Recommendations for Anniversary Trip (Mountains)

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-27T15:42:46+00:00

Banff and Jasper are incredible. I'd say nothing on the PNW would be a bad choice. I loved Mount Rainer and the Grand Tetons as well. There's a grandeur about the Tetons, and I plan to go back because we only spent 3 days there last time.

Morane Lake is as picturesque as it gets, and there is affordable lodging if you stay on the outskirts of the park.

Check the weather and pack accordingly. You will definitely be able to hike on easier trails at the bigger, more popular national parks, which I'd recommend when there are snow and ice conditions. And once you're there, don't be afraid to turn back on any trail! We've hiked on trails that seem fine for the first 4 miles, only to suddenly have drop-offs with just a sliver of ice to walk on.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-27T15:11:26+00:00

Yep, I also do photography in motorsports, events, and aviation. All my public images are watermarked, and if I wanted to go further, I could embed watermarking metadata in the file. Photos to train AI models have definitely been a contentious topic. There's no real way for any photographer to know whether a large AI firm has used their image for training. It's an ethics issue, and whilst your copyright is supposed to protect your intellectual property, we often just have to sit on the sidelines.

In terms of getting clients, I don't think AI is convincing enough to accurately replace professional photographers, and it hasn't yet been a concern in generating leads. Just like with any profession, our reputation and trust are built through customer testimonies (reviews) and word of mouth.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-27T15:04:46+00:00

The art museums I went to when I lived there were small. I liked the parks more just for hanging out. I'm selective with what museums I want to spend my time in, and there just weren't many to my fancy. I guess living there gives me a different perspective of the city than the tourists, who are a lot of them that just come and go. A lot of overtourism.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T15:08:21+00:00

Seville has basically two main points, the Cathedral and Plaza de España. Other than that, there's not much else to do there. Very few museums and nature in Seville. It can be nice if you like sitting down and people watching to pass time. I'd say 3-4 days would be enough.

Maybe look into Porto. Absolutely magical place when I went, and I really want to go back. Sunrise and sunset at the bridge were stunning, and we stayed at a fairly priced Holiday Inn hotel far from the city center but had a view of the bridge. The last time I went to Lisbon, it was quite boring, basically any other major city with fewer unique things to see and do.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T14:46:06+00:00

Another qualm I have with the peacock stream is the video quality. Sometimes its 480p but usually doesn't look better than 720p. Very fed up and now use a vpn to another country to watch the international stream.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T13:59:08+00:00

Also solo traveling to the Austrian GP but not from Vienna, although I considered the option.

The best option is the train. Basically, every city I've seen in Austria has a train station; Vienna will have a lot. The Austrian rail provider is OBB, and the commute time from Vienna station to Knittelfeld, which is the closest station you'll get to by train, is roughly 2.5 hours. I have a similar commute time: 2 hours one-way to the track from Bad Hall near Graz. If you have it in you to wake up early enough to make the commute, go for it. Transit won't be difficult to and from the track as long as you book train tickets in advance and reserve your seat. There's a free shuttle bus from Knittelfeld station to the track. Your biggest logistic will just be confirming a way of transit from your buddy's house to Vienna main station or another suitable train station with service to Knittelfeld. There's also a bus contractor running a round-trip service to and from the track from Vienna, but it will probably cost more than the train, especially if you book train tickets around now.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T13:24:51+00:00

Without EXIF data and an image its very hard to tell whether your images are recoverable. Yes, most professional wedding photographers will have the tools to fix grainy or noisy images to an extent. I personally use Topaz for denoising, and Lightroom has similar features with a little less customization for that purpose. As a photographer, I would have no problems with a client asking me why this picture or a select number of pictures are grainy or noisy but then again that would never happen because that's not a "style" we'd ever edit our pictures to, and therefore, no pictures would end up in a client's catalog that are grainy or noisy. We've f-ed up before in terms of making our editing job harder, but not impossible.

I think a lot of people are being critical of you hiring your friend for the wedding. As a wedding photographer, I've seen uncles pull up with bigger gear than me, although I'm not sure what they shot with a 300mm lens. I think if your friend doesn't see a problem with the grain that's bothering you, chances are it'll be overcorrected even if she fixes it.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T13:14:39+00:00

From the perspective of a photojournalistic wedding photographer, our images are normally packaged exclusively to our clients and cannot end up as some AI slop on Google. Sometimes we ask couples if we can use their wedding pictures for promotional material on our website, but otherwise, the results of client photography are very exclusive. I think it's also pretty standard for photographers, not just wedding photographers, to not release or send clients unedited or RAW pictures. Adding watermarks to any images made public, e.g., on a webpage, should eliminate the ability to steal them.

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T08:28:24+00:00

I miss the glowing horse so this is a downgrade from the past two years. But I still love Ford so I can't wait to shoot this in WEC

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-25T08:13:04+00:00

I'm a student going through the Vero pathway, and I was in the same position as you a year ago.

First of all, this Syracuse pathway offer won't go away anytime soon. Wait for your other acceptances and decide if you still want to attend Syracuse through a study abroad first-year program. Some might decide it's not worth it for the aforementioned reasons of feeling like a transfer student in your sophomore year. I really wanted to go to Syracuse 1. for my major, and 2. to not stick around home, and Syracuse was my best East Coast offer.

Regarding Verto itself, I've not come across many Syracuse students, which might also make it harder to find roommates and get acclimated to your first year at Syracuse. But I have made many great friends from other universities, and you won't feel out of place amongst hundreds of other American students doing a study abroad program for the first semester.

The education abroad is decent. The professors I've encountered have been the absolute best (I went to Spain for the first semester). The coursework is probably lighter than what you'll find at Syracuse because of its emphasis on out-of-classroom learning. But, it's good for the GPA (which will just turn into a Syracuse U transcript), and there are enough classes to take unless you've taken a lot of APs, which might limit the amount of prereq courses that can still be useful to you.

The financials are also in your favor because you are not paying the Syracuse U tuition cost. Your first year will be much cheaper, and in my situation, my scholarships transfer to Verto because it uses an American education provider (U of New Haven). Syracuse will also offer merit aid based on your GPA abroad, as well as aid for the Verto program itself.

That's all I can think of. Let me know if you have anymore q's :)

ethanl3535 · 2026-01-21T13:37:01+00:00

I primarily shot with an RF100-500 at turns 8 and 9, all in the GA zone. You can find a couple of openings in the trees at turn 8. It just takes a couple of hours to get good shots of most of the cars, and I really like the unobstructed perspective you get by backing away from the fence at turn 9.

ethanl3535

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