Something Different

I'm tired of whining about being tired. Need to talk about something else for a change.

American Photo magazine has a great feature right now on Heroes of Photography. At first I wondered what on earth it could mean, but looking through the bios of the people they chose, it's a mix of people who have shown personal courage in continuing their careers despite obstacles and those who have used their cameras to expose injustice in the world.

The one who caught my eye is Hazel Thompson, a British photojournalist who recently shot the conditions in Philippine children's prisons. The images are striking and heartbreaking. The picture at the top of this blog is hers (and yes, those are kids in prison).

What kept my attention longer was a set of photo essays she's done called "Modern Day Crusaders". This series includes Christian Bikers in the US, cowboy church, surfer outreach projects, hip hop church and the 24/7 prayer team doing outreach in the clubs in Ibiza, Spain.

How very cool to find someone who blends their faith with the passion for photography to expose injustice and to record some of the most interesting areas of missions in our world.

Definitely check out her pictures. She's now among my top 10 photographers.

A Thousand Words

Though in a crisis moment everyone tends to turn on the tv to see video of events and hear the latest information, I've always felt that still photos do a better job of capturing emotion and creating the lasting image of events. When I think of 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, it's the still photos that I remember. Video conveys the immediacy, but it's usually franetic and often comes with audio commentary that later proves to be wrong or caught up in the emotion of the moment.

I may be biased because of my own love for photography, but I think it's the photojournalists who really preserve history for us and help us understand tragedy. The talking heads on television end up becoming a blur. As usual, it's the photographs coming out today that have made me cry. The best photo essay I've found is from Time. I think the photos express what even 1000 words could not capture.

Small Friend

The Friends

Got some interesting shots of the friends at a party last weekend.

These are the folks that keep me sane (note, not all the friends are here - these are just the best shots).

Evil Snowman

Icicles

Hibernation

Every year I vow that this winter will be different. This year I won't drop all my hobbies after Christmas and slowly retreat to my house - not to be seen again until April. Every year it happens again. I walk past my photography equipment and sigh. I'm sure there are nice things out there to photograph, a) I'm lazy, b) it's cold out there, c) I'm lazy. This year I'm not even cooking or baking that much. Yet, none of my hobby stuff comes out.

The first big storm of the season is supposed to hit tomorrow night. I'm guessing that won't help curb my instinct to crawl under the covers and not emerge until spring!

New Pictures

While I've been off dealing with Nasty Virus '07, I've been working on left over pictures from Soulfest last summer. Here are a few of them.


Third Day


Kutless

Never Ending Nausea

I thought I was feeling better. I thought I could return to real life.

Not so fast. Now I'm nauseous again. Argh!

While I appreciate the time to work on pictures from last summer, I'd really rather be on my feet doing normal stuff. I'm hoping tomorrow brings a normal day!

Happy Birthday to You

Today's my friend Laurel's birthday and I just got back from her very fun birthday lunch. With three desserts, which pretty much makes a good birthday lunch!

Happy birthday!

More Pictures From the Trip

These are some pictures from a quick day trip while I was up in the great white north.

More of the Cutie

My Bro's New Woman

He's got a new little friend. Aren't they cute?

Over Christmas

Taking lots of great pictures, but don't have any means of getting them to the computer right now. So, there will be a pile of pictures in January.

In the meantime I'm doing some interesting reading. Bonhoeffer is one of my favorites and Mom and Dad have a copy of his letters from prison, so I've been working my way through that for the last few days. The book starts with a section of theological writing which is just amazing. Here's a section on folly:

"Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defence. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieve - indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel; we shall never again try to convince a fool by reason, for it both useless and dangerous."

One more day before I begin leg 2 of the journey and then off to OneThing.

Blurb

Earlier this year my pal Janet blogged about some interesting sites from a Time article. One of the sites was blurb.com. It was back in the summer and I didn't think much about it. But going to England gave me the idea to make a book of my pictures for those people in my life who are a little harder to buy for. Of course, I made one for myself as well.

The books arrived this week and it's been so much fun to have a professional looking book to drag it around to show everyone. It's been a big hit. Much easier than a bulky photo album. Much more streamlined than the 400 pictures I have up online.

It was a fun project to to do and it's a great keepsake from the trip.

Ramping up the Crazy

So, I thought yesterday was the end of the crazy. A couple of new things within the last 24 hours.

I'm definitely going to OneThing. Changed my Christmas plane ticket last night. No going back now. I'm excited about this as a step of faith.

I'm going to be photographing OneThing. I'm pretty excited about this too.

I signed up to be a correspondent for the 24/7 prayer team. Don't know what all this will entail, but it looks like getting assignments, talking with people and writing up stories and testimonies of what God's doing around the world through 24/7 prayer. How hard can that be??

I talked with my church leadership about my plan for an AIDS in Africa project after Christmas, so the wheels are turning there.

2006 has been a year of so much growth and change. Looks like things aren't going to slow down for the holiday season.

Please pray for me. All this is exciting and overwhelming. I need to stop trying to understand how I will get all this done or if I've got the skills to do all of this and just rest on the fact that I'm not doing any of it - God is. I'm just the messenger.

Tree

Despite feeling horrible with a cold, I finally caved and put up my Christmas tree. I think that's all the decorations that will get up this year. Here's some pictures of the tree and some of the ornaments. Note the Mountie Snowman.

Thanksgiving pics