We have had a stormy few days leading up to Christmas this year, with some really weird warmer weather. I took this photo above yesterday with my cell phone as I was walking across the pasture to my house. I had forgotten something at my house that I needed to fix my mom’s computer, and literally as I was walking, I decided to take a few shots of sun through the clouds with my phone. I’m always amazed at the beauty that is before us all the time, but because we see it every day, day in and day out, we forget it’s there, or fail to recognize it’s beauty.
Of course this is no accident, and we are told over and over again that this display, the very display we can now capture on a phone, shows the existence of God to us all, and therefore, we are without excuse to say we have never known God to be real, to have shown his beauty to all of us.
This is what David says in Psalm 19.1-6 where he said
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork… in them, he has set a tent for the sun… its rising is from the end of the heavens… and there is nothing hidden from its heat
and again, what Paul says in Romans 1.20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
I have seen photos taken by Hubble that truly astound and boggle the mind, but sometimes we only have to go as far as to look around us, because God has displayed himself everywhere in His creation, from the Orion Nebula to our own backyard.
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Today’s Friday Feet comes from a live album recording here at Cornerstone Church in Auburn. I will probably post a few more photos of the shoot tomorrow but for now, here is a smattering of feet and music from the night. The live recording took place over two nights, last night and tonight, and was the first live worship recording for an album our band has completed.
I love the privilege of getting to worship throughout the week and not just on Sunday, or at least in the manner we do on Sunday. This was a special night in many respects, and I enjoyed the unique experience of getting to shoot and worship at the same time. Have a great weekend all.
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I thought I would make today’s Friday Feet the most colorful set of flowers shot in this series. I spent most of the day in blasting 100*F heat cutting acres of dry grass so this was a nice break. The flowers are from the Stephens family from after their service yesterday (see previous post). They were nice enough to let everyone take home some flowers from what turned out to be one of the most beautiful displays of flowers I have ever seen at any service, and now they can live on forever on the interwebs. In fact, there were so many flowers that everyone who wanted any got to take some home and the lobby of the church was still filled with flowers when everyone left.
The shots below were macro shots taken at a 1:1 magnification ratio or greater. The orange rose with the water drops was slightly greater than 1:1 by using what is called an extension tube (basically 27mm’s of air between the lens of the camera body). I love macro photography. It has a tendency to show all kinds of details that we just don’t see through casual observation like the oil and water colors from a few weeks ago. The first show below of the two pedals is the big flower on the very top by the basket handle above. No special lighting or anything, the flowers were just that colorful. Have a good weekend everyone.
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Something totally different for today. I thought I would try a little abstract photography last weekend. No special post-processing or photoshop on these images, just a simple mix of oil and water on a red and green flag. I always wanted to try some super closeup shots like this and I could have gotten in even closer but was limited to my one extension tube where normally you would stack them. All it takes is some water, a little cooking oil, put it in a bread pan and wait. The shot was done was with a 100mm macro lens and a 27.5mm extension tube (something that just puts space between your lens and the sensor for closer focus), sitting on a tripod of course. I love the colors but I could have shot with just about any color, I just tried to find two highly contrasting colors to make the oil moving through the water stand out. I have seen this done with a tidied shirt or something like that, and that works well too, I just didn’t have one. The exact shot metadata is over on Flickr if you are interested.
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Above is how my day ended yesterday, but what was in between was almost a blur. I know today is Sunday, but I’m doing my photo Saturday Summary today. Sunday’s in the summer are usually a little more laid back but they haven’t been so far, and yesterday was pretty incredible, and exhausting. Within two services we had more baptisms than I could count (pics here), a Uganda team trip meeting (for the October trip), four video sessions shot for our small groups (see April’s blog), a quick trip to Starbucks in severe lightning storms (see photo below), then another Uganda trip meeting (July trip), which was semi-rained out but still took place.
Uganda 2011 July trip update: So our Uganda team is leaving at the end of July (details here), just four short weeks away now, and is commissioned to (among other things) put together a soccer camp of sorts for the kids. The team is all guys this time, and for the most part, skilled in coaching soccer, except for me who will be behind the camera. We follow a full mission team that leaves the U.S. mid-July and we arrive in Uganda about the same time they leave to come back home. We have been meeting together as a team to get to know each other and plan the trip, and yesterday was one of those this-is-what-we-planned but this-is-what-happened-meeting. We were going to meet at a local soccer field and everyone was going to get some practice in, including me with my camera. As lightning bolts rained down we all ran for cover, stood around for an hour getting to know each other better, got out on the field, kicked the ball approximately two times each and scattered when the next lightning bolt came down in close proximity. I did manage to get one shot of Jason kicking a soccer ball to prove that we both got our practice in, sorta.
Driving home about 8pm last night I was so tired I couldn’t really think straight at that point and then all of a sudden the sun burst out of the storm bank just above the horizon line and I pulled over to the side of the road where I could see the horizon (not an easy thing to do in Alabama where you can’t see more than 20 feet because of all the trees) and got the shot at the top. The beauty that only God can produce in the sky with a mix of clouds, rain, lightning, and sun was a truly magnificent end to the day (it didn’t matter that the storm had fried my gate and I couldn’t get into my own property when I got home… but that’s another story).
As some of you may know I am still trying to raise money for these two mission trips, and every single donation helps no matter the amount, even $10 will go a long way when combined with everyone else’s donation. If you would like to help visit the info page or make an online donation here. Thanks!
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The other night Deb and I went back to Moe’s Original BBQ in Auburn over on Magnolia Ave. It is such a great place to do some street photography since there are so many restaurants and shops along those roads, but the atmosphere inside Moe’s is really great as far as photography goes. Lots of colors, paintings, drawings on the wall and so on. This sorta feels like an ad for their restaurant but it just happened to be where we ate dinner when I had my camera (I don’t get paid advertising funds from anyone on my blog just to be clear). Anyway, these are just a few of the images captured the other night while we were down on Magnolia Ave. If you are looking for a place to shoot in Auburn just walk around downtown from about 5pm to 9pm and you will have more to shoot than you have memory in your camera. All these shots were taken with a prime lens, a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, and a Nikon D7000 (EXIF data over here) if interested.
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Today is Friday again, can’t believe how fast these weeks are going by. Today the Friday Feet post comes from my garden just about 50 feet from where I am typing out this blog post. The cool thing about a flower garden is having plants that bloom at different times all throughout the year, and as Spring moves on, the next in line is the Iris. They just started blooming in these magnificent purple blooms (although they come in a huge variety of colors). These flowers below were shot using my wife’s Nikon D90 and basically this is how they came right out of the camera. I did very little post processing editing with these particular flowers, they really didn’t need it, the colors were incredible.
This week has been, thankfully, a week of getting back to the routine of things, a week without a doctors appointments, which we were both thankful for immensely, and a week that flew by in a blink of an eye. I had so many blog posts I either started or wanted to get started this week and just never got back to them. I do have several book reviews that I want to get out but they will just have to wait for another day. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.
