COMPLETE ADVENTURE PHOTOGRAPHER + VIDEOGRAPHER GEAR LIST

Hi friends! I’ve finally made a complete list of all my gear! It’s taken me years to figure out what works best and what gear I really love using, so instead of you having to figure it all out by yourself you can look at my gear and decide what works for you! I have everything from all my photo and video gear, 35mm film gear, accessories, shoes, and other cool gear you can use for adventurous photo and video!

My gear is listed on Kit.co so check out this link to see everything!

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY GEAR LIST

Eloping with Family

How can we elope but still have our family involved?

Most of the couples I photograph ask me, can our family come? Can we have friends there? I totally see where they’re coming from! My family means everything to me and there’s no way I could have eloped without them. If you are really close with your family and friends and want to have them at your elopement, not only is it possible to bring them but it’s actually a ton of fun! Imagine having your family experience a beautiful national park wedding and super fun day with you! It will bring you all closer together and you’ll be able to share those memories forever. I’d say about half the couples I photograph bring family so it’s a common thing and something that more and more people are doing!

“We still want to go on an adventure with just us two to soak it all in.”

The best thing about all this is you can have both! You can do a beautiful sunrise hike with a breakfast picnic overlooking Zion all by yourself, say private vows together, and enjoy intimate moments together with your partner before meet up with everyone else. Then you could eat at an amazing Mexican restaurant with your family at the entrance of Zion, and then say your vows on top of a desert cliff with your family right there to tearfully congratulate you. You really can combine a private elopement and a wedding with your loved ones in the same day!

“My grandparents are coming and they need somewhere easily accessible, is that possible?”

Yes! There are beautiful places right off the side of paved roads that are easy for elderly and children to access. I have a whole list of spots that are perfect for families. Your whole family doesn’t have to hike up a mountain (unless they want to!) so we can cater your ceremony to include everyone who is there.

“Can we take family photos together in Zion so my parents can hang it in their house?”

Absolutely!! Family photos are encouraged and I get them at every elopement so you can have incredible scenery in your photos! And it’s a bonus because you don’t have to pay a photographer in your hometown to do it that year! Win win!

“Can we do fun activities together as a family/friends?”

Oh yeah! I was the manager of an offroad rental shop here by Zion for a while, and we did group offroading tours with families and they were a ton of fun! You can offroad on sand dunes, go horseback riding, cliff jumping, boating, go sandboarding/sledding on sand dunes (little kids love this!) and do tons of other fun activities! And this is just the Zion area, you could go white water rafting in Moab, or go skiing down a glacier in the Colorado mountains… there’s so many fun things you can do!

“I’m so glad we had our family and friends experience this day with us!”

A couple I planned an elopement for was able to share those amazing moments with her dad a few months before he died. She’s since posted those photos of her elopement day and tearfully remembered the joy she shared with her dad that day. Those moments are priceless and more valuable than you might realize. Every couple who has brought their family and friends have had a really fun time and have been glad they did it. If you’re close with your loved ones bring them along for your elopement!

Desert Elopement / Wedding Tips (from a local)

Are you thinking of eloping in or having your wedding in the desert? The desert is my favorite place in the world and you will love having your wedding in some of the most unique landscapes in the world. I’m mainly talking about Utah, (where I live) Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and some of California. Here are some tips from somewhere who’s lived in the desert for almost a decade!

SUNSET’S ARE BETTER THAN SUNRISES

I don’t know what it is about the desert, but the sunsets almost always outdo the sunrises. The sunsets are pink, purple, and make the whole landscape turn red and then dark purple at dusk. The colors are unmatched! The sunrises are definitely really pretty but I always choose sunset over sunrise if I can because of the unique red colors that pop at that time of the day! The red rocks are the prettiest near dusk.

HARSH LIGHT IS ACTUALLY YOUR FRIEND

In most places harsh light is frowned upon for pictures, because it’s a little harder to work with, but lemme tell ya, the harsh midday desert light looks so dang good!! It gives your photos a cool western vibe with and makes the desert mountains pop. It also showcases the warmth of the desert and it’s unique features such as arches. Taking your photos in the middle of the day is a great idea as long as you have a photographer that knows how to work with the harsh lighting.

AVOID THE SUMMER

Unless you’re totally fine with 105 degree weather and lots of sweat just avoid the summers honestly. You have to wake up super early and only do your ceremony and other activities in the morning or right before the sun sets in order to not possibly get heat exhaustion. It can get up to 117 degrees here in Southern Utah, and at that point you can’t even be outside anymore. The only outdoor activities during that time of the year is water activities so unless you want to do that I would just avoid this season entirely.

FALL IS THE BEST SEASON BY FAR

The fall in the desert is unmatched!! It’s 75 degrees all day, super pleasant weather, you can do anything you want, it’s less crowded, and the trees in Zion National Park and Utah turned to fall colors and you can get red rock and fall trees in the same photos!! You don’t have to wake up as early for sunrise or stay out as late. Literally it’s the perfect season and it’s by far my busiest season.

VISIT MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

The desert has some of the most unique landscapes anywhere in the world, make sure you take time on your elopement day to visit lots of different spots to see all it has to offer! You can see giant desert cliff faces, go on tall mesa overlooks, visit big rivers, see saguaros, visit Joshua trees, visit arches and hoodoos, and in some desert spots you can even visit pine trees and quiet desert forest spots. Make sure you or your photographer knows lots of cool locations around you so you can get a variety of photos! Click here to see how to find cool remote spots for your elopement.

TAKE PHOTOS DURING BLUE HOUR + STAR PHOTOS

Photos during blue hour (the time after the sun goes down when the whole sky is dark blue and purple) with the desert features are some of my favorite pictures ever! Dark purple skies with saguaros in the background make for some magical scenery you won’t get anywhere else.

Also the desert skies are usually clear so taking photos with the stars is always recommended! They are the coolest photos that not a lot of people have so if you’re interested in it make sure your photographer knows how!

These are some of my top tips! You’ll love your desert elopement and if you have any questions feel free to contact me!

How to Find Private Spots for your Elopement (Avoid tourists!)

A big question I get a lot is, “How can we find a private spot for our elopement?” After all, it’s not ideal to say your vows and share emotional moments together with a bunch of people talking around you, babies crying, other people trying to take pictures of the landscape and watching you. Most people elope in or near national parks and they can get quite crowded, but after photographing lots of elopements I’ve gotten quite good at finding sweet spots that are completely tourist free wherever I go! So here are my top tips for finding a private, remote, but still beautiful spot for your elopement or small wedding!

WEEKDAYS WEEKDAYS WEEKDAYS

I can’t stress this enough, eloping on weekdays is by far the best time to plan it. Everyone goes hiking and camping on the weekends, and the wilderness is just more crowded than usual. If you elope in a national park on a weekend you’re going to be waiting in traffic, have long wait times at restaurants, and you might not be able to do all the things you want because of the delays. I encourage all the elopements that I help plan and photograph to do it between Monday-Thursday, and those days are usually super chill with no wait times and lots more privacy. I’ve even had popular spots at Zion be almost empty at sunrise on a Tuesday morning, but if we were to do that same sunrise hike on a Saturday it would be packed. Adventure elopements and weddings are 100% better on weekdays and I would try everything you can to plan it around then!

TIME OF DAY

The time of day is super important too. I know it’s sometimes inconvenient to wake up early for sunrise but it just gets more crowded as the day goes on. If you want as much privacy as possible for your vows than sunrise is the way to go. Most of the time we do the ceremony first thing and then we can still get beautiful sunset photos later without the concern of it being awkward during your ceremony. Plus the sunrise is peaceful and super pretty so I recommend it anyway! Generally national parks are pretty crowded at sunset so that’s probably the worst time to go as far as privacy is concerned. Between 10am-5pm are pretty crowded since that’s when most people do their day hikes so before 10am is my recommendation for avoiding crowds.

THE TIME OF YEAR

So this greatly depends on the national park or area you’re interested at eloping in. I am local to Zion National Park and since it’s one of the most popular national parks it’s pretty crowded year round, but it’s much less crowded between December-February. The summer is overwhelmingly crowded and there’s just so much traffic you might end up waiting hours if you go during peak times like the weekend. Eloping in the winter in the desert is the best time to avoid tourists, and the late spring/summer is the worst time. If you’re planning an elopement in a place like Colorado or Montana though, eloping in the winter is just going to be too cold (unless you want a snow elopement) so you’ll have to elope during the peak times of the year which means you’ll have to follow my next few tips in order to ensure you don’t run into too many tourists! Most places are the busiest in the summer so planning a winter or late fall elopement is better for privacy (you might run into weather issues though depending on the place, the desert is pretty mild in the winter so Utah and Arizona are great winter elopement locations.)

HOW TO FIND SICK REMOTE SPOTS

Ok, so now that we’ve gotten the logistical tips out of the way, let’s talk about how to actually find these amazing remote spots on your own.

Google maps and Google earth are your biggest friend!!

So I have an Oculus VR headseat, and it has a feature where you can explore Google Earth, you can even go down dirt roads and explore lots of places that would take a lot of time to drive or hike to! I’ll sit in my living room and scout locations just for fun! It’s pretty cool, but obviously I’m assuming most of you don’t have a VR! No worries, Google earth is easily accessible on your computer and you can explore so much on there. Here’s the process of how I do it:

Let’s say you want to elope at Arches National Park in Moab, but you want to find some really cool spots that are a little out of the way. Obviously inside the national park is going to be crowded at most the main spots, so you’d want to find something that’s still by the park but not an actual part of it. (Unless you’re in a HUGE national park like Canyonlands or Yellowstone, they’re so big that you can find private spots in the park itself easily) I do this with almost every elopement that I shoot because you can always go back and take pictures in the national park after your ceremony.

I found this beautiful canyon right across from Arches NP that’s easy to get to and has lots of beautiful desert walls around it by following these tips!

This next part depends on the type of vehicle you have. I generally recommend renting a 4 wheel drive vehicle with some clearance so that way you can go wherever you want, but if you only have a car and nothing that can go on dirt roads, then skip to the next part.

So assuming you have a 4x4, or even a two wheel drive as long as it has clearance, my next step is finding dirt roads on public land (I’ll talk more about that in a second) and following them to see where they go. There’s a few crucial tips with this!

1.    Make sure it’s not gated!! Zoom in really close on the map and make sure it’s not blocked off.

2.    If it has street view on Google Earth, then that’s ideal because you can see exactly what it looks like!

3.    If not, then look around the road from the satellite view for certain distinct features. I always look for mountains and other landmarks that would make for a pretty background. You can check an elevation map as well to see how many hills or mountains there really are. I don’t like shooting in super flat areas so if it looks flat without any cool landmarks I don’t consider it.

4.    The wider the dirt road and more visible it is, generally it will be in better condition. There are some super wide and nicely taken care of dirt roads that even cars could drive on, and you’ll notice them on the map because they will be the widest dirt roads on the map. They’re also usually not very curvy roads.

5.    The narrower and more curvy the road it, the harder it’s going to be to drive on usually. If it’s harder to see from satellite view then it’s going to be a more technical road. If you enjoy offroading then it’s not a big problem, but if you want a road that’s easier then keep this in mind.

6.    Find a few dirt roads that look promising and put a pin on them.

7.    Research that general area on google (if it has a name) and see what other people have to say about that area!

8.    If all still looks promising then the last step is to just scout it out the day or two before! This is so you can know if the spot is right for you and so you can see the condition of the road.

*IMPORTANT NOTE* Make sure you send someone the exact location of where you’re going and when you expect to be back for safety reasons.

I’ve found some of the most incredible cliff overlooks, amazing canyons, and crazy unique scenery that no one else will have in their pictures from following this method. The couples I help always have private ceremonies in the coolest freakin spots!! Then usually we’ll go take pictures in the actual national park later. I highly recommend finding your own spots this way.

RESEARCH

I also do a lot of research before I visit an area! Googling, “remote spots in arches national park” and stuff like that is super helpful because then you don’t have to do it all by yourself! There are lots of offroading blogs (especially for Utah) that can show you maps of cool spots that people typically offroad to.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN OFFROADING VEHICLE

If you only have a car and don’t want to take it down a dirt road, then the next step here is that you’re probably going to have to hike a little ways to get a good spot or drive a little farther out of the area. For example, about an hour away from Zion there’s this beautiful paved scenic byway road that goes through a patch of Joshua trees and beautiful desert mountains. You could park right off to the side of the road and say your vows anywhere around there. So trying to find paved roads that are really far away or go through remote areas is another thing I do when I know the couple has family with cars or don’t want to go down dirt roads. Look for scenic byways specifically, you could try googling, “scenic drives by moab” or something like that. There might still be some people but it’ll be way less crowded.

Honestly, if you hike any trail that requires people to hike more than 3 miles you’ll probably get some of that to yourself, unless it’s a super popular hike like Angel’s Landing in Zion (that hike is crowded no matter what). I typically don’t do longer hikes as much for elopements because people don’t want to get sweaty and tired right before their pictures, but if you’re into that I think it’s an awesome idea!! Hiking in your wedding dress makes for some of the coolest pictures!

PUBLIC LAND

Make sure the area you choose to elope at is on public land, in order to do that I use an app called FreeRoam that shows which land is private and which land is public. Also make sure you look at the permitting rules for the area which are usually easy to find on the national parks website.

HAVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER DO THIS ALL FOR YOU

If this all seems overwhelming to you, no worries! I offer full planning and scouting services for my wedding/elopement photography packages and and a lot of other photographers offer that too. I know so many remote spots around Zion it’s crazy, just because I’ve lived here for almost a decade and go offroading all the time, but I’m also very good at finding these cool spots anywhere I go so I’ll usually get there a day or two before and do a bunch of in person scouting! And before that I’ll be sitting on the VR in my living room to make sure I find the best places! If you’re interested in having this process done for you contact me here! Even if you don’t book me as your photographer I’m still willing to help you out if it’s around the areas I already know! (Which is a lot of the western states)

One last thing to note, a lot of eastern and midwest states don’t have a lot of public land so this process is more geared towards the western states, but it’s still possible in other parts of the country!