time freaking flies.

we haven’t really posted too much since being here but we’re going to start putting up more soon. we’ve been super busy working on stuff and getting situated so the blog has taken a backseat, but we’ve honestly taken some of our best photos in the last few months (isn’t that how it should be?) and are super excited to share.

here are a few from a couple months back. this is jayce (ford models), he’s an awesome dude. this is a shoot for a spring lookbook for time & silence, a boutique button down company here in la.

grab this image calendar style at the tumblr.

megan helped get a stellar cast of models together as well as an amazing hair stylist, kimi rocked the clothes, and we brought the production home. a couple months later we have dtf’s first official fashion story.

here’s a shot from the series, but jump over to our portfolio to see the whole thing!

it’s kind of our favorite month, probably mostly because both of our birthdays are in february (the 6th and 19th) but it’s also fun and weird with how short it is. and this year is a leap year, so that’s neat.

we’re planning a birthday at the beach because we live in LA and can do that in february.

so, hope you enjoy this months desktop background. download it on de tumbla.

the beach was our backyard and we fell asleep and woke up to the breeze + sounds of the ocean. zivi’s family has been going to the cayman islands for 35 years (!) to spend a week relaxing and soaking up the sun. every year zivs fam goes scuba diving — they’re all PADI certified — and this year I got to dive, too! and after being in the mediterranean this summer and shooting some underwater stuff, we knew we had to rent a camera and do some shooting of these incredible reefs. zivi rocked the camera and is going to put a project together, but you can get an idea of how amazing it was from the photo below. can’t wait to do more of that.

this is what our week looked like.

props to megan for taking us to the roof of her office building for sunset in dtla this month.

& happy new year.

that morning we scavanged through his travel wear and found a couple outfits to take with us to an awesome looking tower on a hill overlooking the city. he had his camera with him too, so a lot of the day was spent just photographing the city together. we exchanged stories of traveling and compared growing up in far-away places. he told us about how he was educated through a waldorf system in australia that focused more on actually doing things rather than on grades and tests, something that as creatives we both love to encourage. this background definitely shined through in him as he was down to try whatever came to mind while we were walking around and was keen to throw out ideas as well.

it’s nice going through photos from traveling and remembering back to it and the people you meet. so many people from so many walks of life, it’s pretty amazing that we all co-exist.

MODEL // caitlin marshall

HAIR + MAKE-UP // megan sutherland

STYLING // kimi recor

PHOTOGRAPHY // describe the fauna

check over at our tumblr to get the calendar desktop version of the shot below.

hannah + christian painting:

ixquel:

anthony of m83:

cool screen print show at this los angeles:

kimi + megan:

chris:

whenever you are, we’re already then.

hannah, snapped by christian:

since 1949. ish. snapped by chris vick:

check our twitter sometime in the next some amount of time and we’ll let you know when we get the new project up… hype!

we shot off a roll of film and since there was a walgreens across the street from the venue we figured we’d get it developed and make some prints. needless to say, we were super pumped to give trevor some 4×6′s of the shoot we had just done, definitely something we’d like to continue. that whole tangible thing is distant from so much photography lately, and understandably so, which makes us appreciate prints even more.

oh, and if you don’t know who he is // check out his music.

all that being said, just before we left chicago we realized we were out of business cards. bad timing since we would leave for our month long west coast drive before new cards could arrive. we’ve been cardless for the last month and half which isn’t a big deal, but it’s a nice thing to have, especially when you’re meeting tons of new people.

so finally we got new cards (from moo.com again, can’t recommend this company enough), and it’s good we that waited because they now have our new la number on them. which means it’s pretty official — we’re workin in la!

soooo if anyone you know is lookin’ for a photographer… 323.455.4383

our friend jake and his ladyfriend rachel were driving from reno to boston and stopped through chicago for a few days back in august to hang out and see the city. we made some music, ate some tacos & fro yo, you know, all the usual things. maybe we’ll post the song we finished up here when it’s all done! here are few shots of these two studs from the weekend.

you can hear some of jake’s personal work here, but he’d probably kill me if i posted this, so don’t tell him, haha.

we spent the last couple nights camping on the washington coast at second beach, part of olympic national park that lines the northwest washington shoreline. it’s about a half hour hike through some lush forest out to the beach, which once you start catching glimpses of from the trail makes you want to run with excitement. it was epic.

joe’s a super dude and we’ve gotten to hang out with him on some chicago nights including a lovely evening last week on his rooftop in the west loop. this is him in his sweet loft space with his x100. look it up!

a few pictures from our last month in this amazing space. probably the coolest apartment we’ll ever live in, but we said that in boston too, so who knows…

MODEL // veronica avina

HAIR + MAKE-UP // alyson lyon

PHOTOGRAPHY + STYLING // describe the fauna

with that, happy first day of august yesterday! enjoy the backporch grillin’ days while you still can! and download our august desktop background over at our tumblr, ifyawanna.

day two, and our last day in europe!, was a big mess-o-paris. started off on the train to notre dame, ate a crepe, walked over to the louve, walked to the eiffel tower, ate some ice cream, walked up to the arc d’triumph and finally took a trian over to moulin rouge before walking back to the hotel from there. could easily spend a week in that city and we’re excited to go back someday.

funny side story, with the expectation of wearing shorts upon our return to balmy chicago, we went in search of some razors for the female member of our party. went into three pharmacies, and every time the same quizical look came over the clerk’s face as they replied, ‘for women??’, and handed us a mens razor. lol – don’t shop for feminine razors in france. and we did end up finding some cheap disposables at a super market, so really the moral is just to know where to look.

anyway… chicago for two nights, texas for the week and then back to chicago until we’re not there anymore! hello american life!

brugge was actually really lovely city. it was also framed around a number of canals and it’s castle like appearance was really charming, though not totally our jam. we got a hold of a ‘young travelers’ map that had a list of over 75 daytime and nighttime adventures on the cheap, which was super helpful. we trekked around the city, which was pretty small and extremely walkable, and enjoyed the relatively rain free day picking through a number of free – cheap activities that we were given. definitely felt kinda touristy, but also felt like we got to see the city…i guess that’s the point?

anycase, glad to have stopped over in belgium for a hot second and to get a taste for yet another obscure mix of cultures that europe seems to provide.

the first thing we noticed about the netherlands is the intense amount of bike riders that fill the bike lanes. there was definitely more traffic in the bike lanes than on the street which was pretty amazing to see, but also terrifying because you have to remember to not walk in the bikelane (and it’s so much more instinctive to walk between those two white lines!). we arrived in amsterdam after dropping of our bags and were swallowed in the throngs of tourists — definitely one of the denser touristy places we’ve experienced this trip. people obviously flock here for the, freedoms, that this place offers — even more so now that those freedoms are being tightened up at the end of this year. we found a cool enough junk store to sift through for awhile, got overwhelmed with some of the best selections in art books at a bookstore ive ever seen, and helped some girls carry a queen size mattress down the street…

the next day we headed to another town in the netherlands called den haag, which means ‘the haag’. we originally headed there because of the proximity to the beach but deterred by the rain, we spent most of our time there hanging out with each other on the patio at the hostel catching up on stuff and enjoying the cool fresh air.

it is a small, pretty city, but we were feeling pretty phased and only being there for one day made us feel even less dedicated. so while looking through a some attractions on a prague app on the iphone we noticed one that stood out and sounded perfect for how we were feeling — ‘gold class’ seats at the movie theatre, meaning you sit in a lazy boy and can push a button if you want them to bring you beer or ice cream, all for about the same price as seeing a movie in the states. since the rain was picking up and our spirits were a bit low, we took this as a sign and headed to the nearest theater. we got tickets for harry potter and were excited when we realized it was opening day! so we ended up watching the last harry potter movie in style before heading back to our hostel to make some pasta.

while cooking we met a alya from australia, a dancer who has recently gotten into modeling. he was traveling on his own through eastern europe before a 3 week dance conference in austria, so we decided to go out together the next morning, check out the city and do some shooting. we walked up to a view tower on the west side of the river (danube again), and then back down into the city center, stopping in plazas, woods and parks to take shots along the way. we’ll share those in a separate post later :)

while in budapest, we’d taken a few extra minutes to plan and book the rest of our route until our flight back from paris since prices in northern europe are significantly higher and the cheap hostels fill up quickly. we booked rooms in smaller cities outside of the major ones and got as close to paris as we could with out being in it before our train pass ran out. so at 6:30pm we got onto our last overnight train (we finally got a sleeper car!) and headed to the netherlands.

the city had a really nice feel to it. it reminded us a lot of being in berlin a couple months back – very cheap, lots of kebab shops, and a general air of people just going about their business. the bridge right by our hostel led us to the foot of an island in the middle of the river that housed a huge park with athletic facilities, a pool/water park area, a japanese garden and a bunch of other things to wander into (a musical fountain? – there’s no water, music flows from it…). thankfully it was a warm and sunny day which made it perfect for walking around. we headed up to the palace across the river, this time forgoing the funicular and taking the steps to check out the view over the city. from there we headed back into the city center, wandered around and stopped into a couple cool shops before heading back to our hostel.

this was the one country we went to that wasn’t on our train pass, but when we asked multiple people at the train station, they said it didn’t matter for some reason. we were a little skeptical that maybe they didn’t understand what we were asking, but we went with it and as an extra precaution when the ticket collector came by our seats we pretended to be asleep…

after looking up where bratislava was (slovakia! right in between vienna, austria and budapest, hungary.. perfect!), we booked the flight and headed to trapani after saying goodbye to our sicilian family.

we got to trapani mid-afternoon without a place to stay booked. we figured we’d look around and hopefully find somewhere for the night. we started walking from the train station into the main part of town, when a sicilian guy rolled up on an ape (ah-peh, a three-wheeled farm truck) asking us if we needed a place to stay. he told us to follow him two streets up and he’d hook us up. so we followed behind him, wondering if it was legit but hoping for the best. he yelled up to a lady we think he called mama, and she let us in and showed us a room in her bed and breakfast with no breakfast, which we took for the night.

with a place to stay, we left our packs behind and went out walking through trapani, which is a very small town. we were wandering around with an aimless feeling that we hadn’t quite felt yet. the traveling was starting to catch up to us and that, mixed with the fact that we were just in trapani for the flight, left us feeling kind of drifty. with that said, trapani was a surprisingly nice town situated on a thin peninsula that you could walk across in a few minutes. the streets were very pedestrian friendly and there were some nice boardwalks to look out over the ocean and beaches to rest on. we really enjoyed just walking slowly around, and sitting for hours on the beach. the whole time felt very dreamlike, waiting for our flight but enjoying where we were.

a fellow traveler we met in tarifa, spain was sicilian and recommended ‘calvino’s pizzaria’ in trapani as the best pizza in the world, so we took his suggestion and couldn’t agree more. so good! we called it an early night since we knew that we wouldn’t get much sleep the following night as we’d be sleeping at the airport. the only bus that would get us to the airport for our 6am flight left at 11:30 at night, so the good news is we didn’t have to pay for a hostel…

the next morning we checked out of mama’s bed no breakfast and walked around with our packs on in the hot sicilian sun. we spent the day trying to find things to occupy our time in this small city until it was finally time to take the bus to the airport. we got to the airport and cozied up on the seats, until we got kicked out because apparently they close the airport from 1am to 4:30am. so we made our way out and slept outside the airport doors, our towels on cement made for a comfy nights rest…

woke up, checked in, and we were on our way to slovakia!

the train car was completely packed. there were no more seats, and even the seats that fold down in the aisles for overflow were filled. so we all cozied up on the floor of the skinny aisle and laughed about how ridiculous it felt. at least we weren’t sitting by the bathroom or near the vestibule which people were getting their tobacco fix…

after some rough hours of ‘sleep’ (which really meant closing our eyes for 5 minutes until some body part fell asleep and adjusting, repeat), we woke up to the train being loaded onto a ferry which would take us across to the island. so we were on a train, on a boat, which was a pretty ridiculous feeling.

we made it to palermo and explored until our train to balestrate, where the thought of our beach house waiting for us kept us going after our ridiculous night. our lovely hosts for the house, maria and mario, picked us up from the balestrate station and gave us a driving tour of the city before taking us to ‘villa giuseppe’. the home was absolutely beautiful. an outdoor kitchen was definitely the highlight, as well as an outdoor shower and a gorgeous yard full of flora. it totally made up for the rough ride to get there.

we spent the week at the house cooking meals together (including hot dogs on the 4th of july), relaxing on the porch, going to the nearby beach during the day and returning with wine to watch the sunsets in the evenings. the house was set a bit outside of the city center, so we’d do a daily pilgrimage into town to pick up groceries, use the internet, get gelato — being careful not to go into town between 1 and 5 as sicily participates in the siesta idea too (and then they kinda don’t work the rest of the day..). the town itself was small — it really felt like a community where everyone knew everyone’s business — and a place that tourists didn’t frequent as much as some of the more well-known surrounding sicilian towns.

we feel really lucky that these girls happened to be our roommates in naples and that we all wanted to go to sicily and were able to spend an amazing week exploring the island and relaxing with new friends.

gianni, our driver for the day, picked the five of us up at our spot at around 9 and took us first to segesta. the site is located at the top of a mountain overlooking the nearby hills and countryside of sicily. it was really nice to get that kind of perspective on the land, since we’d been in our own little beach world for the last few days (which certainly wasn’t so bad…). we stopped at a greek amphitheater which is built into the side of the mountain right at the top, so the seats all look out into the beautiful countryside making for an awesome venue (they still do musicals, comedies and theater performances there at night). the very-well preserved temple is on the next hill over from the amphitheater, accessible by a curvy cactus lined path. at the top you come to a small open area with the temple right in front. you can walk around the base of the temple but you can’t go inside it or touch the columns, probably partially why it’s so well preserved.

from there we drove west up a mountain just outside of the port city, trapani, and into the clouds. it was unexpectedly chilly at the top, so we put on whatever layers we had and walked around the narrow streets. gianni walked us to the castle which was engulfed in clouds, unfortunately obstructing a view from which you could supposedly see all the way across sicily. still, we enjoyed the relief from the heat and walking around in the foggy mist for a couple hours. glad to have seen a bit of touristy sicily, we were all excited to get back to the beach the next day!

today we’re in town for the afternoon catching up on posts and figuring out our next plan of attack. we’ve booked our plane tickets home, so now the countdown begins. balestrate has been a refreshing break from the go-go-go action packed days we have had since our last beach filled week in tarifa, and now that we’re in the home stretch, we’ll head out jazzed and ready to make the most of our last couple weeks in europe.

we got to our hostel in portici, a small suburb 20 mins south of napoli, situated ourselves, and then headed out for pizza in the pizza capital of the world. 3 euros for a giant pizza in a local restaurant, while sitting next to an old man eating his pizza with silverware and wearing a bowtie, that’s amore!

the next day we went downtown. a welcomed adventure away from the touristy italian cities (venice, florence, rome), napoli is much is very modestly affected by the tourism industry. we headed to the archeological museum – given napoli’s proximity to the ruins of pompeii and vesuvius this is a good place to see well-preserved old things. then we walked the busiest, most intense car+scooter packed streets up to an old castle via funicular for an overview of the city, an espresso, and back down to the center “pizza street”. pizza restaurants and brick ovens line the sidewalks and we were overwhelmed with having to choose just one. we filled up on pizza before rolling ourselves back to the hostel with the ironically only thing non-touristy about us in hand – a pizza box.

we shared our 5 bed hostel room with three girls from quebec city, who, like us, were interested in going to the island of capri, one of the highly recommended places to go in southern italy, off the southern point of the bay of naples. we decided between the 5 of us, it would be about the same price for us to rent our own boat for the day and have full reign over where we were able to go and have the ability to jump out and swim instead of being restricted by an over-touristafied ferry. we did and it was amazing. the entire day we would motor for a few minutes, and then anchor out and jump into the mediterranean. we circled the entire island admiring the rock formations and how blue and clear the water was.

exhausted after a day in the sun, we spent the next day planning our next week. with the same three girls, we looked into venturing down to sicily. found some good options of trains and places to stay, so we left napoli on another overnight train at 11pm en route to italy’s most southern parts.

picking through a few poi’s we made a walking loop from the train station, with our first destination set as the trevi fountain. as the whole city is basically one giant historical site, every corner, street, building, and sculpture that we passed seemed to have a plaque highlighting its importance. we made it to the fountain, which we could barely see through the throngs of people. hanging in the square over the people was a huge chanel advertisement, a funny juxtaposition to the otherwise historic vibe.

from there we walked to the parthenon. it wasn’t too packed so we were able to go in and actually have a seat to try and enjoy it proper. it was a really beautiful building that did what a religious building of any kind is supposed to do – make you feel like you’ve gone somewhere beyond. the columns at the entrance blocked out some of the light, slowly helping our eyes to adjust from the bright sun and into the dark single room of the parthenon. it’s just one huge circular hall with a tiny little hole at the top that lets light, rain and birds in. the light ray from the hole was the coolest part because it really contrasted with the dark space, making it feel very heavenly.

off to the colosseum for a quick look around (to a peruvian flute soundrack…?) before high-tailing it back to the train station to catch the regional train to napoli.

we scheduled just two nights in florence so that we’d have one full day to explore the city before continuing south. the campsite had army style tents with three actual beds inside and a platform floor which made it a lot like sleeping in a hostel, just outside and in our own private hut. the next morning, after croissants and espressos at the camp cafe, we were off to explore florence, stopping by the post office to ship home – literally on a boat – a package with a few trinkets and things we haven’t been using.

the city was pretty much as we expected, full of americans. it is a beautiful small city that’s easy to navigate with the infamous duomo in the middle, but it makes it hard to appreciate it when it just feels like disney world and you’re surrounded with tons of people – speaking english, no less.

glad we had booked just two nights, we found a hostel just outside of napoli for the following night.

at the suggestion of our quebecois friends, we booked an amazing sounding hostel in cassis, a small town just outside of marsaille, for two nights. they explained to us that it is a house with a pool overlooking the ocean that is family run, inexpensive, and in a beautiful town. we found the schedule for an overnight train that traveled through bordeaux, toulouse, montpellier and finally arrived at marseille at around 7am. a short regional train runs frequently between marseille and cassis, in the direction of nice.

we arrived at the station in hendaye a couple hours before the scheduled departure and were told all of the available eurail seats were already reserved on this train. train companies allot only a certain number of seats for people traveling with a eurail pass and once these seats are reserved you either have to buy a full-priced regular ticket, find an alternate route or change your destination. begrudingly, and with our already booked hostel/paradise in mind, we booked a 5 leg trip that got us into marseille in the middle of the afternoon and included a 7 hour layover in toulouse from midnight until the morning train left towards montpellier; seemingly our only option.

we left hendaye on the same overnight train that we knew was going to marseille, but without the proper tickets to continue on the train past bordeaux. by some thankful circumstance the first two legs of our trip were printed on the same ticket, while the last three were on different ones. when the ticket collector came by to check our tickets, he noticed toulouse printed below bordeaux and told us to just remain on the same train, as he knew it was continuing on to toulouse and that there were seats available. we anxiously asked him if it was at all possible to remain seated until the trains final destination of marsaille and with a short thought and in a thick french accent he replied, ‘sure’.

we couldn’t talk for the next few minutes because we were so excited that our luck had changed for the better. a good night sleep and tons of positive energy landed us in cassis at 8:30am.

the train station was located about a 45 minute walk from the town center so, full of energy, we walked through southern france’s wine fields down and to the turquoise waters of the medeterranean once again. a breakfast picnic at the beach followed by a quick dip in the ocean and a short sunbath got us even more excited to be in this quaint town surrounded by traveling families, locals, hills and the sea.

we walked up the hill to our hostel where we were met quickly by the owner , sophie, in the living room/dining room/reception of the extravagant summer home turned hostel that she started just 2 months prior. the place was amazing, as was she. we truly felt at home here, for the first time since leaving the states.

we were suggested an amazing hike to do the following day that would get us to a beautiful beach by way of a scenic path over the ‘calanques’, or minifjords as they’re known locally to engligh speaking tourists. a total of 8 fjord-like bays and steep walled penninsulas line the coast between cassis and marsaille. from the hostel it was about a 3 hour hike to the third and presumably most beautiful. with some new friends we headed out for a hike and a day at the beach.

the views were incredible, the sea breeze refreshing and the water like nothing else – salty and crystal clear. after a long day of relaxing, we took the inland trail back to the town and even encountered a 100lb wild boar on the way back, who was luckily slightly more afraid of us than we were of him. when we returned, we packed our bags and prepared for our early morning departure to florence!

if you’re ever in southern france – go visit sophie!

our hostel didn’t open for us to check in for another 4 hours (and even then our room wasn’t ready for another 6), so we walked around, watching another city wake up. an old monestary that sits on top of a hill is one of the main attractions,so we walked up and enjoyed the views of the sea and the city from above.

we checked into the hostel and quickly headed to the beach, where we’d been warned the water would be colder considering san sebastian’s northerly location. it was a welcomed cold after laying in the hot sun for awhile, but it was definitely the kind of cold that you either have to take a quick plunge into or you could be tippy-toing your way in all day. and yes, there’s a whole lotta topless goin on.

back at the hostel, we took a quick nap and then went out with a few people we’d met earlier in the day, including a  french-canadian couple who were just coming from southern france – where we were looking to pass a few nights on our way to italy. they gave us some solid travel tips and suggestions of places to go. we spent the next morning looking into those places+trains+hostels and all those fun things that have to align to keep on moving, then headed out eastward on yet another overnight train and said a (most likely) final goodbye to spain for this trip.

the city is beautifully laid out on the steep banks of a river located just inland from the ocean. a few large bridges span the gap between the two sides, porto on one and gaia on the other. it is definitely one of the most striking cities that we’ve been to as far as landscape and scenery go.

we set out early the next day to meet up with a friend and check out a saturday flea market on the shore of the river. we were (correctly) told that the things being sold at the market were basically items that the vendors picked out of their garage that morning and decided to sell – pretty much a buncha cheap junk. after a picnic lunch overlooking the city we headed down to the ‘caves’ which are the cellars where the city’s famous port wine ages. we went on a tour and got to taste some port in portugal – so appropriate! afterwards we headed to an old prison turned photography museum. the gallery exhibits were small and frankly terrible, but the top floor housed an amazing collection of old film cameras that, along with the building, was totally worth checking out.

getting back to the hostel we felt slightly rushed and unprepared to leave, so we decided to extend our stay one more night and forgo another overnight back to madrid in favor of a more northerly route and head to san sebastian the next day.

we were staying with a friend we met at our hostel in berlin, so at around 10 we headed over to his place to recharge on internet, water and suggestions. around 1 we headed to parque eduardo vii and were at first underwhelmed by the mostly treeless, dirty and steep terrain of the park. a walk up to the top where a huge portuguese flag was flappin in the wind had a nice view of the city, but we kept on walking looking for a place to snack and relax.

on our way out we noticed a path leading to the estufa fria, a small corner of the large park that we almost looked over. the entry was free so we went in and ended up spending 2 hours walking around one of the most beautiful nature conservatories we’ve been to yet. there was one huge main room with seemingly local flora and the requisite peacock. a pathway to the back took us to the tropical and desert rooms which were beautiful but super hot.

earlier that morning by the praça do comércio, we noticed a design exhibition that looked sweet and was free, so we slowly headed that direction by way of lisbon’s many miradores - small parks with lookouts over the city – each one showing off the city in a completely different way. the exhibition was  everything we could have hoped for, so amazing and inspiring. it was small but really well laid-out with interesting write-ups and displays about industrial, fashion, graphic and furniture design.

we were the last to leave at 8 (when it closed…) and took one last stroll by the waterfront before climbing up the the castle at the top of the hill for sunset and then taking a train back to our friends place. we both felt like we couldn’t have had much of a better day in lisbon so, feeling fulfilled, we decided to head up to porto the next day.

for whatever reason this shot stood out to us from the few that we took that day.

while in cadiz, we were left with a decision to go further south with the goal of visiting morocco, or head north on our more planned path up and over to portugal. to go south, we’d have to take a bus instead of using our train passes, so north made a little more sense and on top of that it would be a three day tangent just to see the tip of morocco for a day. we’re not much for making sense, so in the end we obviously ended up heading down to tarifa and doing the one day trip over to morocco the following day, but then somehow we got stuck.

we were planning on leaving the day after our adventure trip to africa but hadn’t decided where or how. nothing was jumping out to us so instead of stressing about it we decided to stay in tarifa for an extra night. unfortunately our hostel was already booked up, so we went up the street and found an available hostel with internet so that we could figure out our plans and spend one more afternoon on the beach. before we knew what happened, that one more afternoon turned into 5 more days of beaching and catching up on some editing+blogging. then we remembered that the rest of this trip will be centered around beaches and felt ok moving on…

PORTUGAL!

some

pitttchas

in da

waaahhta

the ferry over was loaded with tourists, so we were kind of feeling bummed that this was going to be a huge touristy ‘adventure’, but we were super lucky and 9/10ths of the people were with another guide, and we only had 8 in our group. fwoof!

we met our guide, the amazing ahmad, as we walked off the ferry and spent the day touring around tangiers with him and our crew. luckily we went on a thursday which is a market day, so we were able to see the streets filled with north african berber (indigenous people to north africa) women selling their handicrafts + fresh food in the streets. as we walked, all we could smell was amazing aromas of fresh mint and wonderful moroccan spices. we passed loads of shops with all things moroccan… lamps, rugs, tapestries, jewelry. it was all so beautiful and SO right up our alley. we’ve decided we should return for a few weeks in the future to see more of the country and once we have enough money set aside in our recently started moroccan furniture fund.

after walking around the street markets, we had a typical moroccan lunch, complete with spicy olives, a lentil soup, vegetable couscous, and mint tea. basically our favorite meal (next to mexican food of course)… i think we like spicy things. then we headed to a rug shop, where we may or may not have bought a small (and oh my gosh so beautiful) rug and may or may not be packing it around in our backpacks with us for the next month and half…

then we hopped in a little van and trekked through the new city. not really too much exciting here except a camel ride and a nice beach. when in morocco…

it’s really somewhere we could spent a lot of time exploring. it was nice to see the tip of the tip of the iceberg, but it definitely left us wanting more.

we’ve been researching places along the spanish coast that have the best beaches in thoughts of spending a few days just hanging out on the beach and relaxing, and the costa de luz consistently came up as some of the best unspoiled beaches. this area is from the straight of gibralter up the atlantic side of spain to cadiz, a small town at the end of a long peninsula. the only downsides to this area are that since it’s on the atlantic  the water is slightly colder than the mediterranean and the beaches are pretty windy. still, we found a nice spot to lay out for the day and get in the water.

that night with the new york boys, henny and some other new friends from the hostel, we made a massive dinner and took over the rooftop. it was super fun just hanging out with everyone in such a chill spot.

while making dinner, the usual ‘hostel-sponsored tour guide’ came around offering up a flamenco+pub crawl. these most-often-not-local tour guides come by hostels three times a day trying to gather up a following for their ‘free’ (aka tip-based) tours. it ends up getting really annoying, so we’ve become slightly numb to them.  this night we ended up meeting some other folks who were going to ‘follow behind’ and see where they went, but not go on the actual tour, so we headed out with some new friends for a night out around seville.

something we’ve found that really gets us goin’ wherever we travel is spending time in nature conservatories + gardens. they’re usually pretty inexpensive and always offer some amazing views and inspiring displays of nature at its finest. we went to the jardines de alcazar, and ended up finding both the gardens and the palace more amazing than the alhambra. trees, flowers, fountains, tiling, detailed carvings, peacocks, everything you’d imagine a palace and gardens to be. we spent the day walking around the palace, laying in the grass, watching parrots fly above us. absolutely amazing (and a perfect day-after-a-long-night-out activity..)

the lovely henny was one of the people we met that night at the hostel. she just finished walking the ‘camino frances’, a two month pilgrimage walk across france and spain — if you click on her name you can see some of the photos she took while walking. she is in the photo below. we got on really well with her, and she decided to join us for our next few days of andalusian adventures!

ronda is a pretty small town (though bigger than we expected) situated on the edge of an enormous canyon that splits the old city from the new city. there are epic bridges to old ronda that offer expansive views of the picturesque countryside. there wasn’t too much to do except watch the sun go down behind the mountains, so that was pretty much our main activity for the night. it would have been nice if it had a bit more of a small town feel as it was a little touristy feeling, but it was definitely worth checkin out for a night. and…yeah.

the hostel we stayed at, el granado, was beautiful with a sophisticated air about it and some really nice staff. the owner freddie from sweden welcomed us with a wealth of information and some appreciated sarcasm. most of the hostel workers were people who were at one point traveling through and ended up liking granada+the hostel so much they stayed. one of the dudes was from cuernavaca, the town we spent a month living in mexico a few years ago! small world.

granada was an extremely relaxed city situated in a valley at the feet of the sierra nevada mountains. hostels often run free walking tours (the guides expect to be tipped), and el granado offered a free bike tour to a small town called pinos genil. it was all about just relaxing and riding bikes along a beautiful river to a quaint town up the mountains a bit. we stopped at the top and had an alhambra beer (brewed in granada) and some tapas before the cruise back down to the city.

tapas are of course a big spanish thing, but they’re especially awesome in granada. whenever you order a drink, they bring out a small plate of food – whatever the kitchen feels like. some places do small tapas or just olives, while some bring out practically a whole meal. so for €1.50-€2.50 you get a drink and a plate which is a pretty sweet deal, and the more you order at one place, the larger and more elaborate the drinks + tapas get. such a good situation.

on the evening train ride there, the cheerful ticket collector who was a native to valencia gave us a bit of a run down on the city which was nice so we knew a bit about what to check out. the first day we walked around the town for a bit and checked out the central market, which was amazing and huge, as well as one of the two remaining towers from the wall that used to surround the old city. we met some travelers who were going to the ‘city of arts and sciences’ the next day, so we decided to meet up with them in the morning. the city of arts and sciences is basically a futuristic disney-like part of town with and imax theater, an aquarium, a few muesums and a huge outdoor grounds area that was totally decked out. we seriously felt little figurines on an architectural model. we spent a few hours at the aquarium which was fun, but it definitely wasn’t totally our scene.

the next night, we met a skater kid from montana on the street named elliot who is living/working/studying in valencia. he works at a video post-production studio and lives in a sweet apartment with an italian guy named andrea. we ended up hanging out at his apartment (beautiful tiled floors, tall ceilings, balcony overlooking the street, etc…) and exchanging stories, listening to him talk with his friends in spanish, and laughing a whole bunch. one of his good friends who was hanging out is a fine art painter who showed us some beautiful work. they were all really talented dudes, doing cool art and kickin’ it in valencia.

the next day we had an overnight train booked to granada, so we packed our bags at the hostel in the morning and carried them around town and to the beach with us before heading back to elliot’s place to have some food and hang out until our train.

apparently there was a huge music festival going on over the weekend called primevera which we weren’t aware of, but it more or less prevented us from staying in barcelona for the weekend so we continued south and west.

we stumbled across a sweet flea market near the sagrada familia where we found some sweet glasses and a argentinean bombilla for mate drinking. we really wished we could have brought so much of this stuff back with us. we’ll just have to go back again…

and this is capillary action, lol. julian is second from the right.

our ride into lyon from geneva was a pleasantly short, really beautiful evening ride through the mountains. lyon is a pretty large city, but we spent our day in and around the old city which is built on a small hill situated between two rivers. our hostel was at the top of the hill in the center of town, so we bought a baguette for the road and headed up the windy cobblestone roads. we walked through a really cool section of town called croix rousse on our way to the hotel to drop our bags off. we ended up heading back there to a lookout point over the city to eat our dtf-typical-travel meal consisting of bread, cheese and cherry tomatoes, and a fine french côtes-du-rhône wine.

the following day we got up early and took the funicular up to the church on the other side of the river to have breakfast (bread, cheese…) and another beautiful view. we walked around a bit more and then made our way to the train station.

venice is somewhere that we wanted to see and there was an overnight from munich that would get us in around 6:30am. so off we went to the train station in weimar to enjoy our 16 hours of riding through southern germany through austria and into italy.

waking up in a totally new place with a completely new character and temperature was a pretty sweet feeling. also walking around early in the morning watching venice was up was really magical. we saw food coming in on small boats and being unloaded into small markets and cafes, some were even selling the produce right from the boat. the cafe owners were setting up there tables and chairs in the pedestrian stone covered streets. we sat on the side of a quiet street and drank some espresso while watching venetians walk their dogs and visit with each other.

plaza san marco is the main open square in venice so we headed in that direction and slowly got less and less excited as us and our backpacks were less and less able to fit down the narrow streets along side the hoards of now awake tourists. upon arrival it was completely packed and we could barely find a place to stand and look around so we promptly headed out and walked down whichever street we could find that wasn’t bustling.

our friend from northeastern and fellow photographer, katie ging, is assistant teaching a venice photo program run by northeastern, so we rang her up and met her for lunch. she and the other t-a showed us a delicious and reasonable place to get some gnocchi and pizza right by where they were staying, so we got to catch up and enjoy some classic italian food in venezia. after checking out a hostel that seemed a bit beyond our price range and feeling kind of filled up on italian food and venice for now, we decided to head back to the train station and see where we could go to continue in the direction of spain. we looked into torino, which we had been told is really nice, but the train was headed all the way to geneva, switzerland and so we figured why not? and hopped on board.

our hosts micha and nele were absolutely incredible, and even met us at the train station so we wouldn’t get lost around town. micha recently finished his studies and nele is studying at the bauhaus university. micha had a really great sense of humor and played music which was really exciting. we even got him to play us a few of his songs. nele is finishing up a degree in media and is pursuing animation, so we got to watch some pieces of hers.

they took us out to the local thursday night music bar, which was a really fun scene and ended up leading us to a candle-lit house dance party which was wall-to-wall filled with people and excellent minimalist techno music. they spent practically our whole time there with us which was so nice, it’s so great to see places with someone who lives there. they were both incredibly sweet and funny people and we’re so glad to have met them!

we keep realizing how lucky we are to have english as a first language because of how universal it really is. communication is definitely something that’s easy to take advantage of!

we got in late at night with no real plans and nowhere to stay. we were suggested the neighborhood of prenzlauer berg so we found a map at the airport and headed that direction. luckily there was a list of hostels on the back of the map so we just showed up at one and knocked on the door. there definitely wasn’t 24 hr reception, but the middle aged owner of ‘frosh hostel’ grumpily accepted our 14 euros and we spent our first night drinking a beer on the street with some new aussie friends before callin it.

we weren’t sure we wanted to stay at frosh again so we set out the next day with all of our belongings and, after walking around the city for a while, found a different place to call home further south in kreuzberg. we were recommended a turkish street market just around the corner, where we got foodstuffs for dinner. we wandered into some rad thrift stores, watched some locals enjoying a game of backgammon (really seeing who was better at cheating), ate the BEST mint ice cream ever, and checked out the touristy parts of the city before running quickly the other way. we ended up meeting some really sweet people at the new hostel and stayed an extra night before heading (in the general direction of spain) to weimar for a night.

we stayed at a really rad, brand new hostel called kex that is in an old biscuit factory. they were still finishing up the construction so they were extra nice and gave us free breakfast and linens. they said they found most of decor in antique warehouses in the american south and had it all shipped over (the only furniture store in iceland is ikea, and they wanted something unique). kinda funny, but it all looked and felt really sweet. we could have walked around there and taken pictures forever. nice rooms, huge common area with a restaurant and bar (in the works), and a communal kitchen. super nice people, too. pretty much the best vibe ever.

there were definitely a good amount more people than we were used to, but each spot certainly had its charm. we got back into town and had by far the best meal of our trip at a super nice fish restaurant for our last night in iceland (thanks parents!)

“The Book of Settlements describes an event involving an old and a blind man, Thorir, who came out of his farm one evening for fresh air. Then suddenly he saw a very large and a savage looking man coming sailing on a steel boat. He walked up to the gate of the milking pen of the farm Hrip and dug a hole with his iron stick. Then he left.

During the night, an eruption started exactly where he had dug, and a large crater was created where the farm stood.”

definetly an interesting reminder of the culture that we’re visiting.

once in the city, the two of us were dropped off near to ‘harpa’, reykjavik’s new performing arts venue. a musician we met in boston, ólafur arnalds, was playing there as part of the opening ceremonies so we got to catch his set in this incredible new building. between it being the opening celebration of this building, a performing arts festival, and eurovision (look it up), there was a lot of activity.

and we’re going to berlin on monday now! bauhaus anyone…?

we left the west fjords and headed back down to the snæfellsnes peninsula and found a nice hostel in grundarfjarðar. we took an evening walk on some nearby lava fields and a black sand beach before heading back to town for the evening, where we met up with a couple new aussie friends who we met on the walk for a drink at the local/only bar.

on our hike today we started talking about whether fjord refers to the actual water finger sticking into the land or the land finger sticking out into the water. with no wiki to our rescue for a few hours we came up with a lot of different theories. turns out it’s the water part but with a few stipulations, mostly relating to glaciers.

the west fjords section is one of the less traveled areas of iceland since it’s somewhat out of the way of the ‘ring-road’ that most people drive around when they visit. between that and us being here a couple weeks before tourist season begins in mid-late may, these few days have made us feel pretty isolated. the waterfall we went to yesterday seemed like a generally a well-traveled spot, where bus loads of people could pour out to invade the land, but somehow we were the only people there for a good four hours.

today was the same story – we were tracing the fjords southeast away from isafjordur, and on one of the fingers of land the road cut across the middle of the finger instead of going all the way around it. we turned down a side road towards the tip of the finger, drove for a few minutes and got out to hike the rest of the way to the end without a soul in sight.

we’ve seen more arctic foxes than people on our hikes!

all of this led us to ísafjörður, a surprisingly cosmopolitan town considering it’s location. we stopped by the local bar for a drink and some conversation with the owner/bartender who we exchanged life goals with and got a suggestion for a sweet place to stay this weekend in reykjavik.

tomorrow we’re driving further north to the largest town in the west fjords, ísafjörður, stopping along the way to hike at a waterfall. it’s truly beautiful here with the distant towering snow capped peaks, quaint vibrantly colored towns, and impressive waterfronts.

our trip has started in iceland, where we’ll be with ziv’s family for the week. they’ll head back to the states, and we’ll continue over to the rest of europe. we don’t have any plans (except for bloggin’), just a eurail pass and our cameras!

this morning we landed at keflavik around 6am and drove, ferried, and drove again up to the western fjords. we’re staying at gisting stekkaból in patreksfjörður for a couple nights to explore this area. here’s a couple shots from today!

and a live one of ‘em from the whistler

MODEL // jacqueline jennel

MAKE-UP // eric holt

PHOTOGRAPHY + STYLING // describe the fauna

go to our tumblr and getchaself our springy fresh april desktop background.

on a different note, we just finished putting together a motion portfolio that we’re really excited to have on our website. check it!

we went to a performance night at a crazy mansion in hyde park with beautiful asian decor. hayley and adam came and we explored downtown, took group trips to unique (thrift store), wicker park, chinatown, the nightlife of logan square, a driving tour of the city, and even a late night at huck finn’s — a full proper dose of chicago. they left at 6am on thursday, and then sarra, rich and ky arrived about 6 hours later. rinse, wash, repeat… but toss in some lincoln park zoo + observatory, a cello recital at the ballroom, another performance night in wicker park followed by a bar night at a VFW hall, a walk up lakeshore… etc.

OMG.

needless to say, we’ve gotten a BIG dose of chicago in the past week. some catchup time at the ballroom is in store.

happy spring!

portugal. the man, lincoln hall, march 10, 2011.

amazing, as always.

teddy is a performance artist who plays cello to create an experience beyond the traditional classical scope and tessa is a geologist who plays viola. in the studio environment it’s easy to strip away all context from a person, but for this project (and in all of our photography really) we are more interested in retaining some thread of who the person is. using their bodies with their instruments was our way of  entertaining that idea.

we made another desktop calendar for you, go get yourself a refreshing new background over on our tumblr!

with all that said, we’re going to be shifting things up a little bit here on the blog. we’re going to continue using this as an outlet to display ongoing photo projects and adventures that we have but we’ll be moving the more day to day stuff over to our recently started tumblr: owlephants&els. it’s less formal (cell-phone pics, omg) and we’ll be sharing other people’s cool stuff that we find in addition to our own. hurry over there now and download this picture as a february desktop wallpaper.

thanks to everyone who reads this for following along on our adventures over the last year. we can’t wait to see how this next year unfolds for us – so many more changes in store!

thanks j&m for stepping in for us :)