our west coast wander // yosemite

 I'm horrible at blogging consistently, I know. But I figured I was way overdue with sharing my photos and thoughts from my impromptu trip to Yosemite National Park last September.

This trip was totally unplanned on my part. I was invited by my good photografriend Kristina, who was also going with the uber-talented Adrienne Pitts. They were both planning on going to Phoot camp in a few weeks (an annual photography retreat), but first wanted to head up north for some mountains, fresh air, and of course, lots of photo-taking. They wanted to hit up Yosemite first for maybe three nights, then make their way down through Big Sur and possibly stay a night in San Luis Obispo before heading back to San Diego.

They couldn't have invited me at a better time. Even though it was September, the end-of-summer heat and humidity was in full force, making me generally miserable; I was recovering from accidentally breaking my big toe the previous month, but I was starting to walk mostly normal; And I had just had another failed infertility treatment cycle, so I was pretty much "FUCK EVERYTHING." I needed a distraction, and getting the eff outta dodge sounded delightful and just what I needed. Plus, as a photographer, it's really hard to say no to a road trip.

Yosemite is really beautiful, period. The trees are big, and the mountains are big, which in turn make you feel really small and insignificant, but in a good way. The air feels good in your lungs and the sunlight seems magical. We swam in shallow rivers, and I saw more deer than I've ever seen in one place. We met friendly camp neighbors who let us borrow their portable gas grill and warned us when the squirrels were trying to get inside our open bear-proof locker. We played Cards Against Humanity with other camp neighbors and got yelled at by a camp ranger when we accidentally left a bottle of Jameson out. We took hundreds of photos and consumed large quantities of Tapatío (thanks Kristina!).

You can't put three photographers together without eventually seeing them geek out and chase that coveted "golden hour" light. Which we did. A lot.

That photo on the right (above) was taken in this really cool rock pile area near Mirror Lake (which was, sadly, completely dried up). I was still doing my 52 weeks project at the time, so I was inspired to take my week 37 photo here.

I love these portraits I took of Kristina and Adrienne. We were looking for patches of sunlight coming through the trees to get that halo/rim light effect, and BAM. Portrait heaven.

On one of our last days there, a giant forest fire broke out well far away from our camp. A fellow camper told us that if we drove up to Glacier Point, about an hour away, we'd be able to see views of not only Half Dome and El Capitan, but of the giant smoke cloud as well. It looked pretty insane.

And now for some obligatory instagrams from the trip! Above, a film camera party.

Just three ladies in a river. Don't mind us.

Instaxagrams!

This just reminds me again of how small we really are. Our petty gripes and bitching and moaning in our daily lives just seem so silly when you remember how big the world really is. It's beautiful and it's humbling.

Stay tuned for the Big Sur and San Luis Obispo part of our trip! :)