Yah!

Ever see a photo on an album cover and wish that one of your photos could be on an album cover one day?

Music & Photography seem to go hand & hand. It’s a perfect fit. I have photographed bands & musicians before but I’ve never had the chance to be on an album cover. Until now….

I’m proud to say that I now have a photo on an album cover!

Tip Top Recordings has used some of my photos from the Salton Sea for their Looking Glass & Vio/Miré 7″ vinyl split. Exciting!

The album has four excellent songs on it and if you’re looking for some new indie music, be sure to check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Take a hop over to Tip Top Recordings and check out the write up of these two fantastic groups. You can listen to the album as well and see some of the other albums that Tip Top has released.

Be sure to stop by the respective band websites – Looking Glass & Vio/Miré to learn more about them and see what new stuff they have going on.

I’m really excited to be a part of such a great project, and I’m flattered that my photos have been used as the artwork for not only one, but two, awesome bands!

Here are some photos of the cover and the on the album.

*Please remember all photos on this website, unless otherwise noted, are copyrighted and property of Beers and Beans Travel Website, Nariko’ s Nest Weddings & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

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For me, at least, it’s always nice to be on the other side of an interview. Being questioned about my life, especially now that we’ve decided to travel long term, is nothing new; though, the questions generally come from loved ones or friends who, while completely supportive, aren’t exactly sure how realistic the whole endeavor is. Though, I understand where they’re coming from, heck, I had the same apprehensions. Admittedly, I was naive and, at times, resistant to the world of long term travel and location independence. Without even knowing it I had developed the U.S. Blues–symptoms include: work, produce, consume…add debt, repeat–then Beth introduced me to budget travel, and we never looked back.

So, when Ross from Europe Traveler asked if we would like to be interviewed, we were ecstatic. Not only were we already big fans of his website and past interviews, we also knew the interview would be a great way to warm up for the inevitable Christmas Q&A session at the family Christmas party. We have included a screenshot of the interview below, and the full version can be viewed at Europe Traveler.

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*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

Before traveling to Iceland I spoke with the awesome guys over at TravelSquire.com and decided to shoot a photo essay for them on Iceland. Iceland was absolutely beautiful and I have been specifically waiting to release many photos from that part of the trip until Travel Squire had made their choices. It was tough choosing which photos to go with but I think they did a great job and picked out some great shots! If you missed the Published photo essay, you can check it out at their website TravelSquire.com. In fact you should visit their site anyway because hey have a lot of great travel info on their site and not to mention, they are really fantastic people!

I have also included a screen shot below of the published article & photos and I have included a gallery of the photos they used.

To see the photos in their full glory please click on the two arrows on the bottom right hand side of the gallery. I hope you like them!

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Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed OR get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.

*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

In an effort to catch up on some of my published articles I am posting what became a pretty popular article over at Emily’s website – Maiden-Voyage-Travel.com a few months ago.

Emily’s website is geared more towards the 20 something traveler and even though I am in my 30′s I had a great piece that I wanted to write about. I had been thinking about it for quite sometime and was going to post it on my site before the opportunity came up with Emily. It was meant to be a humorous and funny post and I wrote it with a bit of dry humor in hopes that people would giggle a bit as they read it.

Not everyone who commented agreed with it or saw the humor in it but everyone left excellent comments and I was really happy with how it turned out. Plus from the people who left comments I was able to find a fantastic selection of new blogs to follow!

You can take a look at the screen shot below but if you want to see the article (and corresponding comments) then you can visit Emily’s fantastic website – Maiden-Voyage-Travel.com

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Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed OR get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.

*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

I have some catching up to do with our published works! I was lucky enough to get a guest posting opportunity at TravelwithaMate.com a few months back and I’ve slacked a bit in getting it up on Beers and Beans. But over the next few weeks I am going to catch up with a few of these published articles and get them up on the site. If you haven’t seen this post we did at Travel With A Mate then get on over and check it out!

The link is below as well as the screen shot.

Travel With Friends Vs. Travel Solo

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Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed OR get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.

*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

I was lucky enough to be interviewed by the lovely Erica from OverYonderlust.com!

I was very flattered and excited that she liked my work enough to consider me for an interview and I loved her thought provoking interview questions. If you haven’t checked out her blog, head over to OverYonderlust.com and take a look. Her website is awesome and features fantastic photos that she’s taken herself. In fact, she is one of my favorite travel photographers!

While you’re there check out my interview as well!

Here’s a screen shot of the interview:

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Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed OR get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.

*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

If you want more information or want to inquire about having your wedding photographed by Nariko’s Nest please contact me at Beth@NarikosNest.com. BeersandBeans readers get 20% and all destination weddings book at 50% off regular rates!! To see more photos please visit NarikosNest.com.

Matt & Deborah Preston run a really cool website – Travelwithamate.com.

The website is chock full of awesome information about all things travel – tips, advice & travel tales. The best part is that that they also interview a lot of travelers about their time on the road. If you jet over to their site not only can you get a ton of great information to inspire you for your next trip but you can read travel stories & get tips from full time travelers.

We were very flattered when he asked to interview us and it was a lot of fun answering his questions, some of which we might have answered a little too openly!

To read the full interview please visit TravelWithAMate.com.

A screenshot of our interview:

Have you ever wanted to free yourself from the cubicle and live a new, exciting kind of life? Well if you haven’t stopped by AlmostFearless.com you need to do it today. Christine is pretty much a guru in big life changes and she has tons of tips to take the big, scary step out of the 9-5 comfort zone and into an exciting life plan. She left a fortune 500 job for the great unknown and has been traveling ever since. On top of that she just had a baby a couple months ago and is currently working on a travel documentary. You can get involved by beinginterviewed or sponsoring part of the project.

I’ve been following her for a while now because not only is her blog interesting, it’s also very well written. If you take a gander over there you will become addicted to her blog quickly – I guarantee it!

I was flattered when she agreed to use one of my articles as a guest post on her blog. The post is all about travel photography and it details 5 tips for unique and interesting travel photos. Take a look and check it out – I’m sure you’ll find something that you haven’t thought of before. Hopefully it will spark a change in the way you take travel photos and get you excited about your next trip!

Here’s a quick screen shot of the top of the article. To read the rest of it and all the tips please visit AlmostFearless.com or read below.

(Oaxaca Street Photos – Oaxaca, Mx)

If photography is the study of light, then what exactly is a photograph? A photograph itself is much more specific. A photograph is a moment in time – amoment that has passed and is unique and perfect on its very own. It’s a moment that will never and can never be duplicated. You can’t hold it in your hand, you can’t rewind time and make it happen again– all you can try to do is capture it.  That moment is where the beauty and magic of photography lives. It’s up to you, the photographer, to feel and find that moment and translate it into film or pixels.

Sometimes it is easy to take beautiful photos. We are drawn to areas of abundant natural beauty and usually those places photograph easily. But what if you are looking for a different take on the region you are vising? Maybe you want to push your boundaries and take travel photos that are a bit more unique but you aren’t sure where to start. Perhaps you want to scratch the surface a bit more and photograph not what is directly in front of you but  instead how you feel about it?

I realize that idea might sound foreign to many of you reading this and it can be daunting to try and think about photographing feelings & emotions, especially in terms of travel photography.

Travel photography is no different than any other type of photography. A good travel photo isn’t necessarily about the person or the place in the camera’s frame but instead it is about how the subject existed in that specific moment in time. It doesn’t matter if you are in your own backyard or in Timbuktu it simply comes down to a moment in time and how you choose to reveal it.

Today I’m going to share some of my best tips for getting unique travel photos that will make you glow with pride and set you apart from the crowd. Putting these tips into use will help you walk away with excellent photos that will not only give you great memories but will also wow the folks back home. I promise it’s not really as hard as you think as long as you just try shooting things a little differently.

These tips can be used with a film or a digital camera, an SLR or a point and shoot. Better equipment doesn’t make for a better photographer so get out there and work with what you have and don’t worry about spending a ton of money.

Hopefully one of these tips will warm a little fire within you that will grow into your own technique and/or travel portfolio.

Travel Photography Tip #1: Shoot from the hip.Yes, I mean this literally.

(Oaxaca Street Photos – Oaxaca, Mx)

I LOVE shooting from the hip. I cannot state that enough. It is one of my favorite ways to shoot and with digital cameras there is no excuse not to try it yourself. Shooting from the hip is great for a lot of reasons.

1. You can shoot anything, anywhere and not feel like a total tourist.

2. You can shoot when you are not allowed to take photos (as long as your camera is quiet and you aren’t using a flash). We all love that idea right?!

3. Many people do not like to be randomly photographed and if you’re like most people you probably feel weird about asking permission (plus a language barrier may make an explanation really tough). When you are shooting from the hip people have no idea they are being photographed so they stay in their natural state instead of tightening up.

4. Maybe you’re in a sketchy area and you want to take photos but you don’t want to show off your favorite piece of gear. If you have an over the shoulder bag, you can line it up over your camera strap and keep the bag over the camera on your hip. You can discreetly move your shoulder bag a few inches to the side and snap off a few frames and no one will know the difference.

5. You never know what kind of cool image you are going to get! This is exactly what I am talking about in terms of photographing emotion. A  lot of times when you shoot from the hip you will be amazed at what you get. You may just surprise yourself with a great photo that not only shows emotion but also reminds you of how you feel. From the sights, the sounds, the smells and the people–your emotions are fully charged when you travel to a new place. Those feelings deserve to be and should be photographed. Give them a fighting chance by shooting from the hip and see what you get.

Technically Speaking: My advice here is get a big memory card, shoot a lot amd shoot continually. Shoot while in a group, shoot while eating, shoot while walking – all from the hip and see what you get!  Warning: There will be a lot of crappy shots that you need to delete, it’s the nature of the beast and that is okay, because the ones that make the cut will leave you beaming like the sun.

Travel Photography Tip #2: Try a new perspective.

(The Road To Angel’s Landing – Zion National Park, Utah USA)

This is similar to tip #1 but it’s different because this involves putting yourself into interesting positions. Sometimes eye level is boring and switching things up can help dramatically– get high, get low or get sideways.  Try actually lying on the ground and taking some photos. The world looks really different from down there doesn’t it? The good news is that your photos will be completely different too.  Can’t believe how crazy that bus terminal is? Jump up on a chair and shoot down over the scene. No chair? Get your arms up high over your head and shoot away. Really intrigued by a crazy looking bug crawling around? Get down on the floor and shoot from the bug’s level. Going high and low is a really easy and fun way to photograph any scene. Yes, you may get some strange looks but who cares–you’re the one with the cool photo right?

Technically Speaking: While in Utah at Zion National Park I was amazed at the juxtaposition between the red roads, yellow lines and blue sky. We were just getting ready to hike Angel’s Landing, which is the mountain in the back of this photo, and I wanted to take a photo at the start of the journey. I took a few pictures standing at normal height until I decided that the colors of the street and the sky were exactly what I needed to make this photo pop. The lines in the street also help direct the viewer’s eye to the mountain.

Travel Photography Tip #3: Shoot a famous place but shoot something that it isn’t necessarily famous for.

(From Arizona With Love – Sedona, Arizona)

OK, this photo isn’t typical Sedona but that’s why I’m featuring it here. Often times when taking photos in a well known location you can end up with the same pictures everyone else. Sedona is a magical town known for its healing powers and beautiful red rocks that surround the city. Everyone on earth can agree that the red rocks are amazing and that’s why everyone that visits Sedona takes pictures of them. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take photos of the tourist attractions and the beautiful landscapes in the area, but while you’re there I recommend trying to find something else that is unique–something that other people are simply missing. When I was last in Sedona, I did take  pictures of the red rocks but it was this image that really stuck with me because I knew no one else would have this exact photo. This building was old, beautiful, different and pure Sedona. It quickly became one of my favorite from that trip.

Technically Speaking: I decided to enhance the old look of the building by fogging up the lens with my breath. Simple, huh? Fogging up the lens created a vintage, old fashioned feel, which I thought was reminiscent of the old west and Sedona. Try this technique out if you want something different in a matter of seconds. It’s pretty cool because every time you fog up your lens you will get a slightly different image. The dark vignetting on the corners was created by my polarizing filter. I created this whole look in the camera, not in Photoshop, and it’s something you can easily try yourself anywhere you are.

Travel Photography Tip #4: Try a new technique.

(Out The Window Series/Chicken Bus – Guatemala City, Guatemala)

You can put anything in front of your camera to create a different feel for your photos. There are a variety of household items you can try out: Saran Wrap, Vaseline (only put this on the UV filter – DO NOT put it directly on lens), a glass cup, a Ziploc bag, nylons sunglasses, fog up your lens with your breath (see tip #3), etc. Your imagination is really the limit here. Anything that could work as a filter over your camera will do. You can also try some different in camera techniques. Try using the self timer when you take a photo but without you in it. It will take a photo at a different time than you would normally and you might like what you get. I use this technique a lot when I’m sitting at a cafe people watching. Try low light or night time photography. Don’t be intimidated by blur – if you don’t have a tripod a seat bench, fence post or even a rock will work as your base. Set the camera down, put on the self timer (so you won’t get any camera shake from pushing the button) and see what unfolds. Another easy option is to simply switch your camera to a black and white setting and shoot that way. Sometimes that is all you need to see your surroundings in a different light.

Technically Speaking: I took the photo of the chicken bus while I was riding on a different chicken bus. It is part of my Out The Window series, which is a collection of photos taken out the window of a bus, car, boat, plane, etc while traveling from one place to another.  It was an overcast day and I underexposed the shot a bit which is what created the b/w type effect. The red bus pops because it was bright enough to create enough contrast in the frame. Shooting through the window is what gives this photo the grainy look. You can even see part of the window reflection on the right side of the bus. Sometimes reflections can ruin a photo but in this case it works and actually adds a sense of speed to the image. Even something as simple as shooting through a piece of window glass can give you a different look instantaneously. The next time you settle in for a 8 hour bus ride give it a try.

Travel Photography Tip #5: Capture the details.

(Orange Crush – Panajachel, Guatemala)

Don’t forget all the little details that made your trip memorable. Whether it’s the bread, the fabrics, the food, the mint on your pillow, the architecture, the souveniers or even the raindrops–make sure to shoot all the small details that make that location unique. These things are important and easily overlooked when taking photos. When you’re back at home you will be happy that you took those pictures because they will not only complete your album but they’ll also help bring back specific memories of your journey.

Technically Speaking: When I first saw this scene there was an older couple in full traditional dress sitting at this table eating. The scene caught my eye because the soda bottles seemed so modern compared to the Indian farmers who were drinking out of them. I took a couple shots but nothing really looked right. When they got up and left, the light dramatically improved and that’s when this picture came to life. Instead of being a people picture, it became a beautiful detail. Now every time I look at this photo I can see them sitting next to us having breakfast. Sometimes it pays to wait out a scene for a while to get something that really clicks.

Full Screen Shot:

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*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I love to share. Thanks!

Some of you may know Brooke of Brookevstheworld.com. Brooke is one bad ass traverler who has spent time in some hard parts of the world. Can you say 6 months in the Ukraine (during winter!) and an extended stay in Kyrgyzstan while learning Russian? Currently she’s trying out the ex-pat gig while staying holed up for a while in Sydney Australia.

Brooke and I have been pals for the past 3 years or so, trading traveling tips & the ups and downs of life. Now she has created a newsletter for women travelers with tons of her traveling tips in it!

If you are a traveling woman you will definitely want to check it out & sign up!
If you are a male – check it out & sign up but only if you dare!

Seriously it’s made for women specifically and deals with issues that women encounter on the road. Underwear and shaving the bits have been the focus of the two last newsletters. It has tons of tips to help get you on and through the road, feminine issues and all.

Did I mention it’s also hysterical??

I was lucky enough to contribute to it last month and you can check out my ridiculous story about de-hairing below deck on the last newsletter – When Hairy met Sally.

So go ahead, check it out and sign up for the newsletter. Feel free to contact Brooke too because she is always looking for new contributers – female or male!

If you are a travelin’  kinda gal you owe it to yourself to join the Underground! Why leave home without it?

Find Brooke and get in on the action:

Join the Underground!

Brookevstheworld.com

@Brookeshoenman

Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting below or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed and get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.

*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I love to share. Thanks!

I opened my email this morning to find a nice surprise – one of my photos was published on Whygo.com! Yah!

Those of you familiar with Bootsnall already know what Whygo is all about but those that don’t – it is a Bootsnall site that produces awesome travel guides for destinations around the world. It’s a go to place where you can get travel tips/advice and ideas about where to take your next trip. If you are serious about traveling then you need to join Bootsnall.com. It has by far the best travel information. The forums are phenomenal and beat out Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree any day of the week.

They also feature a daily photo on their Whygo site to inspire your wanderlust. I submitted this photo and it was published today which is very exciting!

Here are the screen shots and below is the original image which you might recognize from my Somewhere In Time photo post a week or so ago.

Thanks WhyGo!

Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting below or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed here and get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.

*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me  to ask first because I love to share. Thanks!