Last minute trip to Europe!

Planning a last minute weekend trip to Europe for next weekend! Stay tuned for photos, details, advice, and a packing list!

Day 7, Norway, Reine to Svolvaer

3:15am wake up call hoping for Aurora. It was cloudy but we had high hopes that the clouds would clear enough for us to see Aurora, so we ventured out to Hamnoy to try and photograph the Toppoy mountain. Unfortunately for us, the clouds never cleared and a stormy, moody sky with mountain and water ended up being out shot. At this point, it was almost 6 am and we were freezing (luckily I have my north face long down coat that's the equivalent to wearing a sleeping bag, so only my toes and fingers were numb!) so we got into the car and drove back to Reine, about ten minutes, to see if things would light up a bit for sunrise. We stood on the bridge in Reine for a couple of hours and saw a tiny bit of pink on the horizon, but nothing on the clouds for us! We have not had any good sunrises or sunsets thus far!

We had to check out of our cabin today, so we all decided we needed a quick nap first, then packed and then got on our way. We took our time heading up north and explored various spots along the way and also scouted a few locations for Aurora which we knew would be strong tonight. It took us about 4.5 hours to get north and when we arrived, our hotel was situated on the water with gorgeous mountains surrounding it. None of us knew what to expect up north and it is more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. Ever turn we had to stop and our jaws just dropped. One more beautiful scene after the next. It's hard to fully describe but if you can picture huge fjords, massive lakes and waterways, bridges, trees, and happy people, then that would be my description of Norway.

Our cabin was super cute and large with a downstairs of a kitchen and living room and upstairs two bedrooms, with an extremely steep staircase! We went to dinner in the main lodge and our waiter was great. He was chatty and said that he had to moved to Norway for the fish and that he loved fish and fishing and had a boat that was in Sweden with his girlfriend and that he could eat fish seven days a week. We had fish. Lol. There is literally no other option! I am so over fish right now. The first meal I want when I get home is a salad!

Toward the end of our meal, while watching the sunset as we were eating (it was perfectly clear skies, so a beautiful sunset but not good for photos since there were no clouds), Aaron went to check if the Aurora had started. Sure enough, it had! Yippee! So we paid for our dinner, ran out the door, grabbed our gear and started shooting. We drove around and photographed many spots up to over an hour away until 2am. It started to die down by then, but we had some good shots and were happy so we made the trek back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours!

Iceland Day 2, waterfall cave!

The main and only reason we are in Iceland this year is to go to the waterfall cave. We went the first year we came to the northern lights cave and crystal cave, but not to this one. This was a private guided tour to the cave. We had a quick breakfast at our hotel, yogurt and granola for me, wrapped up some bread for later snacks and off we went to the ice lagoon to meet our guide and our other photographer friends who had actually made it to the lagoon after the roads had reopened. A quick exploring around and a few photos of sunrise were nice to get our fingers warm since it's the first time I've taken out my camera since we've been here. The biggest difference that I have noticed is the extreme number of people and tourists who are now here. It is crazy and makes it not as pristine and quiet. It's unfortunate because there is so much beauty here and wonderful for people to be able to see and explore but respectfully. One of my biggest pet peeves is rude tourists. Ok, rant over. Still beautiful, just not as pristinely quiet. We found our guide, Stephan, in a huge 4x4 red monster truck and the three of us plus our three photo friends, jumped in to the truck. And when I say jump in, I literally mean jump. At one point during the journey out to the cave, I had to jump out of the truck, at least 5 feet to get out. Well the journey was an adventure in itself. Iceland is having the warmest winter in a very long time. The blizzard we drove in yesterday was their first big winter storm. There was a lot of snow on the ground and to get out to the caves, we had to let air pressure out of our tires, about 6lbs, and go on a dirt, snow, sort of road up and down hills, over rivers, if there were woods, I would write that right now too, and on lots of ice. We ended up getting stuck multiple times. The first time was at the bottom of a steep hill at a river crossing and we just sunk in. Everyone got out except for me to take photos and Stephan got the shovel to dig out the front tires. My hiking boots are not waterproof (and I had already gotten them soaked earlier taking some photos so my socks and feet were wet and cold to begin the day). As everyone jumped out of the truck a few of the guys sunk in so far they got their boots wet. Everyone else had waterproof boots and crampons, except for me. After about 15 minutes and several tries, we finally got loose. We all thought it would be a good idea for the guys outside still to walk across the ice above the river to take some photos of the truck driving through, so Joe started to walk across and within a matter of seconds, he had stepped right through the ice and his next step totally in the water, almost waist deep and he tried clambering and crawling to get to the other side without getting his camera wet. He was successful and we all laughed but felt really badly for him because now he was soaked! We made it past that point and got stuck again in super deep awkward snow on our side so at this point, I jumped out to take some photos. All was good and a few minutes later of shoveling, we were unstuck! It took us about 2.5 hours to get out to the sign where we parked the truck. Stephan gave us harnesses and rope lines with carabiners, ice climbing crampons, and helmets with headlights. We were ready. The hike began in a rocky snow field and continued out towards the glacier gaining a little bit of elevation. When we made it to the glacier, we flew the drone for a bit over it as the light was better then rather than later in the day. Then the hike uphill began and we needed to put our helmet on and our crampons (though everyone else had been wearing their smaller crampons). Stephan taught us the trick for clicking our carabiners onto the rope line (so we didn't fall off the icy cliff), using one hand only to switch carabiners from one rope to another and putting our carabiners on right side and backwards to catch us correctly. I think we were all a bit nervous and excited at this point. Up we went until we got to the top of the hill just before descent into the cave, where we had to stop as the line was so buried in snow we couldn't continue. Stephan decided to take us down one by one because it would have taken him too long to dig out the line. After the first person went down he decided that we were all outdoorsy and could make it down without help. Down we went. The snow helped make nice steps down. The cave beckoned us and there were two caves this year there which made it really neat.
It took us 3.5 hours to get out there. We had about 1.5 hours to explore the cave and take some photos. The blue ice is magical and I love the detail shots from inside the cave. Water rushing through the cave was loud but nice. Of course, I would have liked to get some photos from the water, but no water shots for me without my snow boots! The time went by quickly and soon it was time to head back. We were in the cave all by ourselves the entire time. We didn't see anyone else the whole day. A long hike out and a fun drive out where at the end we had to blow the tires back up and that took 15 minutes so I got out and took some photos! By the time we got back to the lagoon, it was almost 5! We thought we would be back at 1! It was a great day! We said goodbye to our friends and drove back to Vik to spend the night as we would be three hours closer to the airport. It started snowing just as we left and more snowy, windy roads were in store for us for the next few hours. We made it safely around 8:30 and we knew that restaurants stop serving at 9, so we checked in and quickly went in search of some food. Aarons cousin was doing a photo workshop here and he happened to be at a restaurant nearby so we went there to say hi and see if we could eat. We said hi, but the place was so busy they couldn't accommodate us! We quickly googled if there was anything else in the town and luckily there was one more restaurant. We went there and had pizza and grill chicken pasta. Pretty good! Then it was shower in the shared bathroom, which is gross, and bedtime.

Iceland & Norway

Adventure awaits starting tomorrow!! Excited to be traveling back to Iceland for a few days and then a week in Norway. I've wanted to explore the Lofoten region for many years now, so i'm looking forward to finally getting there. I am traveling with two cohorts on this photo excursion, but the first leg starts tomorrow on a flight into Reykavik by myself on an airline I have never flown before! My first choice is always Delta for flights, but they were 4 times the cost for this one and with 7 flights for this trip, things add up quickly!

Stay tuned as I will be updating this as often as possible, wifi permitting!

Map of the eastern US and Iceland and Norway to get your bearings!

Fall in Vermont

The fall is one of my favorite times of year to photograph. The changing colors of the leaves, the temperature, the warm light from sunrise to sunset, all make for wonderful photographs. Plus, it's a great time to be outside, get some fresh air and some sunshine before it's time to button up and not have our skin feel the sun for a few months!

One of the things that I missed most about living out west for so long was the fall time on the east coast! Now that i'm living back on the east coast, it's such a joy to be able to watch all of the reds, oranges and yellows change before my eyes. I was able to take advantage of peak color this year by heading up to Vermont for the weekend. A friend of ours let us stay in his cabin for the weekend near Stratton, Vermont. We made it just in time too. Saturday was perfect peak colors and by Sunday things were starting to turn brown and fall off the trees. Here are a few photos from the trip and more will be posted on my website in the coming weeks.

A weekend in the Hamptons

For the first time ever, I spent a weekend in the Hamptons! Yes, being a thirty-something year old and living across the sound for most of my life, my family never ventured there. We weren't really the 'type,' preferring to go to the Cape or to Maine during the summers. When I was asked to do a lifestyle photography shoot spending the weekend photographing a family who owned a home in the Hamptons, I was not going to turn that down. I enjoy spending time with a family for extended periods of time and creating a comfortable setting where the family can just be themselves and can almost ignore the fact that I am there taking photographs.

The view from the home

I decided to drive out the whole way as I was dropping my parents off at the airport very early in the morning and it was easier than heading back home and taking the ferry across. 4 hours later, I arrived at a beautiful home! Spent a while exploring, checking out great photo shoot locations and enjoying the view. Went to a farmer's market, farmer's stand and took in the gigantic homes.

The beach right around the corner

awesome fresh asparagus!

My boyfriend was also invited out, which was very sweet of my clients, and so he was able to spend some time relaxing and enjoying the Hamptons for his first time too. We had most of the afternoon on Sunday to explore more of the area and drove all around, had a late lunch and relaxed on the beach. He booked us a Sunday evening ferry back to CT right during sunset which may have been one of the most romantic things anyone has ever done with me. (Well done).

Exploring... also our first selfie together ever (i think?!)

You could rent this for $250k a week

The Hamptons were beautiful and I would be happy doing more lifestyle photo shoots out there!

A few trips later!

Sometimes we all go through periods of dull moments and periods of extreme creativity. We are artists, thinkers, creatives; this is part of our process.

I have had this blog post open for days now with those first two sentences written. Apparently, in the middle of writing this post, I lost that creativity for a little bit and couldn't figure out what to write. I find it challenging to keep up with blogging as I really do not think people want to know my whereabouts on a daily basis or how many miles I've ran, sweat I've created, poops I've made and so forth. Really?! You do not want to know all of that information.

Seeing that it is almost June, I have gone on a few trips since my last post about Iceland. Vegas was right after Iceland, for a photography conference, which is always fun. Then Utah for a few weeks of work and skiing, and Florida for a week or so. Most recently was a quick trip up to Maine for the weekend to open up the house. If you aren't already following me on Instagram, feel free to do so and then you'll get more up to date photos of my locations! :) @photographybyrs

Awesome photographers in Vegas!

Utah!

My favorite place on earth, Alta.

Florida!

Maine

Maine lobstering!

I'm trying to figure out summer trips at the moment, so if anyone has some ideas, let me know! I'm open to suggestions and travel partners!