The day has finally arrived and today as our team heads for the Atlanta airport, and I know we all have prepared and prayed as much as is possible for this moment. In a few hours we will be over the Atlantic, at which time comes my very favorite feeling of all, having no control of driving the bus whatsoever by sitting in a medal tube at 40,000 feet for the next 2 days. Of course I did contemplate with Deborah for a short time about taking a slow boat to Africa but she reminded me we wouldn’t make it back before 2012 was here, so I guess it’s for the best we have planes now, I guess.
In case you missed my last trip from a few months ago (just hit Uganda on my blog and scroll down), we travel from Atlanta to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Rwanda, then on to Uganda (yes, we fly right over Uganda to land in Rwanda), for a total of almost 10,000 miles in just about 36 hours from start to finish. I timed my trip last time from the moment I left my house to the moment I got into the guest house and it was right at 36 hours, which translated into 1 sunrise and 2 sunsets. By the time we landed last time I remember thinking, this has to be Africa, if we traveled any farther we would start to head back home around the other side.
For those few of you who might want to follow a more exact detail of what’s going on as we board and land etc, you can follow my feed on Twitter @scottfillmer or you can friend me on Facebook. For those who are unfamiliar with Twitter, You do NOT have to be a member of Twitter to follow our trip/team on Twitter, it is an open page, just click on my name above and it will give show you the updates (if you want to respond to something on there you do need to join Twitter if you haven’t already). For Facebook of course you will need to be on Facebook. The information and photos I post on Twitter and Facebook are unique to those two media’s so you won’t see those pics on my blog. I will also be able to update both while I’m actually on the ground in Uganda during the day, so if you are so inclined you can read what we are doing over there as well.
For now, I would like you to meet our team. From the photo above (in no particular order here) we have April Olive, Amy Frye, Bart Hyche, Emile Ewing, Jamie Moussirou, John Dow, Lisa Randall, Prabhakar Clement, and me, Scott Fillmer. Please be praying for each of us through the stresses of travel, and being away from our loved ones, that God will give us the strength needed to make a difference in just the way he has called us to do. See you here when we get to Europe if I can.
Know that we all greatly appreciate all your prayers as we leave and while we are over there. For those who have my cell phone number, please feel free to send text message to me while I’m over there, it’s like getting a letter from home, and I can receive unlimited text messages on my phone, just can’t send a large number. I probably will not reply, but I will receive your message.
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On one hand traveling anywhere on a plane today is such an incredible pain, and seems to take forever, but in the view of history, two thousand miles in a few hours isn’t so bad I guess. We went from a remote-ish cabin in Estes Park Colorado at 8,000 feet to our house, at sea level in Auburn, in about 12 hours. I have always loved airports, at least at long as I can remember anyway. Today the airlines pack as many people into every single aircraft as they possibly can, which makes for extremely crowded airports, and cabins. My perspective of airline travel has changed tremendously over the last twenty years, but airports, especially the major airports like Atlanta Hartsfield or DIA, are still a great place to just relax, people watch, read, do some photography, and generally take a break from the normal routine of things. I do love visiting different parts of the country, and the world for that matter, but as the cliche goes, there’s no place like home. I have visited every state in the country, lived in a dozen or so, and I can say without a doubt that the south really is a great place to live.
For all the craziness that is involved with traveling today I only have to look at the photo below to remember the reason why all that was worth it. To be there for the birth of our second grandson was an experience we will be able to remember as he grows up, and to be able to photograph his arrival into the world makes those memories even more vivid. I always feel very privileged to photograph specific events. They are all little pieces of history, frozen in time, never to happen exactly that same way again.
The photos in this post are sort of a hodge-podge of images from our trip home. I never did get a chance to do my 50mm airport shoot at Denver International Airport because by the time we got through security we only had about 30 minutes left before we got on our sold out flight, and we arrived hours before our departure time. I have several more photos of baby Luke than just the one below but I will save those for another post sometime.
This season, to me, seems so crazy right now that I find myself looking desperately for some margin (or balance). Fall is always a very busy time of year, but between football season, our multi-site movement at Cornerstone, a grandson being born trip, a niece to be born sometime this week, seminary classes, and a trip to Africa in two weeks, I’m feel a little frazzled (that a very scientific technical term) at times, just like everyone does.
I look at baby Luke in this photo below and it amazes me. God spent nine months to create the perfect little boy who right now knows nothing of the hustle and bustle of this world, and by the time he is my age, around the year 2050, he will no doubt feel the same pressures and anxieties that come with living in this extremely modern world. Maybe he will some day pull out this photo on his whatever electronic fangled device he has and remember that one day he too had no cares in the world other than to be warm and sleep in the sunlight.
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This is a continuation of my series, airports and a 50mm lens. Since I was in Europe this time I didn’t really get quite a much material as I normally do in a place like Atlanta. For one thing, once I get outside the United States shooting [photos] in an airport isn’t quite the same. The laws are different all over the world. I know what I can and can’t shoot in the U.S., and I can stand my ground in most cases in my own country. Not so much once I get outside the U.S., so this series changes a bit, to err on the side of caution.
Europe is usually ok about photographers as long as you aren’t obnoxious and you don’t look too suspicious but Entebbe is another story. I didn’t take hardly anything once we landed over there but on my next trip I know on the way back home there are a few things I would like to capture. I’ll see. In October I may be as tired as I was when we left in August, but EBB right now is about one single shot.
Here is a quick shoot of Amsterdam. There was a lot I didn’t get since our connection was so short, but next time I have a 5 hour connection so I should be able to improve upon this shoot. If you are wondering what’s the point… well, I actually consider this street photography, something I have really come to love over the years. Trying to capture a mood, or an expression, without someone standing in front of you going “smile” isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but sometimes it’s just more genuine. To me it shows a more realistic view of life. Everything in this (and all my 50mm airport series) is shot with one single focal length lens (obviously a 50mm), and to me, it tells a totally different story than the post from Atlanta 8 hours earlier told.
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I have this random series I have done on my blog for years called “airport in 50mm” that looks photographically at a particular airport with just a 50mm lens. I did this for this last trip except for the airport in Entebbe where I wasn’t sure if I would get shot by the guy holding the M-16 for taking a photo but I was pretty sure they would confiscate my camera and or SD card so I skipped that one, maybe when I go back. I always find it fascinating that you can take photos of the same place but capture a totally different perspective each time, but they always are because every day brings to live a new perspective (see the last Atlanta post). This was the first stop along an extremely long set of flights from Atlanta to Amsterdam to Entebbe. Each image was taken with a 50mm prime lens.
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The day is finally here, we are actually driving down I-85 as I type this out heading for the Atlanta airport. Next stop will be approximately 5,000 miles across the Atlantic into the Netherlands where we will spend a few hours before heading south. I know our team pictured above is collectively so ready to get there and get to work. Just this morning I read an update on the Secret Church blog, called Secret Church 10 – Uganda, Africa – Part 2, that talked about the issues of telling people about Christ in Africa, and particularly Uganda. As one person put it, “their beliefs have a mixture of several different types of religion. For most because of their illiteracy and limited access to a bible, they cannot confirm what the Word of God really says, so they believe what everyone tells them. You share the gospel and they add it to all the other beliefs they claim”, it’s only through an actual changed life that God’s salvation work is revealed.
I’m really looking forward to seeing God move among this group of guys for the next 10 days and I look forward to bringing some of the story here soon, so stay tuned. I will be updating my blog as I can and our team leader will also be updating his blog as well so you can read up on Brian’s over there too. I will most likely be updating Twitter far more often than my blog, so if you are wanting to see the most current updates please head to @scottfillmer. You don’t have to sign up for anything you can just read updates right from that site. See you back here soon.
Please be praying for our team, which consists of from left to right in the photo Brian Johnson, Myron West, Chris Mills, Rush Hill, Mark Fuller, Jason Welstead, Bo Morrissey, Jordan Ross, and me, Scott Fillmer.
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The only thing that seems to like the fact that the heat index has been over 100* (much of the time over 110*) this summer is our dog, and the Lantana. I couldn’t think of a better shot for “dog days of summer” than Ebby sitting on her heated bed. The dog days of summer are certainly here in south Alabama, the grass is all brown from lack of rain, the pond is all dried up, and you can’t go outside without getting swarmed by deer flies. Some people like this time of year (I am guessing those who live in Montana, or Wisconsin, or Colorado, where the temps are in the mid-60′s right now), but down here, all I can think about is being able to walk without feeling like I am going to die, and being able to sit outside with a fire going in my fire pit.
I know those days are coming, because football season is the only thing being talked about down here now. Only about 2 1/2 more weeks before Auburn kicks off the 2010-2011 football season, but at the moment, I am just thrilled the first game is at night. With the temps at night still in the 70′s and 80′s, they should kick off this game at midnigh, but at least Auburn now runs some of the games like Talladega (they use to run that late season race during the day, and it was miserable too).
Fall is coming, probably 2 days in mid January, but the sun and the calendar says cooler weather is coming, but I think Ebby likes it just the way it is right now. I still feel like she looks, and I am ready for something more like –> Samford Hall and Auburn University in the Snow.
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It has been a while since my last post but I still wanted to post a few of my favorites from Maximum Impact. It was a great event and I am glad I was able to be in Atlanta for the live simulcast location. One of my favorite photo shoots of the afternoon ended up being several different shots I got of Kevin Carroll. He was great to put up with two different photographers hounding him and it made for some great images. Some others posted below are Liz Murry from Homeless to Harvard and Mark Sanborn with his new book the Fred Factor.
If you get a chance to see any of these folks in person it is well worth your time, they were great inspirational speakers and have amazing stories to tell.
