Beach Roadtrip

It was a crisp late summer morning in Virginia when we set out for Rohobeth Beach on the east coast. We packed the car with a cooler and headed out on the road with a couple of our best friends from college.

We spent the afternoon hanging out with the masses on the beach right off the boardwalk strip. Then we went to a local seafood spot for a nice dinner and to browse all of the shops on the bustling touristy strip for our favorite style T-shirts- Comfort Colors!

We finished up dinner & shopping just in the nick of time to go enjoy the sunset & blue hour on the beach down the road.

I had only brought along my first DSLR, a Canon rebel t3i with the kit lens (once called a relic & outdated by a fellow hiker at Max Patch - another story for another post) along on this quick weekend trip, partly for packing purposes and partly as a challenge to my abilities to prove to myself it’s not all about the gear (though that definitely does make a MAJOR difference in the overall quality of the work!). I set out that we would take some fun beach couples pics on both the iPhone & DSLR and do a couple different editing styles to best fit each. Check out the results below!

The set above was shot with the iPhone 11 Pro and edited with a custom preset I have created in VSCO. The next set below was shot with the DSLR.

This set above I decided to shoot & edit a little bit moodier. With the t3 Rebel the grain and performance in low light does make its overall quality subpar compared to my standard Sigma 35 mm f/1.8 and Canon 5D Mark iv.

I did edit these in Lightroom as I normally do with all of my sessions using my custom preset edits I have derived from the Phil Chester Preset Pack.

I actually really enjoyed the vintage vibe that the grain added to all the shots with the Canon. Just a little reminder that it's not the camera that takes the photo it's the person behind it and the best camera you have is the one in your hand at the time of the moment!