Not content with typical touristy snapshots, photographer Grant Mallory and his girlfriend Maria Jacob harnessed the powers of an LED hula-hoop to create unique visual souvenirs of their tour of the most iconic national parks in the western United States.
While Maria expertly spun and twirled her light-up hoop, Grant set up his camera on a tripod and captured the ring's luminous path of movement using slow shutter speeds. Sure, these parks are certainly gorgeous on their own, but you have to admit the hoop's fleeting, neon-like movements are a delightful complement to the parks' organic surroundings.
"We could have shot regular landscapes the whole trip, but that would have been boring and has been done [so] many times before (especially in these national parks)," Grant wrote on Reddit. "Our goal from the beginning was to show the unique characteristics of each park but to add a modern twist to each landscape."
The epic road trip, which was organized to celebrate the couple's college graduation, included stops at the Badlands (above), Grand Teton, Bryce Canyon and dozens of other spectacular locations.
Continue below to see just a few of the places Grant and Maria visited on their road trip, and learn more about their journey on their blog, He and She Travel, or on Grant's Instagram.
Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, California
Redwood National and State Parks, California
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Olympic National Park, Washington
