Travel | Brooklyn Wedding Photographer | Lindsay Taryn Photography

2011 Dec 22: Travel Photography | Grand Canyon, Arizona | Fall 2011

Let me tell you a little story about the time I finally, after years and years and YEARS of dreaming of it, made it out west to the Grand Canyon. That time was about 1.5 years ago. I do not look back fondly on this trip, as I spent most of it either sick or recovering from being sick. Oh, and there was that freak April snowstorm that happened while we were there. Consequently, I did not get to properly experience the Grand Canyon, and I swore someday I’d have a redo.

Well, I didn’t anticipate the redo to happen the very next year, but let’s just say I did it right this time :) We spent a whole day hiking a good ways into the canyon and back out. The weather was perfect. I didn’t get sick – well, at least not til the last day, when we took a plane ride over the canyon (which was pretty amazing til we hit turbulence and motion sickness knocked out half of the plane).

Besides the Grand Canyon, I also hit up Sedona, Scottsdale, and Tempe and – in true Lindsay fashion – roped my friend into doing a photoshoot with me in the desert. I’m already itching to get back out there!

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2011 Nov 13: Travel Photography | Barcelona, Spain

This post is LONG overdue. I went to Spain in March and am finally finishing up a series of 5 photo posts from the trip. You can find photos from Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, and Cordoba from posts #1-4 here.

True, I’m a Brooklyn wedding photographer, but I will travel pretty much anywhere in the name of photography. So if you happen to be looking for a destination wedding photographer, you should contact me! :D

â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”

Barcelona was my absolute favorite city I visited in Spain – and is perhaps one of my favorites that I’ve EVER visited. Very rarely in my travels have I gone to a place and thought to myself ‘gosh, I could totally see myself living here someday’, but that’s what was running through my head the entire time I was there.

Barcelona’s got EVERYTHING: gorgeous old architecture, gaudy (I mean Gaudi!) modern art, parks, mountains, an olympic park, a beach. I was kicking myself for only allotting 3 days here. It’s so massive that it ended up taking more time than I thought it would to get around. I honestly could have spent weeks wandering around the city.

A lot of people think the prevalence of Gaudi throughout the city is overkill, but I didn’t get sick of it at all. I adore modern art and architecture and appreciate outside-the-box thinking. I only had time to visit Park Guell and La Pedrera, but next time – and oh, there WILL be a next time – I’m hitting up more Gaudi hotspots.

I’d spent most of the prior 2 weeks not speaking much Spanish at all, mostly because I didn’t have to, but also because I was afraid of what might come out of my mouth when I tried to. But on my last day, I was in a gift shop near the Picasso Museum buying something for my sister, and the shopkeeper started speaking to me in Spanish (or perhaps Catalan?). And I found myself replying in fragmented Spanish. She seemed to comprehend, so she continued the conversation with me. It felt very much like one of those faux-conversations you’re made to have with a classmate in Level 1 Spanish, where the topic is pretty generic, and the phrases employed are fairly simple – except this was IN REAL LIFE! And we both understood each other! And suddenly, all those years of middle school / high school Spanish have paid off (6 years and one other foreign language later, but hey).

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2011 Jul 24: Travel Photography | Cordoba, Spain

So I’m a *wee* bit behind on posting photos from my trip to Spain in March – this is Post #4 of 5 from that trip. You can find photos from Madrid, Valencia, and Sevilla from posts #1-3 here.

And in case you weren’t sure – I love to travel. And I love shooting weddings. So if you’re getting married someplace other than NYC, you should definitely contact me about your wedding photography! :)

Cordoba was a daytrip that almost didn’t happen. I hadn’t planned on doing it before coming to Spain, but after a day or two in Sevilla I was over it and needed a scene change. That, and I made friends with a few girls from my hostel who wanted to go to Cordoba as well, so it just worked out :)

The highlight of Cordoba by far was La Mezquita. I just couldn’t get over the exotic architecture and the way the light broke through all the windows. I spent a couple hours making snail-paced laps around the mosque with the word ‘wow’ perpetually on the tip of my tongue. It honestly is one of the most beautiful man-made things I’ve ever seen.

After La Mezquita, we mostly just wandered around town and visited El Alcazar, which was pretty impressive in its own right with its gorgeous grounds.

So I’d say Cordoba was a big fat WIN and well worth the trek. I’m so glad I decided to go!

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2011 May 23: Travel Photography | Sevilla, Spain

As you probbbbbably know, in March I went to Spain for two weeks. This is Post #3 of 5 of photos from that trip. You should totally check out the other 4 photo posts on this blog. And if you’re the reading type, I implore you to head on over to my travel blog for more details on my adventures in Spain! :)

And as always, I will travel pretty much anywhere in the name of photography. Getting married outside of NYC? Need a photographer for your destination wedding? Contact me RIGHT NOW!! :D

Of all the places I had planned on visiting during this trip, I was most excited about Sevilla. Everyone had hyped it up for me, to the point where maybe it was impossible for it to live up to these absurdly high standards. I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed.

That’s not to say that Sevilla was crappy or anything. Not at all! I just wasn’t quite feeling it the way I thought I would. When you travel a lot, you can’t help but compare a new place to all the previous places you’ve been to. And when I did that, I felt like there was nothing about Sevilla that really stood out and made it a place worth raving about. Well, ok, actually its cathedral is pretty stellar. I spent a few hours doing snail-paced laps around it, with my head straight up at the ceiling half of the time. SO GORGEOUS.

Other highlights from the 3 days I spent in Sevilla:

Flamenco! – I got to see some authentic dancing at a local bar in Triana. It was one of those *only in Spain* moments that made me really happy to be here.
Sun and warmth – Coming from 40-degree NYC weather to a place where it was nearly 80 degrees and sunny in March felt SO GOOD! I even got a little tan. In fact, I still have the ridiculous tan line across my feet from wearing my Toms in Spain, 2 months after the fact.
Tapas and wine – I had a whole lot of tapas in Sevilla. I dined solo at this one restaurant that offered a ’5 Tapas Surprise’ platter, which I figured would be worth it since it’s usually a surprise anyway ’cause I never know what I’m ordering. And uh, I could really get used to wine at lunchtime. Or wine anytime. In Sevilla, I discovered a drink called ‘tinto de verano’, which is red wine mixed with carbonated lemonade.
New friends – On day 1, I met up with a friend of a friend of my sister’s (got that?) who’s from Spain, and he and his friends took me to a few bars for tapas and drinks. They ordered so many different things and I never knew what I was eating, but most of it was delicious. And it was pretty surreal to be sitting on the river overlooking the city center from across the way, swapping stories about life in NYC with ones about life in Spain. Then another night, I befriended a few people from my hostel and we did a day trip to Cordoba – but more on that with Spain post #4 :)

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2011 Apr 25: Travel Photography | Valencia, Spain | Las Fallas

This is post #2 of 5 from last month’s trip to Spain. I promise that with the next post, we will return to our regularly scheduled wedding-related blogging!

But you know, I’d really love to photograph a wedding in Spain! So if you’re planning on getting married in Spain and would like to have an energetic, fun-loving, well traveled photographer from NYC come shoot your wedding, you should absolutely contact me! :)

When I look back on my trip to Spain last month, I am most fond of the time I spent in Valencia (3/17-21). I wouldn’t say it was the best city I visited in Spain, but it was where I most enjoyed myself. Which is pretty funny, considering how on-the-fence I was about Valencia and almost didn’t even go there at all. In fact, I wouldn’t have even considered it had Las Fallas not been happening while I was there. But what can I say, I’m a sucker for a good festival. And I firmly believe that festivals and other special events are a great way of experiencing another culture.

So that is how I found myself in the midst of one enormous party in a foreign land for 4 straight days. I think this blurb from Wikipedia describes it quite nicely:

The Falles are a Valencian traditional celebration in praise of Saint Joseph in Valencia, Spain. The term Falles refers to both the celebration and the monuments created during the celebration. The days and nights in Valencia are one running party during the five days of Falles. There are processions galore â€” historical processions, religious processions, and hysterical processions. The restaurants spill out to the streets. Explosions can be heard all day long and sporadically through the night. Foreigners may be surprised to see everyone from small children to elderly gentlemen throwing fireworks and bangers in the streets, which are littered with pyrotechnical debris.

I met and encountered so many interesting people in Valencia, which I think is what made it such an amazing experience for me. You could pretty much set out into town and end up with a new set of friends for the night.

Other things worth noting:

Fireworks – every night. And oh man, were they done right. (see video below)
La Crema (or burning of the Fallas) – on the last night, we saw one of the biggest/most impressive Fallas set on fire. But of course it wasn’t just a matter of throwing a lit match onto it; there were accompanying fireworks and firecrackers and other associated noise as it went up in flames. (see video below)
La Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciencias – a cultural complex located just outside of town with some incredible modern architecture, housing museums, an aquarium, and a theater. A-MA-ZING.

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