We arrived back from the US of A on Saturday afternoon after spending the past two weeks out there. As some of you may know, we got married last April but 10 days before our honeymoon in July I was hospitalised with a very nasty heart virus, after a few close calls and another week in hospital as recently as March this year I was finally given the all clear not that long ago, nearly a year after my first period in hospital.
The original booking was for to fly to Vegas, work our way to San Francisco, then spend a week island hopping in Hawaii doing various things (volcano hike, swimming with sharks etc). My body/fitness/health is nowhere near what it was, so we scaled our ambitions back this time, we booked 3 nights in Vegas, jumped on a guided tour across the Canyonlands for a week straight from there, then hopped over to San Francisco after the tour for 3 nights.
From a photographic point of view I travelled as light as possible, purely for practical/health reasons. The Fuji X-E1, Fuji 14mm 2.8 and Fuji 35mm 1.4 were my weapons of choice and used for 99% of my photos, the Fuji 60mm 2.4 and 55-200 travelled with me, but were only taken out twice and used for about 10 photos between them.
Las Vegas
Our second visit, still love the madness of it all but after 12 or so years of visiting the US it hit home just how much things have changed. It used to feel genuinely different travelling over, movie releases we hadn't heard of, TV and music stars that meant nothing to us etc, now you may as well be in London, quite frankly. You are as likely to see Tiesto, Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding, Gordon Ramsay or Avicii as you are some obscure (but huge) US country music star.
Seligman, Arizona
It's often the little places that live longest in the memory, this is certainly one of them...
Grand Canyon
We stayed in a Lodge on the rim of the canyon, which was amazing. Heading out at 5am for sunrise is something I will never forget. Utterly pointless trying to convey it in photos though, it's simply to overwhelming in size.
Monument Valley
We stayed in Gouldings Lodge, it was by some margin the best hotel we've ever stayed in, simply for the views alone, I took this from our balcony...
We then did a incredibly bumpy 4x4 tour with a Navajo guide and went into the valley itself, amazing place.
The original booking was for to fly to Vegas, work our way to San Francisco, then spend a week island hopping in Hawaii doing various things (volcano hike, swimming with sharks etc). My body/fitness/health is nowhere near what it was, so we scaled our ambitions back this time, we booked 3 nights in Vegas, jumped on a guided tour across the Canyonlands for a week straight from there, then hopped over to San Francisco after the tour for 3 nights.
From a photographic point of view I travelled as light as possible, purely for practical/health reasons. The Fuji X-E1, Fuji 14mm 2.8 and Fuji 35mm 1.4 were my weapons of choice and used for 99% of my photos, the Fuji 60mm 2.4 and 55-200 travelled with me, but were only taken out twice and used for about 10 photos between them.
Las Vegas
Our second visit, still love the madness of it all but after 12 or so years of visiting the US it hit home just how much things have changed. It used to feel genuinely different travelling over, movie releases we hadn't heard of, TV and music stars that meant nothing to us etc, now you may as well be in London, quite frankly. You are as likely to see Tiesto, Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding, Gordon Ramsay or Avicii as you are some obscure (but huge) US country music star.
Seligman, Arizona
It's often the little places that live longest in the memory, this is certainly one of them...
Grand Canyon
We stayed in a Lodge on the rim of the canyon, which was amazing. Heading out at 5am for sunrise is something I will never forget. Utterly pointless trying to convey it in photos though, it's simply to overwhelming in size.
Monument Valley
We stayed in Gouldings Lodge, it was by some margin the best hotel we've ever stayed in, simply for the views alone, I took this from our balcony...
We then did a incredibly bumpy 4x4 tour with a Navajo guide and went into the valley itself, amazing place.
