Camino de Santiago / Mary Oliver

March of 2022, our friends Brad and Kate set out to hike the Camino Frances route. They generously let me tag along for the first 5 days and film them.

"I Worried", a poem by the late Mary Oliver, read by Kate.

Music licensed by Music Bed.

Redwoods

Cameras: Sony a7rii / Sony a7iii

Lenses: Voitlander 15mm 4.5 / Sony Zeiss 35mm 2.8 / Sony 85mm 1.8 / Sony 70-200mm 4

Filters: Lee Circular Polariser / Lee Big Stopper

Software: Lightroom / Mastin Labs Presets

Prints available here.

Morocco

When a dear friends asks you to adventure with her to Morocco while chasing some new business dreams….YOU SAY YES!!!!

Here is a look at our week in Marrakech, Morocco. A place that is extremely hard to put words to. They simply can’t do it justice. I hope these images spark your interest and encourage you to take a trip yourself!

Be sure to keep you eyes peeled for “Driftless Styles,” Kelsie Kunkle’s newest adventure!

Ireland - Travel Photography Recap

I don't feel qualified to write anything about photographing Ireland. We were only there for a week and saw such a small portion of it, but alas - here are some photos and some thoughts.

Here's where we stayed along our route:

Dublin

Kinsale

Kenmare (just south of Killarney National Park)

Ventry (near Dingle)

Dublin

-Neal

First of all, you’re gonna need a car.

This is Sharon, she was very kind to us and deserves all of our thanks for helping us learn how to drive on the left side of the road.

Be sure to have a credit card with a huuuuuge limit though - the morning we left for the trip I franticly called our provider and asked if they could change it (totally didn’t work, I ended up having to pay an extra $300 bucks or so for better insurance)

I’ve heard of people taking buses to the bigger tourist spots, but it seems like that is the only viable option for public transit - we didn’t see a single train while we were there, but maybe weren’t looking hard enough.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f11 | 30 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Big Stopper, Circular Polarizing Filter

The Rock of Cashel was first constructed in 1100 and they let you walk around inside (8 Euro entrance fee if I remember correctly). Full of tourist though, even with a 30 second exposure I had to take out some humans with Photoshop.

It’s was not too far off the road we took from Dublin to Cork area (M8 motorway)

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f11 | .25 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Circular Polarizing Filter

Killarney National Park is probably a 2-3 day size of park that we did in 1.

There is some good history (Ross Castle), insane gardens, and obviously great views.

This is Torc Waterfall. It was a 5 minute walk up to here, but there’s a loop that you can continue on for anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f10 | 4 | ISO 50 | Lee Circular Polarizing Filter

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f11 | 1/80 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Circular Polarizing Filter

The Southern side of the park was full of crazy vistas and a few sheep on the road.

This image is available for print, click here to order.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f11 | 175 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Big Stopper, Circular Polarizing Filter

This is a composite image, one of the water and sky from the frame using the Big Stopper, and the other from one without for the land portions.

I was super excited about this composition and location (Lough Leane, accessed by car park in the Southern portion of the park) but the light just didn’t come through the way that I had hoped

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f11 | 1.6 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Circular Polarizing Filter

Dunquin Harbour

This image is available for print, click here to order.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f11 | .8 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Circular Polarizing Filter

This image is available for print here.

Sony a7rii | 400mm 5.6 | f6.3 | 1/80 sec | ISO 200

From Dingle onward the weather was almost entirely rainy and windy, so even though there were a lot of good opportunities for compressed landscapes with the 400mm, they weren’t an option because of shake.

Here’s one of the few that wasn’t blurry near Dingle.

Sony a7rii | 85mm 1.8 | f11 | .4 sec | ISO 50 | Sony Smooth Reflections App

Western Coast of the Dingle Peninsula

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f13 | 1/30 sec | ISO 50 | Circular Polarizing Filter

Taken from a beach near Cloghane on the Northern coast, looking South towards Conner Pass.

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f11 | .6 sec | ISO 50 | Circular Polarizing Filter

This image was taken from the car at a lookout point on Conner Pass, as the wind was coming up over the crest of the mountain way too fast for a tripod.

Sony a7rii | 85mm 1.8| f4 | 1/125 sec | ISO 50

Dingle Harbour at (misty) sunrise.

This image is available for print, click here to order.

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f10 | 1/13 sec | ISO 50 | Lee Circular Polarizing Filter

The Cliffs of Moher are definitely a thing. The road there is tiny and far from straight, and it was almost 10 Euros per person to park (apparently you can make a 2 hour walk and get in free though)

Sadly we missed prime Puffin time.

Moo boye.

I have very few things to say about Dublin.

1. My food related recommendations happen very rarely, so this is a big deal for me to type - Brother Hubbard is somewhere you should consume food into your body. 13/10 recommended.

2. Trinity Library is worth the moneys.

3. I have zero photography recommendations, whoops.

Moab - Travel Photography Recap

Courtney Susan and I went to Moab with some pals for spring break this year.

I hadn't been to any desert regions of the US since before I was taking photos, so it was cool to get to experience it with a camera this time.

There's 2 National Parks in the Moab area:

Arches - Well known and well attended, if you wait too long into the day the entrance line really got big. It was about 30 minutes of driving one way to get to the farthest trailheads or landmark spots.
Canyonlands - Split up into 3 sections with 3 separate entrances, this one sees less than half the traffic of Arches per year but is amazing in a completely different way (and we only were there for a day and just saw the uppermost section called Island in the Sky, the other sections apparently are different kind of landscapes all-together)

Cool. Let's look at some photos.

-Neal

Sony a7rii | 15mm 4.5 | f10 | .5 sec | ISO 50 | Smooth Reflection Sony App

Double Arch. One of the well known arches (pretty much all that we saw were), only a 5 minute walk from the parking lot. It would be a cool location for astrophotographers.

Sony a7rii | 15mm 4.5 | f10 | 1/30 sec | ISO 25

This scene was on the way back from Double Arch. I am bummed I didn't set up and take a proper photo, because it's one of my favorite compositions from the trip but I took it handheld at f/4.5 so the background is a bit out of focus. Life is hard.

Sony a7rii | 85mm 1.8 | f2.8 | 1/320 sec | ISO 250

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f11 | 1/13 sec | ISO 50

Turret Arch, on the other side of the parking lot as Double Arch.

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f11 | 8 sec | ISO 50 | Sony Smooth Reflections App

Ta-da, it's sunrise now. In about an hour this rock formation gets lit up by the sun and is the subject of many a photo.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f7.1 | 30 sec | ISO 400 | 5 image stitched panoramic

This is looking the opposite direction than the last photo of turret arch. The rock face at the very left is where you climb up to to get the next image's viewpoint (but you'll most likely have to get lucky or Photoshop out some tourists + photographers who are standing where I am)

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f14 | 1/6 sec | ISO 50 | 5 image stitched panoramic

While I was up here I heard a lady yell at someone on the other side "it's just rocks, like everything else we've seen this week", so that's a thing.

Sony a7rii | 15mm 4.5 | f13 | 1/10 sec | ISO 50 | Composite of 2 images for sky/foreground + humans are Photoshopped out

Be warned that if you are hoping to get this angle at sunset you may get yelled at by angry photographers on the opposite side of the bowl. Also, be warned if you're an angry landscape photographer that it seems like an unhappy way to enjoy a view.

The hike up is not necessarily difficult, but if you are bringing photo gear up know that it isn't the easiest of hikes.

This image is available as a print, click here to order.

Sony a7rii | 400mm 5.6 | f9 | 1/1250 sec | ISO 1000

This area is prime time for telephoto abstract lines and shapes (notice the bikers on the first curve)

Sony a7rii | 85mm 1.8 | f11 | 1/60 sec | ISO 400

Green River Overlook. This is another super accessible vista, not very far from the entrance of Canyonlands NP.

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f11 | .5 sec | ISO 1000 | 10 image stitched panoramic

This is the biggest pano that I've ever stitched, and the computer hated everything about it.

The storm in the distance was pushing in some crazy strong wind, and the tripod wouldn't stand up very well on it's own so I had to handhold these, resulting in a higher ISO.

This image is available as a print, click here to order.

Thanks for reading/looking with your eyeballs! If you enjoyed this format and think it would be helpful for other people wanting to get images in Moab, sharing it on the interwebs and social media is always encouraged.

Austria - Travel Photography Recap

I've been wanting to make more photography-centric blog posts for a while now, specifically when it comes to travel and landscape. The motive is relatively simple: there's some resources for location scouting before a photo trip (Location Scout is an example), and there's waaaaay too many blog posts vying for every tourists ad revenue for just about every place imaginable (which is the majority of sites that come up with a simple search such as "travel photography Salzburg Austria"), but there's not a whole lot of sites that get straight to the point.

So I'm going to try to create blog posts of what I would want to see when researching a place. These are my tentative requirements:

Nothing too wordy. Not necessarily because humans have lost the ability to read for more than 5 seconds, but more because I'm concerned with the story of the images and how they were shot rather than writing a novel about it.
A bit technical. I'm going to try to put the camera settings below each image that was thought out and planned. Some images are simply going to make the blog because it pertains to the location or I like it a lot, but that may change in the future.
Location heavy. When I search a potential location, it's great to come across someone who describes the location in some detail. Is it a 5 minute walk from the car lot or an hour hike in the woods, etc.

-Neal

AUSTRIA 2018

The Dean and I went to Austria on a whim in March. Because there was essentially zero planning, we tried to fit in some classic locations but did a lot of wandering around as well. We were there for about 4 days, spending 3 in Salzburg and 1 in Hallstadt.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f11 | 8 sec | ISO 100 | Streetlights composited in to sunset photograph

The Salzach runs right through the Old Town, and there are several pedestrian only bridges that cross. This is looking NW from the Makartseg bridge.

Much thanks to my wonderful mother for hanging out in a grocery store while I was taking this photo in the cold.

This image is available for print, click here to visit our store.

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f14 | 1/13 sec | ISO 50 | 5 image stitched panorama

This location is about a 10 minute walk West of the Museum Der Moderne Salzburg. I am a bit bummed because the composition is so great but the trees look sad and the melted snow isn't my favorite, so it's on my list of spots to return to in the fall or snowy times.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f18 | 13 sec | ISO 50 | 5 image stitched panoramic

This is a pretty classic view of Salzburg from Museum Der Moderne Salzburg. You can walk here from the Fortress on a few different trails, or take a lift up the mountain for a few euros.

Sony a7rii | 85mm 1.8 | f13 | 1/25 sec | ISO 50

I used the Sony Smooth Reflections App to smooth out the water in this one. The bridge pictured here is the one I was standing on in the first image.

Sony a7rii | 85mm 1.8 | f10 | 1/320 | ISO 100

This is Hohensalzburg Castle, which is touristy inside but is pretty neat (although overpriced). Photo wise I couldn't find any great compositions, but google images tells me that they are out there...

This was from a lookout spot that seemed pretty popular between the Fortress and the museum.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f9 | 1/100 | ISO 50 | 3 image stitched panoramic

Petersfriedhof Salzburg. Once again, this would be a way more eye-catching composition if it was just after a snowfall.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f2.8 | 1/800 | ISO 50

Inside the Catacombs. It provides some neat photo opportunities looking down at the city, but it is a pretty short adventure for 2 euros.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f10 | .6 sec | ISO 50 | 3 image stitched panoramic

This image is available for print, click here to visit our store.

So I had seen some images of Hallstadt in the past, it's a regular on a lot of Instagram feeds, but we did almost no research before taking a day trip out there from Salzburg. A pertinent piece of information is that developers in China built a replica of the city, so loads of tour buses of site seers (spelling?) go there to see the real thing. It was super touristy, and we were definitely not there during peak time.

It takes 2 trains and a ferry to get there from Salzburg. If you plan on arriving for sunrise, note that the earliest train-ferry combo that could get us there (at least during March) left Salzburg at 4am and put us there right as the sun was rising around 7:30, so during the summer sunrise may not be an option.

This church is obviously the well known location, but taking the Furnicular or hiking up to the scenic view is super cool.

Sony a7rii | 35mm 2.8 | f19 | 1/250 sec | ISO 100 | Smooth Reflections Sony App

Sony a7rii | 55mm 1.8 | f15 | 1/4000 sec | ISO 125

There were loads of burd friends.

Thanks for reading/looking with your eyeballs! If you enjoyed this format and/or think it would be helpful for other people wanting to get images in Salzburg and Hallstadt, sharing it on the interwebs and social media is always encouraged.

Yosemite

Italy

We're big fans of Italy. We love the language, the food, the cities, and especially their slow pace of life. We're also big fans of other people experiencing places that we love - so our hope is that as soon as you are done scrolling through these images, the next thing you do is book a ticket to lo Stivale (the boot)

Click on any image to view it fullscreen. If you are interested in buying travel prints, click here

Blevio

Our first stop was Blevio, a small town on the Southwest finger of Lake Como in Northern Italy. We chose to make this our first stop so we could spend a few days relaxing away from the tourist hotspots on the lake, and the view from our Airbnb definitely helped. Also our hosts gave us some free Red Orange juice, which is an automatic 5 star rating for the Johnsons.

Featured

Lake Como

We took a ferry around Lake Como, and it was definitely worth the 25 Euros. You get to relax on a boat as it cruises around a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, so there's not much to complain about unless you are prone to seasickness.

Anytime the ferry stops to pick up more people, you can get off and explore the town then hop back on the next available ferry.

Featured

Bellagio

Bellagio is one of those tourist hotspots that I mentioned earlier, but everyone says that it's a must see if you're on Lake Como, so we hopped off the ferry and spent about 2 hours walking around "The Pearl of the Lake".

Featured

Como

Our last stop in the Lake Como area was the city of Como. We stayed in a hostel called Ostello Bello, and everything was painted yellow so it gets a 5 star rating from Courtney Susan.

We took a day trip up to Brunate, where the Faro Voltiano Lighthouse gives a great view of the Lake.

Featured

San Miniato

Next we went down south to San Miniato, in the Tuscany region. This small town was significant in ancient times, sitting right along the Via Francigena - a path connecting Rome and Northern Europe.

Today it's most known for its well preserved city walls and buildings, along with the White Truffle festival that is held there every year.

We lucked out and got to go to their monthly Farmer's Market, which helped the city lock down a solid 5 stars from us.

Featured

Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre has become overrun by tourists in recent years, but it still is definitely worth a see if you get the chance. It's well-known colorful houses are cool, but it's the feeling of being stuck in time that seems to be most attractive to visitors. Cars aren't allowed in most of the villages, so time moves extra slow.

After about 48 hours of insane travel across the pond, our friends finally made it up to Monterosso al Mare at 1 in the morning, and we started the 15 minute trek up the hillside to our lemon grove Airbnb.

Featured

Florence

Next up was Florence, the capital of Tuscany. There's way too many historic buildings, churches, and landmarks within this city to sum up in a few sentences, so you're going to have to Wikipedia it when you're done here.

Featured

Chianti Region

One of the last adventures that we got to go on was a wine tour around the Chianti Region. It taught us one very important thing - our Balsamic Vinegar is super fake.

Featured

If you are interested in buying prints from this trip or other travel prints, click here

If you liked this post please share with your friends and family at the top of this page - thanks, it really helps us out!

Also, one more thing - here's a home vid that we made while in Italy:

Washington D.C.

Last November we had a two day layover in D.C. and ever since we have been itching to get back. We took advantage of a few free days over spring break to visit some family & get back to one of our favorite places. We wouldn't consider ourselves "big city people,", but man has D.C. stolen our hearts in many a ways.

I went into our three-day trip with bigs hopes to see all the things, but soon realized that it will take years for me to fully see all the sights, learn all the history, try all the local eateries, and admire all the beauty of our nation's capitol. It's not a place you can rush through and I think thats the thing that has allowed D.C. to win a top spot on my list of places I love. It makes you slow down, reflect, question, give thanks for your past, & hope for what's to come.

Our three days spent in D.C. were just enough to remind me of those things. Take a peak at our quick trip through the lens of our good 'ol trusty film camera. We hope these photos encourage you to plan a trip to D.C., grab a history book, or seek out the history in your own backyard.

Our days were filled with lots of riding, walking, reading, and learning. I love the fact that there is a place to reflect & learn around every corner. This trip's highlights included a tour of the Supreme Court building & the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument. My gratefulness grew right along with my understanding.

We were lucky enough to arrive to lots of blooms. D.C. is famous for their cherry blossoms & I now understand why! As if those beauties weren't enough, we stumbled upon the U.S. Botanical Gardens as well. This place is full of beauty- from a cacao tree to more succulents than you could dream of. It was a quick trip through some of what I would consider the wonders of the world. What beauty we are surrounded by.

Exploring the different neighborhoods in D.C. made me love the city that much more. Colored buildings, a coffee shop with a story, & the local eateries are all it took.

Here are a few places we were big fans of:

Ebenezer's Coffeehouse, a coffeehouse owned & operated by National Community Church. They brew fair-trade coffee & their profits go towards community outreach projects.

We, The Pizza, a pizza place that focuses on community while serving up one mean slice of pizza.

Good Stuff Eatery, a classic American restaurant with high quality burgers & fries. Oh, and don't forget the handspun milk shakes.

What a place. Hope to see you again soon, D.C.!

Malawi // Camp Chisomo

For more information, or to watch the mini-doc "Chisomo Pa Chisomo", go to www.CampChisomo.com

Gear used:

Sony a7s, Sony a6000

Canon FD 50mm 1.8, Canon FD 135mm 2.5, Rokinon 14mm 2.8, Sony/Zeiss 35mm 2.8

Edited in Lightroom CC, with VSCO presets.

7 countries in 2 weeks

Late November I travelled with Tim Dodd across the pond for a few days of adventure and then 3 days of work in Ethiopia. Within a span of two weeks, I touched ground in 7 different countries (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ethiopia, England, and the good ole USA) - here are a few photos, mostly from the Benelux region and Germany, with (hopefully) accurate captions of where each one was taken.