This past weekend, our family returned from our summer trip. As the girls continue to get older, we have made a great effort to travel as much as we can. Generally, we try to take one larger trip each year. This year, Sarah chose to go to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. We invited my parents to come with us and thankfully they decided to join. We stayed west of Gatlinburg at a private camp ground. During our trip, we did several hikes, took a two hour easy white water rafting trip, drove through Cades Cove, and drove through the mountains down to North Carolina. The trip was awesome and we all had an amazing time. As with just about every trip we have taken, I feel like we barely scratch the surface of the possibilities things to do by the end of our trip. I feel like we leave hiking trails unexplored, activities on the table, and sights unseen. This trip, yet again, confirms my love to explore as much as possible. This country, not even considering the world, is a truly amazing place and needs to be explored and seen. There are so many places and things I want to do and see before I die. I can't wait to see what is next!
Over the past few years, my love for photography has grown. I think a part of it is my love of adventures and telling a story of my adventures. They say an individual photograph is the pause button to life and as much as I look forward to my next adventure, its neat to capture a moment in time. I'll admit, photographs never do the actual scenery justice. You can never truly capture the 360 degree view accompanied with the sounds and smells all along with feeling of the mountain air blowing in your face or the ocean breeze blowing though your hair. You just can replicate that. But, with the right angle and lighting, a great photo is generally the next best thing. Some pictures can transplant you to a different place. Maybe it can remind you of simpler times, maybe a great memory, or even share a memory with someone who is no longer with you. Photographs are amazing in that sense, and that's probably what I love about photography. I think if tomorrow, someone offered me the opportunity to travel the county or even the world to hike and explore this amazing planet to take photographs, I'd jump at the opportunity, no questions asked.
Anyway, below are 60-some pictures, all but 4 were taken with my Canon EOS Rebel T6. The last four were taken with my iPhone7. I am still learning to truly get the most out of my camera, as I've only been using it for a few months now. The biggest takeaways for me from this trip were that I need a better tripod, and taking a picture is easy, but taking a good picture is damn tough and takes time, knowledge, and creativity. So take a look and let me know what ones are your favorites. Obviously, some of my favorites are because of the people in them, not necessarily the scenery or the artistic value, but these are the ones that stuck out of the nearly 1,000 pictures taken....
