Lately, I have been traveling a lot so I’ve been adamant about not checking in a bag at the airport in order to save time. As a photographer, it’s really hard since I love to take gear. You never know what you will need or just wish you had on hand! I decided to enjoy the gear I took, I would have to be very strategic with what I thought I might need.

My first trip was a quick 3 day trip to El Salvador to reunite with my 91 year old grandmother. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been back, so I had to really think about which lenses to take. Thankfully Lensbaby lenses are light and compact but I wanted to challenge myself by limiting how much I took with me. I knew I needed one for portraits, landscape, and street photography. One of my favorite and really versatile lenses is the Trio 28. A compact little lens with a fixed aperture of F 3.5 and 3 different lenses in one. You have a choice of the Sweet, Velvet, or Twist options. Also, you can play around the “in between modes”, which is right in between the “clicks”. Depending on what kind of light you are in and what your surroundings are, you can end up with a double exposure look, or like you used one of the Omni wands. It’s great fun to play around with! I love using it as a walk around lens since it’s wide enough to capture a scene and the colors and just the right amount of glow.

Another favorite is the Twist 60. This colorful little lens has good reach and is still compact. It rained 2 out of the 3 days we were there, so we did a little sightseeing without leaving the car. The images I got were really fun and colorful. It was a bonus that I had the rain and water drops on the windows for added depth and sparkle!

A week later I whisked off to Honolulu, HI for a few days and was excited for crystal blue waters and hopeful for incredible skies! I had just received my new Sol45 in the mail so I knew that baby was going with me! What a fun little lens with built in little wands for some creative bokeh that adds a painterly and dreamy feel.

My Twist 60 is always on me so I used that one at Manoa Falls for walking the trail (it’s really light!), and I took the macro converters in the hopes I saw some pretty details.