning), Yellowstone, Cody Wyoming, and then a straight shot 2 day haul back home.

Thanks to everyone who thought we were interesting enough to follow along.

Special thanks to all the amazing people we met along the way, and the friends we visited, who gave us a driveway to park in and a shower to bathe in. The trip certainly wouldn’t have been as rich without you!

Thanks to Shary and Ryan for the extended stay in driveway (6 weeks!) and to my bro for climbing that mountain with me : )

Much love to the clients I met and photographed along the way, I REALLY appreciated the gas money.

Woof Woof from Daisy and Max to all the friends they suckered into loving and petting and walking them along the way.

Aloha!

beautiful sunset, coming out of the Beartooth mountains

northern Washington, was able to watch this guy catch a fish!

view from a rest stop

handsome fella in a national forest outside of Yellowstone

Daisy May

Cascades

Twin Deer, Idaho

Pretty flowers, Wyoming

Long absences and nearing the end of the trip

admin — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 19:01:20 +0000

Aloha all,

It has been over a month since I last posted, and there are many adventures to write about the final leg of our trip. Unfortunately, I am in the process of moving and and will have to wait to post on the final trip. Rest assured there are many awesome photographs and fun stories, and they will be up in the next couple of weeks : )

Alecia

Quick update from the road

admin — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:59:29 +0000

We spent the 4th weekend at a great little forest service campsite “Bell Bay” on the southern end of Couer D’Alene in Idaho. In spite of a few annoying camping neighbors, we had a nice time just haning out at the campisite and the lake. We all took a little swim and were suprised at how quickly we sunk in the fresh water. The bouancy of salt water has really spoiled me!

Headed down to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons now, and trying to make it home in time for an old friends Bachellorette party : )

Alecia

Family portraits in Bellingham

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:43:09 +0000

I loved it up here so much I had to come back! I had the honor of taking more photographs of the beautiful Savannah and her family~

Fathers Day Family Portraits

Fathers Day Family Portraits ~ Silly face time!

Fathers Day Family Portraits

on the road again

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:44:37 +0000

Alecia's new haircut : )

Hi all! After 6 weeks in Seattle, it is time to hit the road again~ Many thanks to Shary and Ryan for their company, house, kitchen and most especially flush toilets : )

I am heading up to Bellingham Washington for a couple of days for some family portrait sessions, then….who knows? I really haven’t decided where we are headed next, only that we will be home in St. Louis towards the end of July. So, another 5 weeks on the road, I imagine we will hit Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas…maybe Colorado?

I’ll keep you posted….

Alecia, Daisy and Max

Mt Rainier, thanks for the memories~

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:07:18 +0000

Landscapes from Mt. Rainier

So, most of you know that the crazy idea to climb this big fat mountain came from my outdoorsey overachieving brother….and that I was crazy enough to sign up with him : ) Don’t get me wrong, I love the outdoors and getting dirty, and I am definitely an adrenaline junky! BUT, I do not love hauling my booty and my 40lb pack up big hills and mountains. What I did love;

All the amazing brother / sister time Ryan and I had.

The breathtaking views.

Meeting some really awesome people who were so passionate about what they do (thanks IMG guides!)

The sense of accomplishment that came from hauling 35lbs to a campgound on a glacier at over 11,000 ft. 5 months ago, I was struggling to haul myself (with no pack) up a 600 foot elevation gain hike in Hawaii : )

There are so many photographs that I would like to share. I will post a few of my favorites here, and then you can also access the gallery option to see over 100 of the favorites. To see the thumbnails larger, just click on a photograph. To get back to the post, just use your browser’s back button.

Hey!, I hauled my 4lb camera up there, you are going to see nearly every darn photograph I managed to take with it! The second part of the gallery is full of photographs from Ryan’s camera~

lovin' my goggles at Ingram Flats

Camp life and mountaineering

Camp life and mountaineering, IMG guide Mike

Camp life and mountaineering, Ingram Flats camp at 2am

Camp life and mountaineering, Ingram Flats camp

Camp life and mountaineering, Ingram Flats camp, Pad Thai at 11,000 feet, thanks Max!

Thats my ice ax, bitches! Camp life and mountaineering, Ingram Flats camp

Learning to self arrest. Camp life and mountaineering,

Burritos at 10,000+feet, thanks Karl!

working our way up the Muir snowfield

Camp life! sunrise at camp muir~

Camp life and moutaineering

Camp life and moutaineering, IMG guide Eric

Camp life and moutaineering, white out on the way to Muir

Camp life and moutaineering, Ryan up high

Sunburnt and tired, but still smilin', camp Muir

And now of course for my shout out to International Mountain Guides, IMG, and awesome guides Eric, Max, Karl and Mike! This is the first guided type expedition I have ever gone on, so I don’t have much room for comparison, but I’m pretty sure these guys are at the top of the pecking order. A few things that made them so awesome;

not only are they hardcore moutaineer dudes who know their stuff, they are also nice guys…they actually like people, and like helping people suceed in getting as high up the mountain as they can.

personalized attention…myself and several other expedition members were dealing with a variety of issues, and we all received kindness, patience and caring. Don’t get me wrong, no one was holding my hand! But, when I was cramping a bit, Max slowed down and worked through it with, talked me up to the camp. When John was having major knee issues, Max worked with him patiently the whole way down. Drove the van to pick him up at the bottom of the trail and had an ice pack ready. Mike (or the ‘fast and light f*&cker, as I like to call him), escorted a few people who couldn’t make it to camp Muir back down the mountain on Saturday. Then he got up Sunday morning and hauled booty up to Ingram Flats so there would be a higher guide to client ratio and more people would have the chance to attempt a summit. Eric was our lead guide, and really pushed the head men back in the office to have Mike come back up, in addition to always making decisions to a)keep us safe and b)get our asses as far up the mountain as possible.

Food! Not what I expected, for sure~ We had multiple hot, fresh meals, including burritos, pancakes and bacon, and pad thai. plenty of hot water for soup, coffee (I donated some 100%Kona to the cause), hot cocoa, etc.

Safety. Our lives really were in their hands, and I felt safe with them every step of the way. That is the biggest deal up there, trust me.

Oh, and they had some extra toilet paper when I ran out (hey, I pee a lot), thanks guys!

The Cascades and Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:36:28 +0000

While up North visiting my friends Thereasa and Wade, I spent a few nights at the National Forest and we took a beautiful scenic hike somewhere in the Cascades. I don’t know the name of the hike, so maybe if Thereasa comments here she can put the name up? Irregardless, it was a very pretty hike with stunning views, and it was great hiking with friends. Max fell in love with Thereasa’s daughters and pretty much abandoned me to hang with them : p

Hiking in the Cascades near Bellingham Washington

Mt. Rainier, here we come…please be gentle : )

admin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:02:54 +0000

It is Friday morning, June 5th. In about 24 hours we are going to start our climb up Mt. Rainier. The basic schedule is~~

Friday, 2-6pm, orientation and gear check. super carbaliciaous dinner and max hydration

Saturday, 9:30am, start to climb. The climb today is from Paradise @ 5400 feet to Camp Muir at 10,188 feet. We have a big dinner and camp out for the night

Sunday, morning time wake up, spent several hours on skills (crampons, ice axes, ropes and crevasse rescue). Climb approximately 1000 vertical feet to Ingram Flats, have an early dinner. Summit orientation talk and split into groups for the next day. In tent and sleeping by 7pm.

Monday, awake around 1am, breakfast and start to climb around 2am. We have another 3000-ish vertical feet today to make it to the summit, at 14,410. We should be summitting around 7-8am, hang at the top for a few hours, and then descend 10,000 feet back to Paradise.

Easy right? ; p

We’ll be back in Seattle on Tuesday to enjoy a fabulous celebration meal with lots of wine! Here is a photograph I took 2 weeks ago on a reconnaissance mission to the mountain. Wish me luck!!!

A climber contemplates the summit of Rainier

Bellingham Belles; Maci, Mia, Savannah + 1 mom, 2 horses and a goat

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:32:01 +0000

So, one of the best parts about this trip is the people I have met along the way. I met Thereasa and Wade while hiking the Grand Canyon, and ended up sharing a campsite, wine and cards with them down at the bottom of the canyon.

For a little RnR before the big Rainier climb this weekend, I drove a few hours north of Seattle to visit them in their hometown of Bellingham WA. Thereasa didn’t ask me to take any portraits, but a quick glance at her beautiful daughters and the acres of buttercup fields and I couldn’t help myself! In exchange she cut and colored my hair (long overdue after 3 months!) and provided food, lodging, booze, coffee and good company for me and the doggies for a few nights.

We didn’t cover a ton of locations although the possibilities on her property and the surrounding area are virtually limitless. With 3 girls, 2 horses and a goat to photograph, I kept it as simple as possible. When you see how beautiful the girls’ smiles are, you will know how much fun I had photographing them.

Maci and Mia are Thereasa’s daughters, and Savannah is their cousin. I talked Savannah’s mom Tammy into getting in a few of the photographs. Tammy loved these so much she wants me to come back up after my Rainier climb and do a whole family session for them. You know I am excited to have a great excuse to come back up to this beautful part of the country.

All natural light, all 70-200L, canon 5D.

Maci, Mia and Savannah in Bellingham Washington, with buttercups

Maci, Mia and Savannah in Bellingham Washington, with buttercups

Maci, Mia and Savannah in Bellingham Washington, with buttercups

I’m in Washington, through June 15th! 5000 miles down, ??? to go~

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:44:33 +0000

We are in Seattle, a little chilly in the rain, but making it through. My brother and I have about 3 weeks left to train for the climb up Mt. Rainier, and are going into the final push together. The Scotty is parked in Shary and Ryan’s driveway and it has been pretty nice having hot showers and flush toilets for the last 10 days! Not to mention a refridgerator and full kitchen : ) Oh, and the company has been pretty nice too ; p

Haven’t taken too many photographs since we have been here, as the rain makes me a little camera shy~

But, I would LOVE to work a bit while I’m here! If you or anyone you know in the Washtington and / or Oregon area needs any type of wedding or portrait photography, please have them get ahold of me : )

Map 4 of our road trip!!

And here is a map of our crazy progress so far, over 5000 miles!