I just can’t believe it is almost the middle of November, Veterans Day, or Auburn Arena’s opening night for the 2011-2012 NCAA Men’s basketball season. It’s really all been a blur since about October 1st, like having frosted lenses in your glasses, but seen through the venue of the calendar, if that makes any sense. Where did October go? Leading up to the beginning of October was so focused on our trip to Uganda, then a few days after I returned from Uganda Deborah got sick, and then ended up having to be in the hospital for a while, where we spent Halloween before she got to go home the next day.
It actually feels pretty good to be here writing on my blog again, which is something of a normalcy issue for me anyway, something I have tried to make a normal part of my week for the past 10 years. It feels strange to me when I go a few weeks without posting, but the gaps mean about as much to me as consistent posts. I have come to learn and appreciate over the last 12 months or so that when someone you know and care about gets sick, friends, family, your spouse, priorities tend to shift around to triage mode. You do the things that need to be done and forget about all the other stuff you normally do that uses up time each day.
Everyone I know is so busy it sometimes seems like if anything out of the expected happens the whole system of time will shut down and collapse, and in some ways, it does. It’s like getting on a transatlantic flight. Time still moves forward even though you are stuck in a small metal tube for 12 hours. Inside that room (or cabin), time stands still while everything around you motors on at light speed, your “normal” is temporarily on hold until you get out of that time warped room. When we took off from Atlanta for our overnight flight into Amsterdam only our world stopped. As soon as we hit the ground in Europe I turned on my phone to find out that Steve Jobs had died while we were in flight. It was only our world in the plane that became timeless for 12 hours.
I have no doubt in my mind that being “busy” is not a biblical mandate. In fact, the opposite is true. Psalm 46.10 instructs us, to be still, and know that I AM God. But how do you balance this with the noise and chaos that is our world today? I still fight hard for margin (being still) every single week but sometimes it just doesn’t work.
Slowly, things return to “normal”, or if not, you create a “new normal” where you can establish some kind routine again. I’m not sure why routine is the goal but routine often times removes uncertainty and change, which seems to be what we all fear the most, but routine also gives us a continuity of motion for each day. I can’t imagine that Paul’s routine in Acts removed a whole lot of uncertainty for him, and fear in itself always feels like a testing of faith to me. Over the past month or so these thoughts have combined in my mind while looking at three different areas of scripture. The words of Matthew in Matthew 6.25-34 on being axioms about tomorrow, (something I think I have been genetically inclined to do from birth), 2 Corinthians 12.9 where Jesus instructs Paul that “my power is made perfect in weakness”, and 2 Timothy 1.7, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
Tonight starts a new normal routine for our house, a “normal” routine for the second week in November that is, the start of Auburn’s basketball season. This is always something that Deborah and I look forward to each year. Not necessarily because it’s an Auburn sporting event, but because it is a few designated hours we get to spend together outside our normal routine, without much noise or distraction… one of those timeless two hour flights with the added bonus of not having to actually be at 40,000 feet. War Eagle!
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The football game yesterday was the first night game of the year and I ended up leaving my camera in the car, so I was left with taking photos of the game using my iPhone. I can’t wait to see what kind of camera the iPhone 5 comes with (reportedly it will be a great 8mp sensor), because the more I use my cell phone for actual serious photographic purposes the more I have grown to like it. Sure my Nikon DSLR would have done a better job overall but I was thrilled to have my phone, and not have to lug around a heavy body and lens for once. It also still proves the old adage that the artist is in the person (or the photographer) not in the camera.
Anyway, it ended up being one of the more enjoyable games we have been to this year. We didn’t get sunburned, die from the heat, or stress over the game (though we really don’t do that anyway). We did however get to see several friends around the tailgate areas, like Courtney (see her blog here) seen below with Deborah, and we ended up leaving early enough to get to see the end of the game from home. Normally we would stay but since I had to be at three services and a mission meeting early today, we opted for watching the end at home. By the time the next home game gets here against Florida I will have been to Uganda and back. The Florida game is actually the very next day after I get back from 36 hours of travel from the other side of the world, hopefully I will just be able to stay awake for the game. In the mean time enjoy some iPhoneography below.
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Our view from the cabin in Estes Park looks out over Longs Peak, which just got a dusting of snow over the last night or two. The temps are above freezing at around 8,000 feet where we are, barely, but it’s cold enough. I don’t get a chance to do self-portraits very often but I did this one below this morning as Deborah and I spent some nice quiet time, me reading and Deb knitting. These two shots pretty much show what we like to do when we are not scheduled to be somewhere doing something. It’s great because our location can change but we can pretty much take a few things with us and enjoy spending the day together on the beach, or in the mountains, or at home in the living room for that matter.
This self portrait was pretty neat to me since I was able to combine the two things I’m passionate about in one moment, studying God’s word and photography (meta data here). Self portraits are really much more difficult than one might think, it just isn’t as easy as pushing the button and your done, to me it’s about telling a story as always. I love looking at different ways to do self portraits since it tells so much about the photographer and the person. One of my favorite is this one my grandfather did, which I posted a few years ago.
Only one day left of our mountain view and it’s back to the heat and humidity. Something I’m actually looking forward to since it’s a whole lot easier to breathe in Alabama than it is in Colorado. Tomorrow we have the baby Luke photo shoot and I’m wishing I had all the cute little baby hats, baskets, and cups that Heather Carson in Auburn uses but we do have several Deborah knitting originals to use.
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This 4th of July holiday weekend seems to have snuck up on me. I didn’t realize it was the holiday weekend until about mid-week, days just seem to be flying by at such a fast pace, can’t believe we are already basically mid-summer. I tried out some test shots on Deb tonight, something she is always thrilled about. I picked up this used lens (10-12 years old by the serial number) for my Uganda trip. I decided last year that I was going to forgo the big expensive, heavy, pro, zoom lenses and opt for shooting with prime lenses (a fixed focal length lens). They are cheap, fast, and extremely sharp, when you shoot them well.
This is Nikon’s Nikkor 20mm f/2.8D classic prime that came out back in the late 1980′s (see photo below), which converts to about 30mm on my DX crop sensor. Not the best portrait focal length in the bag for a crop sensor but it worked pretty well. Not so sure about the focus, it seems like it might be off front or back a bit but it will do the job. I shot some black and white film with it too but of course I can’t see that yet. It hasn’t been easy getting use to using primes, but it has forced me to look at shooting more creatively. Somehow shooting those big fat pro zoom lenses years back made me lazy. Primes may take a bit more work but I love the end result.
Hope everyone is going to have a chance to relax and enjoy the 4th of July weekend. As hot as it was today we may not leave the air conditioned house until the fireworks go off on Monday. Have a great weekend.
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My Throwback Thursday post today isn’t really from all that far back, though it looks like it. I happened to have found a missing roll of black and white last week that I shot back on Thanksgiving 2008. It was expired when I shot it, so these two shots above were really far gone, but they still have a pretty neat look to them even with all the grain. The second shot actually came from this photo shoot Thanksgiving Photo Shoot for a Christmas Card and was shot with a Nikon F5 I no longer own. For some reason my luck with Kodak BW400CN isn’t all that great because I keep misplacing various rolls, but I love the look of film, and keep going back to film over and over. I just ordered some medium and large format film to shoot with my grandfather’s Graflex camera (a Speed Graphic) I received a few years ago, can’t wait to see how those turn out. It’s amazing to me that we can still shoot with a camera built in the 1940′s and end up with perfectly acceptable results, even when compared to current DSLR’s… well maybe I’ll wait and see what my first 4×5 looks like first.
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Saturday was Deborah’s birthday, and yes, she was born on Saturday the 14th (she has enjoyed pointing out to me this year it is the same exact day as it was 45 years ago). This was a special birthday for her, since she loves markers in years, 45 years was a small milestone for her, not to mention everything that happened health wise last year and early this year, we all felt blessed to be able to celebrate this birthday with her. We went out to eat and watched The King’s Speech but in general had a nice quiet day at the house. My mom made Deborah a quilt of her very own. I am pretty sure this is the only quilt anyone has ever made for her. Since she makes quilts, and all things knitted, I guess everyone just thought she could just make her own. I know Deborah can’t wait until it’s done so she can use it.
I love the shot of Deb walking home from my parents house to our house around sunset. It was abnormally cold and windy outside and even though the sun looks warm, it’s freezing for May. The lamp is just because I love taking photos of lamps (or light… it’s a my lamp is the light of the world thing).
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This is sort of just a random photo of the day for Sunday. The truck broke after church today so instead of my normal routine after the last service was over I headed to our favorite local mechanic’s parking lot to drop the truck off and headed (on foot) for Toomer’s Corner and lunch at Jimmy John’s (which was only because Moe’s Original BBQ was closed, who knew). There are so many great local places to eat in and around Magnolia Avenue and College Street, or Toomer’s Corner, but it’s also a great place to just hang out, even if you are well past college age. After lunch I snapped a few shots with my iPhone, yes, Ebby came to lunch to protect Deborah. I don’t know what the deal is with the wooden cutout cheerleader but it was odd enough to shoot (at least with a phone), but the Toomer’s Corner National Championship mural is always an impressive sight. Yes I know it’s been there a while but it makes a great photo unless your a Bama fan. Ebby looks quite Hollywood walking down College don’tcha think.
