Minnesota Arboretum

7:09 PM

One of my favorite photography adventures that I took this summer was when Sarah and I went to the Minnesota Arboretum. We had gone together last fall just after I had just gotten my camera, so I was quite new at photography and honestly, didn't really know what I was doing. This year, we decided to go again in a different season to experiment with the different surroundings. As I went through the photos, it was crazy to see how much we both had improved in less than a year - so in this post, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos from last autumn and compare them to my favorite photos from this summer.

FALL of 2014:

Sarah and I first went to the arboretum together in the fall of last year. The colors were absolutely stunning - crimsons, golden yellows, bright oranges - the place was beautiful. We quickly fell in love with the place (which is why we decided to go again this year).

Since I was quite new at using my camera (Canon t3i), you can definitely tell I'm a beginner at photography! Regardless, it was definitely exciting for us to finally go out and take pictures somewhere new rather than in our backyards - the experience was something I'll never forget!

Summer of 2015:

After we had gone last year, Sarah and I had been planning on making another visit to the arboretum for a while. We finally got the chance as summer rolled in. The weather this time was amazing - the sky was perfectly clear, leaving the sun to cast the most spectacular shadows (which we took full advantage of). Moreover, instead of the warm reds and yellows that we had seen in the fall, we were greeted by incredible shades of green.

You'll see that I took way more portraits this time around, and finally got my focus and composition down! Since we were a little bit more familiar with the grounds, we were able to venture around a lot more comfortably - which allowed us not to care what others thought (a lesson that proves to be extremely important when taking photos.)