Confession time: when I travel, I sometimes don’t even pack my camera! Maybe half of the trips I’ve been on, I didn’t take it with me. Shocking, for a photographer to do such a crazy thing, right? Wouldn’t you imagine that a photographer would bring her camera everywhere she went? I think there are some photographers who are like that, but I don’t think I’ve ever really counted myself as one of them.

The truth is that sometimes I really just want to be able to see the world without my camera in front of my face…especially when I’m visiting a new place for the first time. I like to be able to see and smell and experience and enjoy without having to worry about an expensive piece of equipment…that I also use for work. Plus, if you’ve ever held a 5D Mark III and an L lens, you know they’re super freaking heavy and not fun to sightsee with!

On some travels I’ll bring my film camera, which is a lot smaller and easier to handle (plus getting back film scans later is always so much fun!), but this time I actually packed my DSLR!  I LOVE California and I actually have a wall of California photos in my master bathroom…so I wanted to be able to add a few photos to that.

This was my first visit to San Diego, but like the rest of California that I’ve seen (LA and San Francisco), I really REALLY loved it. There’s something about the west coast that I just love…maybe it’s the warm(er) weather or the more laid back attitudes, but I’m just all over that California vibe!!

Here are a just a few photos I took while visiting: