Travel Essentials | A travel post

Let me preface this by saying I'm not an experienced traveler. I basically pack by seeing how much I can fit in one bag and pray its under 50 pounds. 
That being said, we did come across some tips and tricks for traveling in Italy that we want to share! 

1. SIM card from the country your traveling in. Don't spend extra money putting your current plan on roaming or a special international plan. We traveled for 2 weeks with essentially unlimited data for 70 euro. 

2. You don't reallyyyyy need the calling plan if you have data. You can download world phone apps for significantly cheaper that allow you to call. The only reason we ended up calling anyone was for our airbnb and to make a few reservations.  

3. Sleep mask.  This was CRUCIAL on our flight to Italy since it was overnight. After dinner we finished our movies and let sleep overtake us. It had been a busy couple of days and it wasn't hard to fall asleep. 

4.  Google Translate or other translator app/book.  We used this a lot. We got somewhat proficient at ordering food. and kept on trying even when the waiter would respond back in English. It felt very important to us to speak in as much Italian as possible.

5. Camera. We obviously had our toys, but you don't need anything as intense as ours. But have a camera. Someone gave us beautiful advice before we left, take lots of photos of one another. We actually don't have many photos together (selfies don't count) but we  have lots of each other. 

6.  Good walking shoes. We walked a total of 70 miles while in Italy. Some days we did 8 miles. That is a lot of walking and you want to make sure your feet are feeling good! I wore a pair of flat, knee high boots that went with ever outfit I brought. 

7.  To have a bag with wheels or not. So this depends on where you're going. I naively didn't think about the copious cobble stone streets of Italy. All over Italy.  I brought a  (Read- 2) rolling suitcases. Because I was not going to carry anything over 20 pounds on my back and lets be honest we all know my bag was pushing 40 pounds.  BUT, I'm not sure I would do it differently. Just think about how frustrated you will be dragging your bag up a giant hill side in Capri. I mean you might not be mad at all. But just consider how you're getting your luggage around. 

8. My last tip is an important one and something we did not account for well. Transportation to and from the different places you are staying. Cabs get expensive. And the drivers know you are not natives. Hence, you get charged more. Its a fact. It happens. We just assumed it wouldn't be a big deal to get from all these different places and we had a jam packed travel schedule. But the truth of the matter, is that we ended up canceling part of our trip and rerouting back to Rome because we were so tired of cabs and them ripping us off. We recommend staying no fewer than 3 nights at one place. Otherwise you just end up lugging your aforementioned luggage up a cliff side in Capri, while its raining and you are not a happy camper. But I digress. 

9. I lied. That was not my last tip. Instead of lugging around your regular face wash, I highly recommend Cetaphil's face wipes. It took my make-up off so easily and it also has a toner built in. So I didn't need to bring 2 products. Plus it packs brilliantly and I didn't have to worry about leaks! 

Again, I'm not a travel expert, but these were a few little tips we wanted to share about traveling. Check back soon for each different installments of our trip!

What are your favorite travel tips?

N+J | Proposal

How do I even start this post. Its going to be long, so be forewarned. Let's just start at the beginning. 
I've known Natalie since I started PT school. Our friendship is one of those non-traditional ones, but lets just say I'm so thankful for how the stars aligned and that she is one of my most dear friends! 
At some point during school, she started "talking to" this guy who was in her class. That guy was Josh. Even in the early days, it was easy to see how smitten they were with one another. 
Fast forward a year, and they moved into a place right down the street from us. I was thrilled. Our Thursday night Grey's Anatomy dates could still continue! 
Fast forward a few months, and Natalie was telling me they had looked at rings. THIS WAS BIG. Being the photographer I am, I immediately reached out to Josh (without Natalie knowing) and said when the time comes, if its something he would want, I would be honored to shoot his proposal. 
Fast forward a few more months and I got a message from Josh asking me to go get Natalie's ring finger sized. I concocted this elaborate scheme to make that happen (something involving looking at rehearsal dinner dresses for  me and getting my ring cleaned).  I couldn't have her getting suspicious. 
Fast forward 2 more months, to about 2 weeks ago. I got a text from Josh saying, "Are you free next Friday or Saturday?" To which I replied, "IS THIS WHAT I THINK THIS IS??!!" And thus we started planning. 
Josh wanted to propose on Federal Hill in Baltimore. Their relationship started in Baltimore, so it was a perfect place to propose. The cover story was that Natalie was going to be my model as I took some more pictures of my portfolio and then we were going to do a girls dinner! Josh went out of town, conveniently to not get back until late after our pictures were done so she wouldn't suspect anything. 
Meanwhile, I had a card from him to give to her (at a specific time that he was to let me know), at which point he was to come out from where he was hiding and propose. It was really hard to stall, because I knew what was coming. The problem is Fed Hill is all open. Meaning I had no idea where he was hiding exactly, but I didn't want Natalie to accidentally see him before she was supposed to! So I kept checking my phone, and making her face the harbor (so her back was to the rest of Fed Hill) for some "wide dramatic shots". I think she got a little suspicious at that point. Finally I got the okay, and the rest is history.
The pictures speak for themselves (Can you figure out when she starts to put everything together and when she sees Josh?). It was a beautiful moment, and I'm so touched that I could be part of it. Natalie + Josh, I'm so thrilled for you, love you guys and I can't wait to watch you embark on this adventure together! Best wishes and many congratulations!! 

Abby | Senior Portraits

Long before I was a "photographer" my sisters were my subjects. I'm happy to report that they still trust me, although my work has grown greatly! My sister, Abby, is graduating from the University of Maryland, College Park in a few short weeks. Her next step is nursing school (A whole family of medical practitioners I tell ya) for which I know she will be just as successful, if not more. These are some of the images from her Senior Session!

Abby has a big heart which will translate well for all her future patients. I'm just glad she decided to go the route she did. When she was little she considered being a grocery store clerk. Not that this isn't an important profession, but Abby thought she got to keep all the money in her cash register. So had she gone the grocery store route, she maybe would have ended in jail. I DIGRESS. 

I'm so proud of all your hard work, Abs. It's certainly been a long 4 years. Nursing school will be hard too, but I know you are prepared for it! Enjoy this time, celebrate all your accomplishments! 

And remember...

"Oh the places you will go..."

Bryce's Birthday | Personal

Happy Birthday to the one whom I chose to do life with. 

As you wrote on my birthday card, for the first birthday we celebrated together, "You are half way to 40!" Well my eloquently spoken love, you are 3 years from  30! 
You must have noticed when you opened your present (sheets, because even though we have 3  sets, you really wanted the extra soft ones we saw at Target), that there was no card. This is your card. 

Adventure. 

This word seems to make a occurrence quite frequently in the 5.5 years we have been together. Before we started dating, I knew, life with you would never be boring. It would be an adventure. We have since gone on countless adventures (to Wegmans on a Sunday morning-which might be the scariest of them all, to hikes up a 14'er in Colorado at which I cried when we got to the top-I swear it was just the lack of oxygen playing with my emotions, or the time in Yosemite when you asked me if I wanted to hike down the way we came or go another way, to which I replied, "Well does it keep going up, or does it come down?" You know how that went. OH and what about the Precipice hike in Acadia. I will say no more. You know what you did.)  

These BIG adventures are just a part of our daily adventures (Especially Wegmans.) When you proposed to me, one of the things you said, was that you wanted to go on adventures together, always. All our adventures start the same way, me waking up next to you (and usually grumbling for some coffee) and typically me asking what the weather will be so I can dress accordingly (also me usually refusing to wear my hiking boots if we are hiking, in favor of athletic shoes).  We gather up our cameras, maps (who am I kidding, you type some address into Google Maps and I'm supposed to navigate but I NEVER do-sorry about that) and off we go. 

"Oh darling, let's be adventurers." 

This quote has had a special place my heart, because I feel like it relates to us so well. 

You have made me an adventurer. Both by being in a relationship with you, and by dragging, I mean hiking with me up mountains. I love it all. Even when I don't (and by don't meaning I'm wildly throwing clothes out of my bag in the middle of the San Fran airport, rushing to make my bag 50 lbs, cursing you for having to bring so much gear, or when I have been duped into the most recent hike, that's "so not a big hike at all").

I love doing life with you, the whole damn adventure of it all. I love that your heart yearns for something bigger, something wilder, something mildly chaotic and most definitely exciting (and something that ideally contains doughnuts, because doughnuts.) 

Happy birthday to my always adventurous boy. May this year be full of adventures. 

The importance of printing pictures | Personal

It's extremely fortunate that we live in the technical era that we do. I'm amazed how easy it is to find out information about anything. Want to research your next computer option? 500 reviews in the time it takes to hit ENTER. Want to know more about the best kept secrets of Italy? Easy. 

As a digital photographer, I love that as fast as I can get my images edited, I can share them with a client. Sometimes when I'm really excited about a shoot I'll stay up really late and edit after the shoot so that when they wake up the next morning their pictures are waiting. (Read: I don't do this very often, and it's always a surprise to clients. I never tell them that's what the turn around is.) That's the passion I have for my work. I love every step of the process, and I get genuinely excited to hand over images! 

That being said, I believe the profession as a whole doesn't print their work enough. Clients don't print images enough. Anyone with an iphone certainly doesn't print. But why? Expense can't be a good enough reason. Costco sells 4x6 prints for 13 cents! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! SO cheap. (We can delve into the best printers another day) There is simply nothing like having an actual picture in your hand. Storing them in a box, framing them, or shoot even using them as a book mark. They serve as this wonderful reminder of the beauty all around us. Otherwise they stay trapped in a file on our computer, in albums on Facebook, or best as a background on our computer. 

I beg you. Print your pictures. They are little treasure boxes of memories.