Last weekend I went and visited the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve as everything has been blooming over here in SoCal. I’ve actually been following their website for the last couple months waiting for the right time to go visit, and now it looks like it’s finally hit a peak for the season. As for the reserve, it’s a pretty amazing place- quite literally the entire hillsides of the area become an bright orange glob of color. You can probably still catch it for the next couple weeks, you should try to get over there as it’s really a remarkable experience.

About: Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve

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The Antelope Valley California Poppy State Reserve is a state-protected reserve land located in the rural westside of the Antelope Valley in northern Los Angeles County, 15 miles west of Lancaster. The reserve is at an elevation ranging from 2600 to 3000 feet above sea level in the Mojave Desert climate zone. The reserve is administered by California State Parks. The reserve’s namesake and protection is based on the state flower, the California poppy. The area is one of the state’s most consistent poppy-bearing lands. Other wildflowers within the reserve include the owl’s clover, lupine, goldfields, cream cups and coreopsis.

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So for the last month or so, I’ve been trying to make it a part of my routine to go out and shoot a new place every week. Mostly this is to get me away from editing photos every day, but I’m also to add to my ever growing stock photo library. With this, I’m going to try and get everyone caught up on the last few places I’ve been which have been pretty cool I think.

About: Venice Beach, California

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Venice is a district in west Los Angeles, California, United States. It is best known for its canals and beaches, but it also has a somewhat Bohemian residential area as well as a colorful boardwalk. Venice is today one of the most vibrant and eclectic areas of Southern California and it continues a tradition of progressive social change involving prominent Westsiders.

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Interested in what the government knows about you when you travel? Most people have a nice long set of papers just waiting to mess up their great travel plans! UnSecureFlight.com provides the paperwork so that you can now request a copy of your dossier to read up on last weeks whereabouts, meals, dog walks, etc. for free! That way when you head off to some foreign country and you get detained, you’ll know why!

We just got back from the little photo trip up north- I got a total of 3 hours of sleep over Fri/Sat and we drove a bit over 900 miles in total. Because of time constraints [and me *cough* placing our campgrounds 3 hours away from where we were exploring] we ended up not getting to hit up Big Basin. On Sat but we did spend a decent amount of time at Año Nuevo State Park and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse and Sun. we spent it mostly at San Simeon State Park and Morro Bay. It was a pretty tiring trip for everyone, so we’re happy to be home and have lots of great photos to share hopefully within the next week or so!

This weekend we’re off to Big Sur again, as Tanya and I have been seriously needing a little get out of LA time [that and our lungs have filled to capacity with air pollution]. We’re going to be camping at San Simeon State Park but probably going up north around the Monterey / Santa Cruz areas. I think we’re going to stop by Big Basin Redwoods State Park as well as a quick stop at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse [which is a hostel I want to stay at]. We’ll see…plenty to be explored!

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These are some of my new favorite shots from the ceremony- as they’re leaving they had a nice healthy ‘newlywed’ glow that I think I did a pretty good job capturing. Next week, it’s on to the final reception shots!

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

Right before the ceremony I was busy following around the girls as they got ready in a nearby building. Once I got the call, the guys were already getting the guests seated so I had to book it down to the Weston’s beach and start collecting photos of the family.

Brian and Veronica had quite possibly the most beautiful beach ceremony I’ve seen. Granted, from a photographer’s perspective, sand=danger but once you get past that you couldn’t have a more scenic location to take wedding photographs. We even had quite the audience from a hoard of people watching while bathing in a forever pool nearby.

We were lucky enough to have a storm just roll through the area and with the gorgeous Bahamas setting sun it was a really amazing setting.

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

Shooting the groomsmen formals was a lot of fun, everyone was a blast to hang around with. This little kid who was Brian’s brother was a real ham for attention so he was always making these goofy faces [not unlike my childhood, i can relate] so his mom was always getting mad at him. Hilarious!

After that it was back inside the Weston for the guys and I was off to find the girls and follow them getting finished off and down to the wedding.

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

Before the wedding started I went over to the section of the hotel and met up with the groomsmen to grab some formals. As everyone was getting together I snapped some fun shots of the guys goofing around and previewing how Brian proposed to Veronica. The room lighting was pretty tough as the sun was starting to set and bright light was streaming in the window. A nice little fill flash killed the shadows and brought out the beautiful saturation in the room. Once everyone arrived we headed outside to shoot some formals.

I had a lot of fun shooting the groomsmen out in front of the Port Lucaya, Bahamas Westin. It was still unbelievably hot and the humidity was unbearable but we banged through it and shot some photos out along some rocks in front of the resort. The nice part was a huge rainstorm had just passed [which was great in itself] and created these beautiful clouds that just lit up in the sunset.

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

As I mentioned last month, I shot a destination wedding of a beautiful couple, Brian and Veronica Roof. On July 21st, I flew out of LA and down to the Grand Bahama Island off of Florida- not too bad of a trip and adding a ‘puddle jumper‘ airplane into the mix is always fun. I’m not quite used to summer Florida heat, LA is hot at times but it’s never really humid. Getting used to the AC to humidity is something I’ll ever quite adapt to.

The wedding was beautifully planned out and now that I’m remotely thinking about my wedding, the idea of planning something so far away is quite daunting. Nevertheless, everyone was incredibly nice to me even from the first night when I arrived at the rehearsal dinner- I really felt part of their family.

In the next few days I’m going to post up some of my favorite photos from the days I was there, I hope you enjoy!

LOCATION: The Weston, Grand Bahama Island
CAKE/HAIR/DJ by: Westin Staff
PHOTOS by: Ian Grant Photography

Location: Big Sur, CA [and Limekiln State Park] // Google Maps
See the Stock Photo Gallery / See The Rest of the Big Sur Photo Galleries

Tanya and I made our yearly [and sometimes multi-year] trip up north to Big Sur, a coastline region of big cliffs and small roads. It turned out to be a great time to go up there as everything was in bloom and it wasn’t too overly packed with tourists. We went camping up in Limekiln State Park which is a beach and redwood area right off one of the cliff bridges. We had a beach campground which was fantastic and saw a nice fog sunset complete with gulls and roaring waves. If you’re yet to go to Big Sur, its a fantastic drive and always a great time.

via wikipedia.org;
Big Sur is a thinly-settled region of the central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. This geology produces stunning views and has become a magnet for global tourism. Big Sur’s Cone Peak is the highest coastal mountain in the lower 48 states, ascending nearly a mile (5,155 feet/1.6km) above sea level, only 3 miles (4.8 km) from the ocean.[1] Although Big Sur has no specific boundaries, many definitions of the area include the 90 miles (145km) of coastline between the Carmel River and San Carpoforo Creek, and extend about 20 miles (32km) inland to the eastern foothills of the Santa Lucias, while other sources limit the eastern border to the coastal flanks of these mountains, only 3 to 12 miles (4.8-19km) inland. The northern end of Big Sur is about 120 miles (193km) south of San Francisco, and the southern end is approximately 245 miles (394km) north of Los Angeles.

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Looks like I’m on my way back to Ireland in November for my birthday! My dad is also coming along!