Adventures Across the Western USA

And thus concludes another road trip. 

From snow-covered mountain top resort towns to a reunion in Vegas to winding remote passes and an alien Trump on the outskirts of Area 51 ... this latest round of travel shoots covered over 7000 km through Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington.

 

I was light on the sneak peeks this time largely due to a lack of downtime, but I can assure you there will be a lot of highlights ahead. As always, I appreciated the recommendations and concerns over the last few weeks. Everything was totally fine - albeit a lot quieter than usual. 

Stay tuned for new previews soon. 

It's good to be home.

Seven Magic Mountains Outside of Las Vegas, Nevada

A few visuals from Seven Magic Mountains outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Byodo-In Temple in Oahu, Hawaii

Located near the eastern shore of Oahu in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, the Byodo-In Temple in Hawaii is a non-denomination shrine and half-sized replica of the Byodo-In Buddhist Temple found in Kyoto, Japan. It was constructed in 1968 to commemorate the centennial of the first Japanese immigrants to come to Hawaii.

During my road trip around Oahu, I stopped at the Byodo-In Temple to tour the lush gardens. Massive koi ponds surround the temple, and a number of onlookers tossed fish food into the ponds stirring the koi into a frenzy. The scenery, architecture, and peacefulness of the surroundings made exploring the Byodo-In Temple a really memorable experience. 

Hawaii, a Bentley, and a Magazine Cover

Back in the early days of my professional travel shoots (once it became a full-time gig) I felt like I was making up for lost time. This resulted in some questionable business decisions.

Jump cut. Oahu, Hawaii.

So much potential. I have a laundry list of locations I plan on documenting across the entire island. This is going to be amazing. But you know what would make it even better? Keeping it low key in an incredibly ostentatious Bentley Continental GTC.

I was watching a lot of Top Gear at the time. I could already picture the edits. I got in touch with a luxury dealership in Honolulu and worked out the details for my shoot. 

Now, at the time, I knew I'd have to sell a lot of the content just to cover my overhead and that, frankly, I was doing this first and foremost to have a story to tell.

I sold a few images after that trip, but not nearly enough to turn a profit on the shoot. Not exactly surprising.

Two years pass.

I have multiple galleries from the Oahu shoot online collecting casual hits. Out of the blue, I get a message about licensing from a marketing firm in Australia.

We chat. We hit it off. The idea expands. Another month passes.

I get an email notifying me that my Oahu shoot has turned into a multi page spread and that they'd like to offer me the cover story for the winter edition of the Qantas / Jetstar in-flight magazine. Highlights of that little road trip I took is now going to be in every seatback in Oceania.

Needless to say, the shoot finally turned a profit.