Scotland

Doing something atypical and posting something new.  I got married October 2017 to my beautiful wife Anna in Michigan and afterwards we took a 2 week journey to Scotland and Ireland for our honeymoon.  It was definitely a strange and wonderful feeling being on the other side of the camera and having the opportunity to enjoy my own wedding for the first time after photographing 200 plus weddings.  Even though it rained, our wedding was just perfect because we got to spend our day with our closest friends and families.  Another crazy thing we did was that we decided to bring our wedding clothes with us on our honeymoon, because, why not?  I mean, we were never going to wear those again and Anna loved her dress so why not use Scotland and Ireland as our playground?  We packed them along and changed into our wedding clothes whenever we felt like there was an opportunity for a great picture.  It was kind of crazy lugging around wedding clothes, but fortunately ours were so light and easy to change into that it wasn’t a problem.  It was so nice to have the freedom to switch our costume back and forth in our little rent-a-car.  A lot of folks thought we were kind-of crazy as we changed on the side of the road in freezing, wet, and windy weather.  I’m so glad we took these photos, and hopefully it catches on and more people try it.  Why spend all that money on those clothes and have it just sit there for the rest of your life.

Not only was our trip a great experience full of wonderfully captured memories, but we learned so much about Scotland, Ireland, and traveling in general. We are now educated more on their amazing rich history, driving on the other side of the road, longitude & latitude coordinates (because with unnamed road thats the only way to find some locations), and so much more! Here’s a few more detailed things we learned to do better next time we travel overseas, and maybe they will help you as well.

–First, we recommend getting an actual physical map! GPS doesn’t always work,  roads get closed, and it makes it so much easier to find new unplanned sites to see.  Fortunately, Anna had us pull over and get one right away or we may have never found out how to get to our first home after our GPS failed to reroute us due to a road closure.  This still resulted in a 40-60 min detour, and that later became a trend in all the remote places we traveled, but we were now prepared.  Plus we now had a souvenir marked with all our little stops and adventures.   We loved our good old-fashioned map

— Second, get an international sim card!  We rarely used our phone but had this in case of emergencies and as a third backup to the GPS and roadmap.  It worked great and we found it at a gas station for less than $20.  It wasn’t perfect.  We were so remote at times we didn’t get reception, but it did the job and it works with all phone models.  Just an easy swap and an  internet login and we were good to go.

–Third, was pack for emergencies.  We packed extra food and clothes on all our daily excursions just in case we got stranded or lost.  It can get quite cold, and we were so remote and at times we were hours away from help.

–Fourth, was staying in Airbnb’s!  Simply, this helped us save a lot of money and the owners usually gave us insider info about what the best sights and foods were.  Over half of our travel destinations were referrals from locals and owners of where we stayed.  On our last night in Edinburgh, the owner of the garden studio we stayed in invited us for dinner in their castle that dated back to the 15th or 16th century. We ate with his English friends who were there on holiday.  We got to talk about castles, politics, and life in the States.  After dinner their son played the bagpipes for us. It was pretty amazing and so unreal.

Since I get asked what I use a lot here’s what I took with me on our honeymoon.

Pentax 67II w/ 105mm

Pentax 645 NII w/ 75mm

Nikon F100 w/ 35mm & 50mm

Lot and lots of film.  Mostly Kodak and Fuji stocks.  As you can see from above I shoot a lot film!  I shoot this because even with the latest and greatest cameras that are coming out every month, in my opinion, film by far, still has the look and colors I love and you can’t simply replicate it.  There’s nothing like it and I love how much it slows me down to focus on my shots.

In the end this trip made me realize that in difficult situations my wife and I work really well together to find solutions, and it was an amazing bonding experiences with my best friend!  I can’t wait for more adventures, and please message me if you guys have any questions about traveling or photography!