At first, Sarah Marino approached photography as a hobby and a stress outlet. At the time, the photographer was working at a stressful job for a nonprofit organization and was also in graduate school, so the creative pursuit helped her unwind.

"Landscape photography can be a very meditative, focused experience and it was an escape from what my life had become," Marino told weather.com. "Now I have shed most of those stressors, redefined my life, and am pursuing a much more fulfilling path with photography and travel at the center."

Marino's husband, Ron Coscorrosa, is also a landscape photographer. The two traveled extensively throughout North America for three years, living out of their SUV.

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"Because we had both been working in stressful, intense careers and had previously fit travel, hiking and photography in on the weekends, we both had quite a lot of pent-up wanderlust to get out of our systems," Marino shared. "During this time, we were fortunate to see more places and have more incredible experiences in nature and wild places than most people do in a lifetime."

The couple is now settled in Denver, Colorado, where Marino is currently growing the couple's photography business and working as a part-time nonprofit and philanthropy consultant while Coscorrosa works as a software engineer.

"We have made a series of choices that allow us to place the things that are most important to us – exploring, traveling and landscape photography – at the center of our lives and feel very fortunate to be so close to the things that inspire us on almost a daily basis," said Marino.

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Some of the places that have inspired Marino the most include Iceland, Death Valley National Park and surrounding deserts, the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and the Canadian Rockies.

"Landscape photography is interesting to me because it is such a challenging pursuit," she said. "So many things have to align to create a compelling photograph, so I keep searching for those special moments. The moments where everything aligns is what is exciting, frustrating and fulfilling about this pursuit and what keeps me motivated.

The photographer also emphasized the role weather plays in landscape photography. "Weather is an essential element in landscape photography. One of my favorite times to be out in nature is at the edge of a storm or in changing conditions. It can be exhilarating to photograph in changing conditions because what most people view as 'bad' weather helps produce dynamic, interesting photographs – dramatic lighting, interesting clouds, lightning, rainbows and other ephemeral conditions."

For more images, check out Marino's . Stay tuned for more 500px photography features on weather.com.