Bryce Canyon National Park | Utah

the hearnes » adventure elopement photographers

Courtney + Winslow’s Vanlife Camping Adventure Session in Bryce Canyon National Park

Ohhhh my goodness we had SO much fun with Courtney and Windlow’s adventure session in Bryce Canyon National Park. We don’t photograph as many adventure sessions as we have in years’ past (I’m pretty sure we did literally 55 adventure sessions in 2017!!) because of our more streamlined scheduling and, simply, better work-life balance, but when they do fit in our timing and schedule it’s always such a joy to do them! Especially in a new place — we had explored Bryce Canyon National Park before on one of our previous Utah road trips, but this was our first time shooting there! To make things even more fun and exciting, Courtney reached out to me less than 3 weeks before we ended up booking their session! Her message was something along the lines of “we’re on this big epic road trip and want to document it with an adventure session…any chance our paths will cross and we can make this happen?!” And thankfully, luckily, we had ONE day that we could fit them in on our way out to Zion National Park for a few elopements! They were pretty flexible and Bryce Canyon National Park made the most sense for both of our schedules, so we made it happen and got to planning!

Courtney and Winslow are some of those super unique people that once you meet them as a couple, you can’t really imagine them without the other. I loved seeing their wild personalities shine through with their eclectic style, fun music choices, and the way they goofed off around the campsite with us. They had us for dinner (delicious vegetarian burgers!) at the campsite, poured wine into mason jars, and made a little fire. We spent the first half of their session at the campsite, just enjoying each other and taking photos with their rad road rig. Then we all piled into the big truck to head in to Bryce Canyon in time for a sunset hike. The weather was perfect and exploring the hoodoos was so much fun. Bryce Canyon is one of those parks that would be super easy to just drive through and get out at overlooks (in fact, did you know 75% of National Park goers stay within 250 feet of their car?!), but there is no way to really understand the place until you’ve walked down into it. We did a short, but steep hike down to some beautiful hoodoos that we had pretty much to ourselves. We had a ton of fun working with the differing light and angles in the canyon, and made our way back up the steep path in time to watch the final bits of sunset light turn the rocks bright orange in the distance. The clouds went from pink to blue, and we stood at a little overlook soaking in the last light as the temps dropped.

We had so much fun with these two and were honestly so sad to say goodbye after the amazing afternoon/evening with them, but not before Callen and Winslow fired up Cal’s mobile sweat lodge in the campsite 😂 It was awesome, and so much fun to get to know these two buddies.

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The Hearnes Adventure Photography is run by Abbi and Callen Hearne, a husband & wife wedding photography team with an emphasis on adventure. They live on the road as full-time nomads, allowing them to serve a large portion of the western US. You can typically find them in Moab, Utah or Yosemite National Park, California, with side-quests to Patagonia and Alaska. They believe love is the greatest adventure and strive to create photos that are epic, romantic, true, and timeless.

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