How to Enhance Your Instagram Web Profile for Improved Exposure

Big thanks to Social Media Examiner for the opportunity to write for such a popular and influential website.

But the mobile app has also been one of my favorite discoveries of 2012 (other photography app suggestions: Pixlromatic, Camera+, Diptic, Snapseed, Flickr). While I can’t realistically bring my DSLR camera everywhere, I always have my iPhone with me. What’s more is that the Instagram community is an awesome place. Interacting with other mobile photographers through Instagramers Seattle and Josh Johnson’s #jj forums takes Instagram to a different level entirely. Here are some of my favorite personal mobile shots from 2012.

Tumwater Falls Park

Mocha Art

Ballard Locks

Seattle Sounders FC Match

Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia

Space Needle

Inside the Seattle Great Wheel

Seattle Skyline

Gas Works Park Using the Pixlromatic App

Camano Island, Washington

Discovery Park Sunset

Discovery Park, Seattle

Old Red Barn

Carkeek Park, Seattle

Safeco Field, Seattle

Crater Lake, Oregon

Bend, Oregon

Smith Tower, Seattle

Seattle Skyline from Smith Tower

Piers 62 and 63, Seattle

Pioneer Square Station, Seattle

Cusco, Peru

Machu Picchu

Pisac Ruins, Peru

White Christmas

When my girlfriend and I were planning our trip to Peru, we had a big decision to make: Spend our final three days at Lake Titicaca or spend them in the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest. We chose the latter.

Why? We thought it might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the reviews of the Inkaterra Hacienda Concepcion lodge were stellar. I’m hoping to go into more detail about the wonderful lodge, its employees and our other excursions in the Amazon in another post. But for now, I wanted to detail our experiences on a day-hike inside Tambopata National Reserve to Lake Sandoval.

Lake Sandoval in Peru’s Tambopata National Reserve.

Our trek to Lake Sandoval began around 4:30 a.m. on a Saturday in early September. We quickly ate a wonderful breakfast in the lodge before heading out on the Madre de Dios River. We were presented with the following Amazonian sunrise.

Do sunrises get much better? I wouldn’t know. I’m usually not up this early.

Once upriver, we began making the hike with our tour guide through the Amazon. It would end up being about 3.5 miles (about 7 miles roundtrip). Luckily, the entire thing was flat — my legs were still a bit sore from Huayna Picchu a couple days before. The hike was tremendous because our tour guide would take time to point out different animals. As a sidenote, I can’t say enough about the terrific Inkaterra guides. It seems like they can spot any animal with the naked eye from long distances.

The weather would get into the 90s (fahrenheit) later in the day, and being from Seattle, I’ve never felt humidity like this in my life. I was literally sweating from the time I arrived in Puerto Maldonado to the time I left. If I’m being honest though, it wasn’t much of a concern while I was there. You kind of forget how much you’re sweating when you’re seeing nature you never thought you’d see in your life. Below are some more photos from the hike to Lake Sandoval.

A map of the Tambopata National Reserve.

Five kilometers to Lake Sandoval.

A very beautiful butterfly.

Up close with nature.

Pretty clear it’s a reserve.

This bridge was pretty lengthy. Definitely don’t want to fall.

Getting close!

Cool bird just chilling.

Warning: This isn’t the last butterfly photo.

At the end of our hike, we waited while our guide fetched a canoe. We hopped in and made our way down a narrow inlet, looking out for caimans and not putting our hands near the water for fear of piranhas.

Inlet leading to the lake. Our tour guide pointed out a caiman later on, and I was a little freaked out.

Entering Lake Sandoval.

Another cool butterfly.

Once we were out on Lake Sandoval, we mostly stayed near land. We saw plenty of bats, birds and even some rare giant otters. Check it out in the below photos.

Closer look at the trees.

Sleeping bats.

An anhinga fishing on the water.

Giant otters. Apparently these are pretty rare to see and there’s only a handful in the entire reserve.

Yeah, it was pretty hot out there.

Suzanna and I next to a kapok tree.

Waiting for the river taxi back to the lodge after an amazing outing.

It was an awesome day I’m sure neither of us will ever forget. We got back to the lodge around 1 p.m. if I remember correctly, and we still had two more excursions to go on later in the day. I’ll probably write about this is another post sometime, but one of those excursions took place 120 feet up in the trees…

Saving this for another post.

That awkward moment when you win fantasy because you started Golden Tate.

— ESPN (@espn) September 25, 2012

Russell Wilson became the first QB in history to throw a game-winning interception.

— Reign of Troy (@ReignofTroy) September 25, 2012

Fuck it NFL.. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs. — TJ Lang (@TJLang70) September 25, 2012

 

All @nfl fans watch the Ryder Cup this week, we got no refs. #USA — bubba watson (@bubbawatson) September 25, 2012

 

Hungover. What happened last night?

— NFL Replacement Ref (@ObliviousNFLRef) September 25, 2012

 

These games are a joke.

— Troy Aikman (@TroyAikman) September 25, 2012

 

WOW!!! What a game!! Love our guys for battling all the way to the end and never giving up! #Seahawks — Pete Carroll (@PeteCarroll) September 25, 2012

 

Seahawks banned from Xbox Live for hacking.

— The Fake ESPN (@TheFakeESPN) September 26, 2012

 

Last night, the Seahawks beat the Packers 14-12.I DVR’d the game and watched it later, just like the refs. #fallonmono

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) September 26, 2012

 

According to Apple Maps that was a touchdown. #ScabRefs

— Raven Brooks (@ravenb) September 25, 2012

I recently went on the most amazing adventure of my life to Peru with my girlfriend. We only spent 10 days in the country, but somehow we made our way all over. In fact, Peru is divided into three regions (the coast, the Andes, and the Amazon) and we hit all three. I’ll try to cover everything else in upcoming posts, but I thought I’d start things off with a bang: Our Huayna Picchu hike at Machu Picchu.

The reason I want to start with this is because of the research I did before the trip. There’s a lot of confusing information out there about hiking Huayna Picchu, mostly along the lines of, “It’s the most dangerous hike EVER!!!11!” I was pretty nervous about the hike after seeing this all over the internet, yet it didn’t turn out to be true at all. But let’s start with the basics.

Couldn’t have asked for better weather.

This is Machu Picchu. The Lost City of the Incas. And, yes, absolutely the most beautiful place I’ve seen with my own eyes. One of the latest theories says that it was an administrative city in the Incan Empire where only the most important people lived. Whatever the case, the Spaniards never found it in their conquest of Peru, and the locals showed it to Yale professor Hiram Bingham in 1911.

Got it? Cool. So what’s Huayna Picchu? It’s the big peak directly in the center of the above photo. It’s also spelled Wayna Picchu. And I wasn’t going all the way to Peru to not hike it.

Waiting to get into Machu Picchu at 5:30 a.m.

My girlfriend and I awoke at 4:30 a.m. at our hotel, got ready for the big day, and headed to the bus line that takes visitors up to Machu Picchu. These buses travel about 25 minutes on a one-lane dirt road, dodging buses coming up and down all day. It’s frightening. Probably scarier than the hike I’m about to tell you about. Anyways, the photo above was taken outside the gates at Machu Picchu around 5:30 a.m.

Only 400 people get to enter Huayna Picchu each day — 200 at 7 a.m. and 200 more at 10 a.m. We already had our tickets thanks to our travel agency, and it does cost extra to get into Huayna Picchu. (Somewhere around $20 US? Don’t quote me on that.)

This way, please…

We made our way rather easily to the Huayna Picchu control gate thanks to some well-placed signs inside Machu Picchu.

Huayna Picchu Control Gate

Just after 7 a.m., we were the fifth and sixth persons let in. You sign your name in a big book and check it off when you leave so they know you survived. After that, you pass a fork in the road.

Choose your own adventure.

You can climb a much smaller peak, Huchuy Picchu, or continue onto Huayna Picchu. Truth be told, we tried to hike Huchuy Picchu on the way back but ran into a steep rock with a rope dangling from it. We were probably about 80% of the way up, but this was a bit too much for us, and we turned around (already exhausted from the real hike).

Enough with the side notes! Back to Huayna Picchu.

It’s all uphill, and it’s all very steep.

As the caption says above, the hike is really steep. Oh, and it’s all uphill. For at least 50 minutes. Bring LOTS of water. We stopped to take a lot of pictures, so it took us around an hour and 15 minutes to reach the top. The handrail you see to the right? Those are rare (or in awkward positions, like being too low or too far away). You’re often on the side of enormous cliffs which are made a bit less scary thanks to bushes and small trees that keep your heart in your chest. Honestly though, it wasn’t as scary as so many on the internet made it sound. Here are some more pictures:

Some other hikers.

More steep stairs.

A nice place to take a break, probably about 75% of the way up.

The sun breaking through the clouds.

Starting to get pretty high. That’s the city of Machu Picchu below.

Near the top of Huayna Picchu is this small cave you have to crawl through. Moral of the story: You better be in shape if you want to do this hike.

A video on YouTube calls these the “stairs of death.” They’re optional. You can get a nice view if you decide to climb up. Still not at the top.

The ladder at the top.

The view. Stunning.

More of the view.

Another view from the top.

Awesome sign.

Used my zoom lens to show the road the buses take up to Machu Picchu and back down.

Suzy and I at the top of Huayna Picchu.

At the top is a small area of rocks where you’ll be joined by other hikers. It’s actually pretty cramped, but it was an amazing feeling to be above Machu Picchu. Not seen in the above photos are even more ruins that are seen along the hike, including a really cool sundial. And I’ll say this, Machu Picchu is the most spiritual place I’ve been. Taking in nature all around you in the Andes is unforgettable.

After spending a good half hour taking it all in, we decided to not simply head back down. There’s another hike on Huayna Picchu that not a lot of people do (we only ran into four other hikers): the “Gran Caverna.” Unfortunately, it turned out not to be that grand. However, since this was our only day to explore Huayna Picchu, we were happy to make the trek. Getting there takes 45 minutes or so and is mostly downhill (lots of very narrow steps). One scary moment is when you come to a very tall ladder that you have to climb down. Check out the below photos to check it all out.

To Gran Caverna.

More steep stairs.

The aforementioned ladder.

Inside the Grand Cavern. We think they might have had mummies here. Just a guess though.

Hiking back to Machu Picchu.

The most exhausting part of the entire day was hiking back to the Huayna Picchu control gate. The signs said it would take an hour and a half to get back to Machu Picchu from the Grand Cavern, but it took us at least two hours. We had to stop many times due to constantly hiking uphill. Overall, we spent around five and a half hours on Huayna Picchu.

Finally back at the control gate!

Hopefully in an upcoming post I can detail our tour of the actual “Lost City of the Incas” we took the day before we explored Huayna Picchu. For now, I’ll leave you with one more photo of Machu Picchu.

Awesome.

The real Seattle

This short blog post brought to you by the Yeah, It Rains Here but Really I’m Posting This to Keep Others from Falling in Love with Seattle So They Stay Away Association.

Make no mistake about it – the Pacific Northwest of the US has long been a frontrunner in the green movement. Then again, this isn’t a huge surprise. The area features majestic mountain ranges, lush forests and continually evolving eco-friendly towns and cities. Many residents make sustainability a priority, and the following demonstrates five ways the Pacific Northwest keeps pushing green forward… To keep reading, just follow this link to Sustainablog.

My girlfriend and I took a trip up north to Vanouver this weekend to celebrate our one-year anniversary. Besides absolutely falling in love with the city, here are some photos I shot. Click the photos to enlarge!

The first shot from the Lakeview Boulevard East overpass in Seattle, looking towards downtown. On the left and in the middle (express lanes) is traffic heading north on I-5, while the right side shows traffic heading south on I-5.

The second shot from the Lakeview Boulevard East overpass in Seattle, looking towards downtown. On the left and in the middle (express lanes) is traffic heading north on I-5, while the right side shows traffic heading south on I-5.

The third shot from the Lakeview Boulevard East overpass, looking north past downtown Seattle. On the left is traffic headed south into downtown Seattle, while the middle (express lanes and right side shows traffic heading north on I-5.

A close-up of traffic heading north past downtown Seattle on I-5, viewed from the Lakeview Boulevard East overpass. The right side of the photo shows both an on-ramp and express lanes.

For larger views, visit my Flickr page.