Father and Bride

Wedding Decorations

Kansas Wildlife

2014 Calendar

Hey All, these are the potential shots for the 2014 Calendar.

Frost's Curl

 

Flowers?

 Petunia

Dandelion

The Eyes Have It

I love her.

Milwaukee

Eager for Life!

Remedy Drive

This past weekend my fiance and I saw Remedy Drive in concert and they were fantastic! The band members have a ton of energy on stage and put on a sweet performance. The thing that most impressed me most though was the way that they acted off stage. Unfortunately, I have heard of many "Christian" bands that once they are off the stage they are arrogant, unkind and do not have the time of day for fans or staff that is helping with the event. On the other hand, the band members of Remedy drive all took the time to come by and thank us for the help we were giving at the merchandise table and the lead singer spend a half hour chatting with us about theology and aliens. If you have never listened to Remedy Drive before, check out the "Daylight is Coming" album. It has a lot of great songs on it, because of both the lyrics and music. They definitely do not fall into the category of a 7/11 band (bands that sing 7 words 11 times) or a band that sings half truths to make the Gospel seem more appealing, which has become far too common of the mainstream Christian music world.

Lean on Down

A few folks gave their opinion on how this shot would best be portrayed. If it would be better in black in white or color and if it should be cropped down a bit. This is what we settled on. Enjoy. One thing that was well stated when people were giving their critiques on it was not to crop it down too much. While it is good to not have a ton of dead space in your shot, it is also good to not have your shot be too tight either. If you decide to just shoot the subject and remove all extras around it, you will loose a variety of good things. The first is that you will loose a sense of context. Often this can be a poor habit to get into with wildlife photography, but who am I to talk as just shot the critter and nothing else in the frog shot just below this. The other problem that you will often run into if you just shoot the subject and nothing else is that it will feel like a snapshot, which in all reality is what it may be. The photo may possibly become uninteresting and without any sort of flow for the eye to follow in the shot. Having a flow for the eye to follow is very important in doing photography as it is what keeps the viewer interested in the shot for more than half a second by keeping their eye in the frame and studying the shot and catching the idea that is being portrayed. I will try to find/take some other shots that will exemplify this better.

George

George is a brother in Christ that lives near the Ngong hills of Kenya. He lives a life that he would probably call "very sweet". Every morning that my intern group spent in Kenya, he would greet us with a big smile that stuck out as a wonderfully sharp contrast to his dark Kikuyu skin. What reason did he have not to smile? He earned a handsome $10 a day and had a great group of mzungu to laugh at. More importantly I think he knew the importance of a community. Or, shall we say that community was ingrained in him deeply and he knew no different. He had a mindset to not consider himself first, but rather his brothers and sisters in Christ. He was truly confounded when we tried to explain the individualistic and capitalistic mentality that, as far as I can figure it, has been the product (or cause) our country being so successful...at least financially. I will admit that I enjoy the privilege and blessing of having the finances available to have the camera that took this picture, or the laptop to type this blog, or the car to drive to my fiance's apartment, which is less than a mile from my house. However, we have lost something in this our First World culture and I would like to get it back. Except, maybe the only way to get it back is to give something up?

Lean

I really do not know which one I prefer for this particular shot. Each one has a unique feel to it. I would love feedback if you have any.

Think Perspectiveily

In our lovely postmodern world today, you may have heard something along the lines of "Its all in your perspective" or "a flower is merely a weed seen with joyful eyes". These sorts of cliche statements are wonderful and can either motivate you to smile on a dreary day or make you want to kick a little puppy (not that I would do that but I thought it would be fair and go both ways with the analogy). As this is true with life experiences, so it is true with photography. The angle at which you present a subject can make a huge difference on how people interpret the shot, which I have tried to show here. Above you see an evil little girl prowling Draculasiously in the hopes of giving a nice deep kiss to your jugular. Naturally, I fled the scene immediately after this shot was taken, throwing garlic as I ran. Below we have a picture of a girl who was kind enough to let Mr. Bluebird take a break from sitting on Uncle Remus' shoulder.

The two shots were taken of the exact same statue, which you probably guessed already. What you may not know however is that the statue was not even moved to take the shots, even while having very different emotions to the shot. What you also may notice is that the bottom picture is a little more boring (at least I think it is). If it is more boring to take a shot of something straight on with the subject centered in the frame, then you may be wondering WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE TAKE PICTURES OF EVERYTHING IN THE EXACT CENTER WITH NO VARIATION ON COMPOSITION OR POINT OF VIEW!?! That is a good question. I think it is because they have just never thought about it before, so time to think about it. Generally, if a shot is taken from a low angle towards the subject, they will seem larger, stronger, etc. If the shot is taken from above it makes the subject appear smaller or weaker. These are just general rules and are not always true. So basically, just experiment. Next time you photograph anything, try taking the shot at a couple different angles so that you aren't just another tour bus rider. I have some more shots below to emphasize the difference angle can make.  

Peeka-boo

K 26

Gainer Switch

What Are You Waiting For?