gwyneth colleen photography » portland, or wedding photographer

retroblogging: europe day 2

day 2 i just hung out in villars, the village on top of the alp where i stayed.


shortly after taking the image on the left…i fell right on my butt…and missed landing in the stream by a matter of inches. i still had a nice snowy mud mixture on my bum for the rest of the day.


it was crazy foggy on top of the mountain which made everything seem quiet and sacred.


i saw a tiny little trail branching off the road and…decided to take it. the forest felt peaceful and serene…or like it SHOULD feel peaceful and serene…but the sound of jackhammers down the mountain a ways marred the experience a bit.


i call this “a picture of quiet”


after an evening outing to get a crepe (when in europe…), went for a walk in the snowy night.


don’t the snowflakes make this look like queen anne’s lace?

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Rachel20 January 2010 - 00:30

wow – that door / fog diptych makes my heart sing. well done!

Kelly Lee21 January 2010 - 11:16

This is making me ache whole heartedly for Austria. Hey, BA is doing a great sale right now, want to go back to Europe on a whim? But, no, seriously, call me next time you want to go… I almost booked a ticket on a whim last night! lol

Amanda25 January 2010 - 17:54

LOVE these photo’s! Usually winter is “drab and dreary” but I feel like you captured the real beauty of winter! And I agree that fog makes everything look so quiet

retroblogging: europe day 1

back in november, i went to europe on a whim. no seriously…it was a whim. i bought the ticket 3 weeks before i went, carried only my high school backpack, and was there less than a week. i rented a car and put over 2000km on it in the 3 days in which i actually drove…now that it’s cold and snowy in new hampshire, i am indulging in dreams of far flung adventures. i realized i’ve never shared these images… oh, and i took 1 camera and only 1 lens…my nikon d700 and 35 1.8 lens. there were 2 reasons for that choice…the major one was that i packed in a backpack, the secondary one was that when the images are not “important,” i like to give myself the creative challenge that comes with a very limited lens.

i arrived in geneva sunday morning…driving on the a1 toward the alp on top of which i would be staying…i felt exhilarating satisfaction. i highly recommend it…being somewhere halfway across the globe but self-sufficient and independent…the entire world at your fingertips. it’s one of the best things i’ve ever felt…(and i’m lucky to have felt it more than once!) (also…major props to europe…i don’t think you can even get an automatic rental. as opposed to the USA where you can’t get a manual if you ask for one.)

anyway, i arrived on top of the alp and said, “let’s drive to france!” so we did…my traveling companion said, “you know, if we do a 100km loop, we can stop in italy for dinner.” so we did. it was a 4 country day…(UK, switzerland, france, italy and back.)


a random bridge and river we encountered on our search for the motorway. signs in europe are not terribly intuitive…it took me awhile to figure them out…and hitting a new country (w/ different signs) every few hours on my drives certainly didn’t help. i spent a fair amount of time being lost. if i were going to do it again, i would DEFINITELY spring for the european maps for my GPS. on the plus side…i did see stuff i wouldn’t have seen on purpose. :-D)


view of an alp from a tiny little french village…pulled off into a parking lot because the allure of this steeple proved to be too much for me.


another view i would not have experienced without misadventure. driving along we saw a cable car and decided spontaneously…let’s find it and go for a ride! (we did not find it…) we pulled over to take photos of the cable cars and the mountain which they climbed. my friend tapped on the window and advised me to turn around. my jaw literally dropped…if you look at the upper right corner, you can see a glimpse of what i think is mont blanc…which we later drove through on our way to italy. also…tolls in europe are a beyotch!


one of my favorite things about europe is that pretty much everyone drinks fizzy water instead of flat. they ask you, “with gas, or without?”


i’m pretty sure they weren’t actually open yet, but this delightful gentleman ushered us in and served us some delicious pizza…and smiled the whole way through our comedy of errors (think laurel & hardy) conversation wherein i was asking for crushed red pepper. i felt like it would be rude to ask him in spanish…so i tried english and hand gestures…until i finally asked in spanish…which totally worked. (but before it did…i was offered regular pepper, spicy oil, and my favorite…ketchup.)


i’m pretty sure this man’s name is luigi…what else could it be, right?


pizza oven!


i was pretty exhausted at this point…3 hrs sleep in the pre-security area of heathrow’s terminal 5 doesn’t go very far…but much more excited than i look about real italian gelato!

day 2 shall be coming soon!

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kristel wyman19 January 2010 - 02:28

looks wonderful, i’m glad you’re finally posting them! can’t wait to see more!!

Kim K.19 January 2010 - 22:41

These are awesome! The first image of the bridge is stunning!!!

jessica & peter|durham, nh wedding photographer

jessica & peter were sent my way by the awesome duo matt & liz of hinkley photo. they were already booked, and is it terrible to say that i am SO GLAD? well, too bad if it is, because…I AM SO GLAD!

jess & peter live in sunny-ish LA these days, but peter is from durham…so they are planning from afar for a fall nh wedding. they were in town for christmas, so i twisted their arms to come play in the snow with me.


doesn’t this make you want to PLAY?


ok, so…there are a few things to note about this picture.
1) they are adorable.
2) when i said, “um, will you maybe lay in the snow?” there was NO hesitation. love.
3) her ring is still on her finger.
4) snow makes fingers shrink.
5) her ring did not STAY on her finger.
6) i found it, though! in the snow! and it is a darn good thing, too…because otherwise i probably would have lived with eternal guilt.
7) did i already mention the cuteness?

jess and peter were champs on a really, really, really freaking COLD day…i’m looking forward to getting them in front of my camera again when it’s not a single digit temperature! can’t wait, guys! also…if i weren’t headed somewhere sunny and warm in less than a week, i’d be way more jealous of you guys living in sunny california right now.

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jess17 January 2010 - 23:53

did i thank you enough for finding my ring? if not, THANK YOU! and also, cannot wait for october. xoxo

jody & matt: married|lambertville, nj wedding photographer

my friend david lives a whirlwind life…he works for world vision and was in a whopping 15 countries this year. therefore…his blogs are never in ‘real time’. he coined a brilliant term…”retro blogging.” seeing as jody and matt got married LAST NOVEMBER…this is definitely an exercise in retro blogging.

jody was claire’s maid of honor in july last year, and after claire & bobby’s wedding, she contacted me about traveling down to NJ to photograph her wedding.

matt really wanted pictures of his grandpa helping him put on his tie…and i’m SO glad he specifically requested these. they’re some of my favorites from the whole day!


pretty much everyone at the entire wedding doted on this little girl…and, like smart little girls everywhere, she gobbled it right up.


sometimes, when i’m doing family pictures…i tell everyone to pretend they’re on a roller coaster. there are a few reasons for this…
1) because who doesn’t look happy and excited when they’re on a roller coaster? especially if it’s just a pretend one that isn’t actually high up in the air…
2) for the POWAH! it’s intoxicating. 😀


i probably took 100 images trying to get the motion blur in the windows, but i’m glad i persevered!


it was a really cold day, and they’d hired this fabulous trolley to take everyone between the ceremony and reception sites…so we made the most of it!

jody & matt, thanks for inviting me to join your celebration. sorry i’m the world’s most disorganized and delinquent blogger ever, and it took me so long to write about you guys.

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Alex Workman27 December 2009 - 18:29

I really like the shots of the trolly. Keep up the great work!

Amanda29 December 2009 - 22:31

there are so many awesome shots here it would take to long to point them out! Looked like a wonderful wedding!

Love this wedding and the way it is shot, your work is incredible! I think that angle you used for the first dance makes for a much more interesting shot. Great pictures!!

Kim K.13 January 2010 - 17:34

These are awesome! Love the shots on the trolley! Great work!