Back to Nature's Oven

The past year has been one for the books. I made amazing friends in both London and Paris, saw beautiful places, ate incredible food. Now it is time for me to return home, Arizona, for the summer before I return back to London. I will be honest and say my favorite place was London. It may be because my best friends, Matt and Izzy, live there. Or maybe since we got Little Leaf off the ground. Yes, you heard right, Little Leaf is now officially open at Greenwich Market and Brick Lane Market, serving vegan pizza at the food stall.

My mother and brother came out to Paris for my final days there, then we went to London for a week before returning home. It was fun to show my mom around Europe showing her all my favorite places. We walked 48 miles in the week we traveled around. I showed them some neat cafes around my house, went to the Eiffel Tower, walked up to Montmarte, took a train to Versailles to see the palace, and much more.

After Paris we took the Eurostar to London where my mom met Matt and Izzy for the first time. We went to an Indian restaurant and ate our weight in curry and naan bread. We were all so exhausted after walking around London Bridge, Tower of London, Brick Lane, and others I can't remember right now. It was a terrific experiences and I couldn't have done it without the help of my friends and family. 

Now I'm back in Arizona where you can cook steak on the sidewalk and bake cookies in your car. I've been trying to beat the heat by going up north to Sedona and thanking the inventor of air conditioning. It is nice to be back and seeing all my friends and working with familiar people again. 

The Best View in Paris

View of the Eiffel Tower from Montmartre.

This week my friend took me to Montmartre. It's a city on a hill in the 18th district in Paris that lets you see the whole city from the top. I definitely got my workout that day. Walking almost a mile on an incline, but in the end it was all worth it. On the way up, there were dozens of street artists creating and selling their work in the squares. There were restaurants around every corner and walking past just made me more hunger each time. I did give in eventually and get a crepe, with Nutella and bananas of course.

People looking out at the view of Montmartre.

The walk seemed never ending as we turn each corner and there is more hill to climb. The most important thing I've found about Europe is to have good tennis shoes, best decision I've made yet! We finally arrive at our destination and the view from up top there was absolutely stunning. There are buildings as far as the eye can see and of course I went when it was warm and sunny out, so it was packed with people. Some people were having picnics on the stairs, some were playing music in the grass, and some, of course, were being touristy and taking photos, like me. Everywhere I looked was an interesting photo. From the people hanging out to the great scenery. So glad I brought my camera that day.

That is one thing I find difficult about being a photographer. I always want to capture the moments I experience and forget to simply enjoy it sometimes. There's always a battle within on whether to go as a photographer or as a participant. I've tried going as both and it just doesn't work out as well. I don't fully enjoy it because I don't want to break my camera and the photos are always rushed. Most of the time I choose to go as a photographer because I want me and all my friends to have photos of the great times together.

Great photo of the people looking out at the view, captured by my friend, Lina.

I think I will always have that struggle when I go out and do things, but I'm ok with it. Just remember all those photos you see of people having fun, there's somebody behind the camera deciding to be a photographer that day. I hope you all have a great week and see you next time!

Traveling Shoes

Seattle, WA.

I honestly didn't know what to write this week because I honestly haven't done much. It's been raining all week and I've been editing photos. I decided to talk about my experience as a whole so far. My whole life I've been extremely privileged to have the opportunity to travel. Growing up I moved to several different states and visited most of the continental United States. Along with that, I also was able to visit various parts of the Caribbean and Mexico. I had taken these experiences for granted when I was younger, complaining some of the time because I just wanted to hang out with my friends. It wasn't until later on in life that I found the importance of traveling and experiencing different cultures. As a child I didn't understand why others acted the way they did. Even little things such as eating different things for breakfast that I would eat for lunch or dinner. 

Throughout America you can see vast differences in speech and behavior. My family in New England will eat a lot of seafood, for example on Christmas a lot of the time we will have lobster rather than turkey or ham. In Arizona we eat a lot of Mexican food and Texas has a lot more barbecue. The other day I was talking to one of my friend from Tennessee, that's going to my school in Paris, and we were comparing common phrases we would use in our parts of the country. 

Now those are just differences within a single country, imagine how shocking it is to travel thousands of miles to another part of the world and experience their culture. Common things that I enjoyed back home are unheard of here in Europe. I know most of you that are over the age of 21 have enjoyed a few mimosas on Sundays, but here nobody I've talked to has even tried a mimosa. They always say, 'why dilute the champagne with orange juice?' I guess they have a point, so in London they drink Prosecco and eat roast on Sundays. One of my favorite things to eat is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, in Paris there will be a wall of jelly with one kind of peanut butter and it's triple the price because they don't really eat pb&j's here. Instead, they put jelly on crackers or nutella on toast. 

London, England

Phoenix, Arizona

Culturally there are so many differences that I could write a post just on that. Some examples are here in Paris you 'faire la bise' (kiss cheeks) when you say hello or goodbye to a friend, but in America we would just hug. My friends thought it was so weird that in America we hug so much. The French regard the hug as more intimate that kissing cheeks, but for me I feel the other way. It has been funny seeing my friends reactions whenever I forget and hug them. As a culture, many holidays aren't celebrated, like halloween has just become a thing in Europe. They also don't have prom in high school or greek life in college. 

Paris, France

Okay I understand those are just minor differences between different cultures and aren't very impactful. However, if you add all of those up you soon realize that everything you're accustomed to is different to other cultures. People here think the things that I do are weird, but to me and my culture back in America, it's normal. I think it's important for everybody to experience different cultures to give them a different perspective on the world. There's so much going on in the world right now, good and bad. Maybe we need to put ourselves in their shoes to help realize why people are acting the way they are. Perhaps, it's hard to understand because they experience things differently than you. My parents taught me something from an early age, which is to treat others as you would like to be treated because we're all just people in the end no matter where we come from. I hope everybody has a great week and I will see you next time.

Exploring the Bois de Vincennes

Today Austin and I met some of his highlining friends at Bois de Vincennes, the largest public park in Paris. The park is so incredible, I have never seen anything so enormous. It has four lakes, a zoo, botanical garden, horse racing track, velodrome, and the campus of the French national institute for sports and physical education. Just needs a Starbucks and it's all set, please no I'm kidding. Walking around it was just so beautiful, though, with the lakes covered in ice and the vast amount of greenery and various birds flying about.

One of Austin's friends highlining in Bois de Vincennes, using the harsh back light in my favor.

After a good trek around one of the lakes, we finally meet up with Austin's friends. They already have one longline and a slackline set up and are working on setting up a second longline. I help finish tightening the longline and take out my camera. It was a little hard shooting at mid afternoon, but it made for some great silhouettes. I love my 24-105mm for my everyday lens because it gives me the option of a wide shot for landscape or to capture more of the background and then I can also zoom in and get tighter for portraits and capturing emotion.

The photograph that everybody was taking, but I got a little lower to get some of that grass in the foreground and to be able to see more of the landscape.

As I wait for the guys to get warmed up, I go and shoot some photos of this terrific park. There's a few dozen ducks and swans right at shore and there are several people huddled around taking photographs for their Instagram and Facebook. Whenever I see a situation like that I like to go where everybody isn't. Sure you can get the photo that everybody else is getting, and that's great to have. However, the ones that stand out are the photos that nobody else has, so go to where nobody else is or look in a different direction then everybody else. 

At this point I head back over to the group and see they already have some bystanders watching them as they walk across a one inch line that's 200 feet long and ten feet off the ground. Yes, in the photos they aren't that high off the ground, but that's their body weight pushing down on the line. I get several compositions of the shoot in my head and then look for different angles that might work out just as good or better. When taking a photo, always try different angles because that is what will set you apart from everybody else taking photos from eye level. Don't be afraid to get down low or find a vantage point up high. This isn't just for if you're using an expensive DSLR either, do this with your iPhone and your photos will be far better!

Looking the other way and getting the photo that nobody else was taking.

After photographing for a while, I try the slackline and I will say it is much much harder than it looks. Just getting up on the line requires technique so you don't wobble back and forth, let alone balancing well enough to walk across it. A few hours pass and we do head out after I reach my goal of walking five steps! Hope everybody had a great week and check back next Sunday for my next post!