Where Cranberry Began... In Europe!

Our year abroad brought so many adventures our way, including our newfound love for photography!

Hi everyone!

I figured the best place to start with our Cranberry blog would be when we developed our love of photography; while living and travelling in Europe!

(Technically Chris will say that it all started when he had a job selling cameras before we left for our adventure but I like to focus more on the creative side!)

August 2014, a few days after I finished my education degree, Chris and I packed up and moved to London, England to teach grades 3 and 4 for a year! This was something I could hardly wait for! What better way to start your life after years of university than teaching and travelling in Europe :) Now, the year definitely had it's ups and downs; we had to adjust to living in a new country, new culture, new work environment all while trying to make the most of our time there and travelling whenever we could. Obviously, as backpackers, while travelling on our vacation times our camera was close by at all times; but it developed into more than just a point and shoot relationship.

The weekends we spent in London we'd explore new parts of the city, but always found ourselves returning to our favourite spots!

We travelled with our baby; Nikon D90 with just one lens: a 35mm f1.8. (That's a portrait lens for anyone who was like me and had no clue what those numbers meant!) And the “Amber Proof” shock/water/drop proof digital point and shoot, which was great for wide angle shots and taking pictures underwater!

*** Super terrible honest moment right now: when Chris first got the D90 the Christmas before, I rolled my eyes and was not pleased. I knew that with a new camera meant there were going to be several purchases on lenses and accessories, because if Chris loves anything it's accessories (especially stationary, my god he's obsessed with pens.)

The 'Amber Proof' camera was a great addition to have along for moments like this: snorkelling in the Mediterranean Sea!

Since Chris was more comfortable with the camera, I was more then happy being the backseat driver and saying, "Take a picture of that!" "Did you get that shot?" "Wait just one more!" and before we knew it I had the camera in my own hands muahahaha.

Chris was experimenting with shooting in manual mode and I would often look at the picture, say I didn't like something and he would have to figure out what best way to fix that on the spot. I've got to give him credit, now that I also feel much more comfortable playing around with shooting in manual, he did a great job while we were exploring these countries.

Chris became a pro at looking at the sun to cloud ratio and putting the camera into the correct settings to capture the perfect picture!

Somewhere along the lines our shots began shifting from the "touristy" type of pictures to more creative pictures. I guess that comes along with the territory of having a year of exploring, we didn't feel like we had to get all the main shots right away because we weren't on a time schedule. We had the opportunity to play around with shots to see what would make a good picture. So I guess you can say we kind of taught ourselves as we went.

It was so interesting how our eyes were changing over the year and we began looking at our surroundings differently and learning how to capture what we saw on our camera.

During this year we travelled to 20 countries, created countless memories, we grew to know each other on such a deeper level, and we found this passion we shared and created together which was photography! We kept the creative juices flowing when we returned to Newfoundland and here we are today! We've gone from scenic to couples, families, engagement sessions, and weddings! It's a constantly changing experience for us and it's something that we share together, which makes it that much more special!

-Amber-Dawn