Emily and I are pretty lucky in our jobs.... its a rare thing when what you do for a living is also your key passion and creative outlet in life. It means we take every opportunity to go out and shoot whenever we can.

Like this morning. I love landscape photography, it's one of the ways I like to relax. So since we had an early morning meeting on the Gold Coast anyway (resulting in some exiting news which we hope to be able to talk about soon!!), we set off really early to beat the traffic and to catch the sunrise at Snapper Rocks.

These are some of the shots I took and we even made a little video about it too which we will get up on the facebook as quickly as we can.

For the technical among you, I set up two cameras, at each location to allow me to capture two slightly different looks in the short space of time we had to capture the sun behind a narrow cloud bank.

One was the trusty Canon 5d MKIV with a 16-35mm zoom set at 16mm and shooting fast shutter speeds to capture every splash and peak of every wave. The other was my beloved Pentax 645Z medium format camera with a 35mm lens and a 10 stop Neutral Density filter which blocks a load of light and lets me shoot at really slow shutter speeds while pointing straight at the sun (up around 2 minute exposures this morning). This has the affect of turning the incoming surf into a wonderful milky misty spray.

See what you think.

Andy

It's been over a month since returning from my trip around Europe with my partner Corey and WOW has that month flown! We've been run off our feet at the LP HQ but loving being busy coming back from holidays.

I wanted to share with you all some of the amazing memories I captured along my journey and some of the reasons why I loved each place. If you're thinking about going to Europe you have to check this out!

Ireland

We spent our first day in Dublin, visiting the Guinness Storehouse, pouring a perfect pint, exploring the alleyways of the Temple Bar area before hiring a car and ventured out to countryside Cavan to my Nana's house. 93 years of age and still the most humorous, loving and amazing woman. It was an amazing time seeing family (Dad being one of 7 so the family is large) and made the 3 hour trip to Giants Causeway to experience the beauty of this natural wonder, 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. Always of favourite of mine is the beautiful Cabra Castle and we couldn't leave Ireland without having a true Irish breakfast with my family!

Berlin

Berlin was such a historical, beautiful, creative and art filled city! This was one of our favourite places that we visited. We enjoyed great food including pork knuckle, curry wurst and schnitzels, we consumed cheap alcohol while enjoying the beauty of the monuments by the river (you can drink in public!), immersing ourselves in the many monuments of Berlin's history including the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag building, Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery, Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Cathedral, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin TV tower and many more. We walked at least 20km each day exploring the many sights and hidden gems. A MUST VISIT!

Amsterdam

Amsterdam was such a beautiful place, with pops of green, red and blue colours, a maze of canals which made for beautiful imagery and lots of history and culture. We had a relaxing two days visiting the attractions such as the "I am Amsterdam" sign, Ricksmuseum, the flower market, the Red Light District with time left over to just enjoy the beautiful sights. Watch out for the manic bike riders, everywhere!

Paris

Paris was a much larger city than I ever imagined it to be. It was widespread, with many sights to see and thriving with tourists, we did 20km a day walking, easy! I have always wanted to see the Notre-Dame Cathedral, especially after watching the movie the Hunchback of Notre Dam, it was beautiful. Corey and I were lucky enough to organise a few months in advance to meet up with my best friend Nikea (friends since we were like 5) and her husband Michael to explore some of Paris together. It was amazing having friends to visit these wonderful places with including the Eiffel Tower, the Catacombs and the Louve Museum.

Switzerland

The highlight of our trip was the stunning Switzerland! Corey and I have been dreaming of seeing this place for a long time and the moment we began crossing the border from France and began witnessing the mountains, blue lakes and greenery our mouths were on the floor. I will let the images speak for themselves!

We didn't stay in the city areas as we wanted to experience the real culture and beautiful sights. We based ourselves from Interlaken for the first couple of days allowing us to train to the town of Grindewald to see Grindewald First, exploring the town of Interlaken and it's lookout Harder Kulm, then onto the valley towns of Lauterbrunnen and Murren. Lautterbrunnen was like something from a movie, waterfalls showering over the cliffs of the valley, glaciers melting into large waterfalls which we were able to walk through, base jumpers and hang gliders flying through the clouds. I was on cloud 9 this whole time. However, be prepared to be eating food from the grocery store and making your own meals as everything is beyond expensive (e.g. Chicken breast was $50/kg!). Murren was a little town on top of the valley with no cars, hardly any noise to be heard and is up in the clouds! We spent a whole afternoon sitting on a hill watching hang gliders run over us and jump off the cliff while having a beer and falling asleep (this was living). I can not recommend enough for people to visit these beautiful, unreal locations!

Rome

A historical city of beautiful ruins, pebbled streets, great food and some of the best monuments. We spent a couple of days in Rome before getting aboard our cruise ship to the Greek Islands so we wanted to relax while also seeing the sites. Our accommodation was located right across the road from the Colosseum so we were within easy walking distance of these beautiful places!

Greek Isles Cruise

To finish our holiday, we booked a Royal Caribbean 9 night Greek Isles Cruise which included stops at Sicily where we visited Taormina, Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes Island, Naples where we visited Island of Capri and Athens. I witnessed some of the most beautiful coastal scenes I have ever seen and lapped up the sun while I had the chance. We did most of the exploring on our own rather than going through the boat excursions as we purchased a sim overseas and research our modes of transport. This made for a very cost effective way of seeing things!

After reflecting on the trip, I don't think I would have changed anything considering I planned it all myself. We had such a great time with a balance of sites, relaxing, exploring and enjoying ourselves. If anyone has any questions regarding the planning or are wanting to purchase any of the images as digitals/prints etc feel free to send me an email on emily@lifeportraits.photography

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