Welcome to my 2014 road trip! My journey began here at the JW Marriott in Orlando, Florida! The JW Marriott in Orlando, Florida was the host of the 2014 Avid workshop. AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, “is a program designed to give the necessary support to students, particularly those in the academic middle, so that they can attend college and achieve their fullest potential.” My mother, a middle school math teacher, was invited to attend this year. Along with some of her fellow co-workers and their administration, they attended to prepare and learn the program.We figured, since she already will be 3 hours north of our home in South Florida, why not road trip to visit my sister who lives in North Carolina? My sister is getting married in October and wanted us to share in the moment of her first wedding dress fitting. We found that excuse enough to make the drive! The workshop was a 4 day affair, so I decided to fly to Orlando on the final day and meet up with my mother there.

This hotel was not only beautiful inside and out, but as you can see from the photographs, its enormous! I found myself lost on a few occasions! The photos below show what the inside of the lobby looked like! It was opulent and grand! I wish I would of had more time to spend exploring the grounds inside and out, but I arrived late at night and left the following afternoon. Not to mention the craziness of the workshop wasn’t ideal for picture taking.

The photograph below is of the teachers and administration from Boca Raton Community Middle School that attended the Avid workshop. The woman sitting in the middle of the front row, thats my beautiful mother! You will be seeing her in many of my future road trip blog posts!

Once the workshop was over, my mother and I got on the road and headed for Charleston, South Carolina!

As my mother drove, I keep on the look out for opportunities to take photographs along the way. I was looking for anything that caught my eye, that I could turn into artistic photographs. I captured anything I saw that was architecturally appealing or beautiful in nature. In the photograph above, I found the design of the bridge interesting to look at and I also loved how the dark storm clouds hovered over the bridge. The highest point, which shined with sun light behind the clouds, also made this artistically appealing to me.

The photograph below is the same bridge but from a different perspective. When editing this photo, I wanted to emphasis the details, the angles and the engineering that went into its design.

The next few photographs below are of Jacksonville, Florida. The skyline was beautiful and was surrounded by water and bridges.

The house below with the orange roof was spotted somewhere along the road in Georgia, I thought it was a cute little house so I snapped its picture. I didn’t see much along the drive though Georgia, but as you will see, I made up for it once we crossed over into South Carolina.

Now we have entered into South Carolina! The next set of photographs are of some trees I fell in love with. Growing up in Florida, I’m used to seeing only palm trees, so when I was passing by these beautiful trees I found myself fascinated with them. I was seeing the beauty of nature and how I could capture it to turn it into my works of art.

The photograph below is probably one of my favorites. It took my breath away as we passed on by.

The tall skinny trees caught my eye, I felt it gave an interesting visual effect for a photograph. I also loved the center sunlight contrast with the shadows surrounding the skinny trees. As for the photography below, I’m not sure exactly what its of but, I thought it looked interesting.

Next stop… Charleston, South Carolina!