2017 Favorites – Roller Coasters

This week, I will be breaking my Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday posting routine to highlight my favorite images from 2017! I’ve broken my favorite images down into four categories: roller coasters, portraits, engagements, and weddings. 2017 was the most amazing year & I have the images to prove it!!

Ever since Derrick & I started dating, I would take pictures for him at amusement parks. At the time, it was just to give him some pretty pictures to use as the background for his desktop & phone. Over the last 2 years, my images have fueled his Instagram & YouTube accounts.

Photographing roller coasters has been a fun change from photographing people. There is no posing involved, no wrangling groups of people, and no waiting for the perfect expression. There is, however, lots of patiently waiting for the train to zip by, being prepared to literally run around the park & shoot during a very small window of pretty light, and always looking for different angles. Then, there’s also the challenge of bringing my camera into the park (it’s not like it’s small, fits in my pocket, and could safely ride rides with us)! It’s definitely a whole new ballgame over photographing a wedding – one that is super fun & rewarding, yet demanding & challenging!

I’ve always just had 3 “categories” of favorite images at the end of the season, but this year I’m officially adding “roller coasters” as number four. In 2017, not only did I photograph roller coasters for Derrick & his XScreamThrills accounts, but we were also invited by Kennywood to come behind-the-scenes & shoot the park. It was definitely a highlight of our summer! It left us hungry to go behind-the-scenes at more parks (is that possible?) and really upped the ante!

So, here we go! These are my favorite amusement park & roller coaster photos from 2017 (in absolutely no particular order). These photos are all from Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Sea World, ZDT’s, Waldameer, Conneaut Lake, King’s Island, and of course our home park, Kennywood.