Southwest Road Trip

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As I have said I like to keep my blog very wedding-centric, but this needs to be posted.  The first week & a half of June, my friend Owen and I took a trip to the Southwest.  We started in Vegas, rented a convertible, and drove. 700 miles in 9 days.  First stop was the Grand Canyon, followed by Page, Arizona, then to Zion National Park and then back to Vegas.  The trip was seriously unbelievable.  We hiked something like 40 miles, camped out, risked our lives for insane views more than once, and took a ton of photos.  I'm going to go into more detail further down the post about specific locations, if you feel like skipping those parts and just looking at photos, feel free.  So, here are some of my favorite photos, and believe me, there are a TON more. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a coffee table book from these.  So, folks, do yourself a favor, take a week or two, grab a friend & take a road trip.

As I said, first stop was the Grand Canyon, as well as some photos along the way.  One of those things you just have to see at least once in your life.

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From there We drove a couple hours to Page Arizona, and the Lake Powell area.  A couple things I needed to see were the slot Canyons in Page, and Horseshoe Bend just outside of town.RT 0022RT 0045

I wanted to include the following behind the scenes photo.  This is where I had my tripod set up.  You see it's only a few inches from the edge, just over that edge is 1000 ft straight down.  One of the scariest photos I have ever taken... well it was, till I got to Zion

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Next we drove a few more hours to Zion National Park, which is the most impressive place I have ever been in my life.  I could see myself making a yearly pilgrimage to there... it's that amazing.  The photos do not do it justice.

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The following set is from when we hiked to a place called Angel's Landing.  It's that peak at the left of the photo.  It is considered one of the 7 craziest hikes on the planet. 6 people have died attempting this hike in the last 10 years. There are parts where the trail is only a few feet wide and it's a 1480 ft drop straight down on either side (that's higher than the Empire State Building for reference) .  And there are no fences.  There are some chains you can hold onto, but they are on the non-certain death side of the trail.  I included a couple iphone photos from this hike, because I was not going to stop to take my camera out of my backpack at those spots.

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This is the view from the top.  Totally worth it.

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Here's one of the iphone photos on our way down. Gives you an idea of what the trail was likeRT 0079And I couldn't resist a victory photo at the end next to the warning sign.RT 0078

After Angel's Landing, we had to go check out a place called The Narrows.  You basically just hike through the Virgin River between the canyon walls.  A good portion of this hike you are hiking thigh deep IN the river.

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So that was Zion, hopefully I can make it back soon.  On the way back to Vegas, we stopped at Valley of Fire state park.  we didn't spend much time there because it was 107 degrees and we were tired.

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So that was the trip.  Again, I highly recommend you get out and do something like this too.  Hope you enjoyed.  Back to weddings for the next post.

Linda & Doug - Cedar Lakes Estate Wedding

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I know I have said this before, but my clients have a knack for choosing breath taking locations to get married.  Linda & Doug were no exception to this.  It's even more impressive considering they both live in California.  When the bride & groom travel 3000 miles for their wedding, you know people are definitely going to be coming from all over the world for their wedding.  And not a single person was disappointed, it was an amazing wedding all around.  There only two facial expressions I saw that day, a huge grin, or tears of joy.

Enjoy!

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Dave & Nicole - Wedding at the Ryland Inn

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Dave & Nicole literally could not be more awesome.  Every interaction I have had with them has been an absolute blast. The other great thing ab out Dave & Nicole is they did not let the crummy weather on their wedding day bring them down.  They just embraced it and had one of the best weddings I've ever been to.  So let that be a lesson to everyone, don't let the rain bring you down, just roll with it and enjoy the hell out of the day.  Strap in, this is an epic wedding.

Enjoy!

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Robyn & Steve - Liberty House at Kean University Wedding

Robyn and Steve had no back up plan really in case there was rain, ceremony was planned for outside, all photo opportunities were outside, reception was in a tent.  So rain would be a terrible thing to see in the forecast.  So, of course, it rained on their wedding day.  We managed to find a spot for the first look inside, during a CRAZY downpour.  As soon as that was done, what happened?  The skies cleared and the weather remained precipitation free for the rest of the day.   Now aside from taking all of this in stride, Robyn and Steve know how to throw one hell of a party.  From Steve's brother singing the most absurdly awesome rendition of "I'm the one that wants to be with you" by famed 80's hair band, Mr. Big. to a dance floor that ranks up there as one of the craziest I have ever seen.  Robyn & Steve's wedding was the definition of awesome.

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Rachel & Matt - Moorestown Community House Wedding

Matt & Rachel are exactly what I hope for in clients, just super fun and laid back.  Their wedding was a direct reflection of that.  One of things I love about shooting weddings is that they are all different, It's not often we get to shoot a Chinese Tea Ceremony in the morning, and have to navigate giant ladders through a reception room just to set up lights, but we thrive on that.  It's not hard to see that everyone had an amazing time at Rachel & Matt's wedding.

Enjoy

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