reflections of creation: May 2009

Your choice - "hide and seek" or "stalker views" Thursday, May 28, 2009 | 4

You get to pick the blog title today. If you're a fun loving spirit, then you get the hide and seek title. If you're a bit on the, uhhh, twisted side, then you get the stalker views title. Although with this picture you're stalking a hillside, so you've got more problems than you realized....

(sigh) I want to visit Alaska again Sunday, May 24, 2009 | 3

Today's picture is posted because of 3 reasons:

1) We got a call from a friend in Vancouver two days ago. We saw Vancouver last year and fell in love with that place (and Seattle). Alison and I are very much mountain people, and if it wasn't so far from our families, we'd pray that God would lead us there.

2) Friends of our just got back from an Alaskan cruise.

3) My parents just left on an Alaskan cruise.

We were there a year ago, and I am really itching to be back there. So, here's a picture taken from the street in Juneau using a big 'ole zoom (technical Canon term).

a long and pointless history to share with you Wednesday, May 13, 2009 | 3

I originally planned yesterday's picture as a series of pictures of all of the camera's I've had. But, these are the only two pictures I have for you. Let me answer the questions you guys asked and give you the history of my foray into photography. In all honesty, I never had much of an interest in photography, and even in high school wondered why my brother took a photography class. Nevertheless, I found myself fascinated by pictures a man named Steve Blaylock would take. Steve was the dad of one of my friends, and my boy scout leader. He would take a camera camping and pull it out and take pictures with a shallow depth of field (very blurry backgrounds). Seeing extremely blurry people in the backgrounds of his pictures always captured my imagination; I couldn't even tell who the people in the background were, so my mind was free to wander about who was there and what they were doing. In some ways, I felt like Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12 when he describes seeing a poor reflection in a dimly lit mirror. That concept of the shallow depth of field fascinated me and put a seed of desire in me to know how to do that.

Yesterday's picture was my first "real" camera, a Canon T60 which was given to me by my awesome sis-in-law Kara (a professional photographer). She offered it to me, and while I had never had much of an interest in taking pictures, I thought it might be fun to try something new. This was the perfect way for me to learn photography, because this is an all manual camera. With this camera, there is no pushing one button to take a picture; you have to set the shutter and exposure for every shot which meant I had to learn those things. I studied up for a week or so and went out with my first roll of film.

I took my 24 exposure 100 iso film and the T60 and went to a hiking trail in Fort Worth. I used all 24 exposures up in about half an hour. I couldn't believe it went so fast, but I really was deliberate about those 24 shots. I got a few that I really liked, and I was hooked. Incidently, I thought I had posted more shots from that first roll, but all I found in my really quick search were two of them. These are from the beginning days of my blog when I was still using blogger to post my pictures. I now host them on flicker so I can post them in the bigger size. You can click the pictures to see them larger, and make sure you enjoy the horrible scans of them!

Falling for Moss

Dead Arches

I Call Him Ed (this one isn't from that first roll of film, but the second I shot. I'm going to include it anyway because it's a fun shot and I want to)

I used the Canon T60 for several years, and it's still probably the most fun camera I ever used because it's simplicity allowed and even forced me to focus more on the picture than the camera. That camera took just about every shot from Fort Worth you've seen on the blog. It went with me to lots of places, including Alison's first backpacking trip and even to England (I did take a really cool 6 minute long picture of our tent at night on that backpacking trip. One of these days I'll get it scanned and posted).

Then I moved to Carlsbad, and my woodsy outdoorsy atmosphere left. I miss having trees around and as this landscape is not what I enjoy taking pictures in, I gave up photography for a while. When I got back into it, the T60 broke and I couldn't use it anymore. So, Alison and I used my Christmas bonus to buy an older digital camera, a Konica-Minolta Z20. We paid $120 for it, and I enjoyed it, but I sure missed being able to use an SLR. I missed the instantaneous action of the shutter, and I found myself really missing the sound of the mirror clapping to take the picture. I took some decent shots with that camera, but I was never that happy with it.

So, another camera came into my life. I made a trade with Kara and Daniel for one of their film cameras when they went to digital cameras. This one is a Canon A2 and is the one you can see in today's picture. I had always wanted one of those cameras, and I was really excited about having it. I didn't make the time to go out and take pictures with it and it sat in a closet for a long time. I also hated having to buy film and get it developed as I had gotten spoiled by the freedom of a digital camera. A digital camera gave me the freedom to take LOTS of shots, as I wouldn't be spending money everytime I pushed the shutter button. I finally did put a roll of film into the A2, and took a few shots. That roll of film is still in the camera today.

About that time, I started this blog in hopes that it would motivate me to get out of the office and the house more on my days off. While that hasn't happened, I still have high hopes that it one day will. At the time, I was using the Z20 since taking pictures only cost me the price of the four AAs that the camera runs on. About 3 weeks after I started this blog, the Z20 broke while on a youth trip with the church. That made me regret starting this blog real quick. The camera would still work, but the viewscreen barely worked, so it was difficult to know if you were taking a good picture or not.

I started praying about this whole blog thing, and that God would take away my desire to spend more time doing photography since I had lost a way of cheaply or easily doing this blog. At that time, Alison and I were about 3 months away from a cruise to Alaska, and it was killing me that I wouldn't have a camera I was happy with on that trip. I was really hoping to borrow one of Kara and Daniel's cameras, but I wasn't too sure I wanted to learn how to use it while there. I wanted to be able to focus on the scenery without having to worry about the camera.

So, Alison and I talked and prayed about it, and we bought a digital SLR about a month after the Z20 broke. I shopped around and found a refurbished Canon XT at Adorama for $330. I instantly fell in love with that camera, and I still love it. While an older one in Canon's lineup, I would still highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a digital SLR. It's been fun to learn about and even though I've taken some 4,000-5,000 pictures with it, I am still learning all the little nuances of this camera.

Okay, this has been very long and drawn out and, honestly, fairly boring. If you made it this far, then I think you're crazy, but I appreciate you. Now, I'm going to bed, and I'll see you tomorrow (maybe - I'm going camping and may not have internet access to post).

The sound of Your name Friday, May 08, 2009 | 3

I always liked this picture, but I never posted it because I don't love it. But today, I found my mind drifting to this picture and this October morning for two reasons: 1) I asked a friend if it was too late to wish for fall weather since I'm already tired of 100 degree temperatures, and 2) I made Alison a blackberry mocha this morning.

I love our local coffeehouse, The Blue House, and the pettiest of goals in my life is to someday make a chai or a latte as well as they do. This place is awesome and just the mention of it's name sends Alison into this peaceful, eyes closed, "mmmmmmmmmmmm" moment. No lie.

To me, it's fascinating how just a name can create such intense emotions out of us. I think about the name of Jesus and how much emotion gets packed into that one name. If you know me, then you know that everything reminds me of a song and of the Bible, so I'll combine the two by quoting part of a song by Above the Golden State.

Towers fall and kingdoms crumble
Mountains bow and the earth will tremble
At the sound of Your name
The sound of Your name
The strong man falls to Him who humbles
The plans he made were bound to stumble
And only You remain
Only You remain

I highly recommend listening to the song while drinking a cinnamon dulce mocha. Stop by sometime and I'll make you one. Or better yet, we'll go to Blue House.