Winter break in Curaçao

As has become our tradition, my wife and I decided to take a mid-winter break and visit a warm place we've never been before. After getting some good advice from our friend Christine (check out her travel blog!), we decided to check out Curaçao!

One of the things that attracted us the most about Curaçao was that it wasn't just beaches. It has an incredible historic downtown featuring colorful facades along waterways, just like you'd see in the Netherlands.

Of course, the beaches were awesome, as well. We tried a number of different local beaches, some well-known, some less. We also opted for a day at Baoase Luxury Resort - you can pick up a day pass and get access to their beach, complete with luxury cabanas, food and drinks. We also spent a morning doing some dives - you can see those photos here.

On our last day, we dove a bit into the culture and did a walking tour of the historic downtown area with our local guide, Emlyn. He was a treasure trove of information and it was such a valuable experience - I highly recommend it if you want to actually get to know the culture and history behind the island. Also, we capped off the tour with a tasty lunch at a local market, our last meal in Curaçao and the perfect send off.

For a list of the different places we went, you can visit my wife's travel blog, Perhaps Patagonia.

Many thanks to the Curaçao Tourism Board for the tour!

Underwater Photography in Curaçao

I've been a certified open water scuba diver for over 5 years now, but up till now, all my underwater media was done on various GoPro cameras. On our recent vacation to Curaçao, I decided the time was right to try out some underwater photography using a better camera.

Given the price of most underwater housings for DSLR cameras, and my relative inexperience, I decided it didn't make sense to invest too heavily at this time. Luckily, after chatting with the folks over at Ikelite, it turns out a camera I already own is one they recommend, the Leica D-Lux Type 109. I picked up the housing and a red filter (helps control the color cast in tropical waters) and familiarized myself as best I could with the ins and outs of using it.

We did two dives in Curaçao, one called "Tugboat" and the second we went diving under a giant decommissioned oil tanker. I shot all these with no strobes, as I wanted to focus more on the atmospheric feeling one gets underwater rather than the underwater sea life.

Overall, I was pretty amazed at how well the camera & housing performed. It certainly adds a bit of heft when traveling, but underwater it was simple to use. The Leica also did amazing with no artificial light sources, with many of these images shot at 6400 ISO!

Can't wait for our next diving trip to try my hand at more underwater imagery!

FTA 02: Backcountry Winter Memories

With the current Winter Olympics finally coming to a close, and my recent trip to Jackson Hole, I've been thinking a lot about my time as a ski bum. Looking back into the archive and found a few photos from a backcountry day I took with my buddies Trevor (who is an incredible photographer too!) and Rush.

I can't believe I took these photos TEN YEARS AGO. Wow, how the time flies.

2017 Top 100

Every year I try and go through my photos and pick out my top 100 personal favorites. Not the photos that I got paid the most for, or the ones that got the most likes on Instagram. Just the ones I loved the most.

I was surprised to see how many different cameras I used to capture these images, including my iPhone! Here they are in video form - enjoy!