Starting over.

Taken in February of 2018. Canon 6D 47mm f/22 1sec ISO 100

Don't ever be afraid to start over. Sometimes we need to walk away from what we are doing and the ideas and habits that we are engrossed in in order to think clearly. For myself, that was a major life change of moving out of state and starting a new job in a brand new area that I knew very little about. It took months before I even touched my camera. And it has taken about 18 months before I've even felt the confidence to use it again for my own amusement.

But with that being said, the time off was well-needed. It has given me new perspectives and opened my eyes to what matters in terms of where I should focus my art. This would not have happened to me otherwise, and my work would have probably not gotten better. Is it great now? Not really, but I can feel improvements in how I approach image making, and that's worth a lot.

So give yourself a break if you feel stuck. Commit to returning to something you used to love doing (hopefully, photography is that thing) and try to approach it with new eyes. You never know the things that you will learn from that.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

...you take a picture of them.

All photos taken with a Fuji XT-10 and 27mm 2.8 lens:

f/2.8 1/80s ISO 640

f/2.8 1/180s ISO 4000

Monochromatic Snow Abstracts

Every day I watch the sunlight skim off of the snowscape that is now our backyard, and I always find myself intrigued by the way in which the light casts shadows and highlights over the textured ground. Today I finally took some time to go around my yard and feed my visual curiosity. 

All photos were taken with Fuji X-T10 50-200mm f/3.4-4.8 lens at various apertures around 1/400th of a second. ISO was set to auto.

Entry for Friday January 29th 2016

I shot this image while exploring near an old hunting/fishing town near Oil City, Pennsylvania. My favorite part is the repeating pattern of trees, which lead you back to the small leaning tree that juts out into the open space at the end.

Fuji X-T1 f/5 1/160 ISO 1250

This image presented itself when I saw the curved path acting as a leading line to the lighthouse. This particular shot worked best in black and white because of the dull absence of color in the overall scene. 

Fuji X-T1 f/5.6 1/350 ISO 200

Having a purpose

I recently had a discussion with a friend on the things we do as a group or community. Particularly in church. It seems to me that much of what we do or don't do goes in examined and without purpose. Traditions then only become hollow and meaningless. The philosophies that they are founded upon get lost over generations, and the new generations struggle to understand them. What do we matters. We need to consider the why, if none other than to strengthen and affirm our faith and worship. God does and has done everything with perfect purpose. We should do well to follow that example. 

I love it when...

...I get to witness a sunset after a thunderstorm. 

Happy Easter!

One More Day

This past Lent season has been an interesting and yet, confusing one. I have chosen to loosely give up several preoccupying activities that have dominated my free time. In their place, I have taken up commitments to reading a couple of books that I have been desiring to read for probably more than two years now. We are now approaching the end of the Lent season, and here I stand at a crossroads: what happens after today? The books are now read. I feel that I have gained greatly in the strengthening of my faith than ever before. In fact, I am so thankful for what God has shown me through these readings, that I would have not otherwise taken the time to do without dedicating it. 

It is interesting in how by choosing to "lose" something, I have actually grown. One would think that "adding more" is the only way to actually "grow bigger". In this Lenten season, it is clear that God has shown me that giving up things can actually help you to gain bigger and better things. Additionally, there is no value on earth that can be compared to an increase in faith. Adding to faith is priceless. In reflection, God has shown me blessings in my desire to dedicate time to Him over my diversions.

Here is where the hard part comes in: There is one more day of Lent, as I write this. Tomorrow, as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, we have the traditional "freedom" to let ourselves out of our lenten commitments. I don't know how to think on this. I have seen the real benefit of casting off these diversions, yet at the same time, I have also learned that there is a small benefit to occasionally participating in such things. More for mental/emotional escape. (Btw, these diversions are the participation in social media and video games and regular television watching).

Part of me longs for both escape and the desire to continue to grow in faith. I don't want to give up either. I long to continue my readings and focus, but at the same time, I also long to be able to allow the occasional drift into imagination and escape the everyday stresses. I have not been at all legalistic in my fasting, but I do know that the flesh is weak. Perhaps this is where the growth in faith that God has shown me over this season fits in?  We shall see. To God be the glory either way! 

Sometimes you have to look a little harder than the last time.

Taken during a frigid April morning during our landscape photography class. 8 years of teaching here has taught me that there's always a new/better image to take if you look hard enough.

Opening day

Harrisburg Senators -opening day: April 10, 2014

The path of least agression

I have found that as I become older, that dealing with conflicts is easiest done from the perspective of passive honesty and humbleness. I don't remember any arguments in my life that have ever been won by yelling, disputes that have been settled with aggressive spite, or that repaying hurt with more hurt has ever left a situation better than before. 

Being real, responsive, open-minded and caring in the midst of conflict is an ability not easily done. Our hearts want the opposite. We want vengeance and personal justice. Only Jesus can help us be different in these situations. Just one more reason why we should continually ask for his help when faced with conflicts. 

Nintendo-Linux-What?

Not too long ago, I decided to do some research to find a way to backup our Nintendo wii games on an external drive. The process of researching and ultimately succeeding with this project seemed to unlock some type of buried curiosity to tinker with computers more. 

The next thing I know, I find myself finally resting from a 3-week endeavor of learning to run much needed windows software on my Mac at school, downloading and burning at least 13 different linux distributions to try on old school computers, with final success at revitalizing these machines to function way more usefully for our teachers and students. 

The process has been very fun with a productive outcome for everyone. It's funny how a random desire to preserve an aging video game collection turns into a full-scale revitalization project. 

Beginning again

It's been over a year since I've posted on this blog. Each time I re-discover it, I realize how much I've enjoyed blogging over posting things on social media. I get to write more of my thoughts and discoveries, and I feel like my photos show better here. Therefore, I'm going to make more attempts to get information on this site. The content might be random, useful to some, but not to others, but at least it's here. I will have had this blog for ten years in October. It's had long breaks, posts on a wide range of subjects from sports, to technology, to photography, to personal life events. Either way, the time seems right to begin again. And begin we shall...

The Party Booth Continues...

One of our favorite family activities when we have get-togethers at our place is to have a party booth. This allows everyone to have fun being silly and also gives us great memories for who was in attendance. We recently set up our party booth for Liam's 5-and-a-half birthday party. We never had the chance to throw him a party when he turned 5, so we figured we owed him one. The resulting collage below shows that he and his little friends had a lot of fun.

Insignificant: Project 1

The other day, I challenged my advanced photography students. I let them each pick from some common and mundane items that were lying around the room. Items like a tape dispenser, post-it notes, a push-pin, scissors, etc. I then told them that they had two full days to bring me 10 interesting images of that one item. They had no other rules, except that they could not damage the non-dispensible items.

I decided to take upon myself to also partake in the project. I chose a simple velcro tie that was sitting on my desk. Here are the results of 40 minutes of work:

While I certainly didn't break any major barriers with these pictures, I did enjoy the challenge of finding creative ways to inject visual interest in a rather boring subject. This is a good exercise if you are looking for ways to view things differently.

Insignificant Post

Hi. If you subscribe to this blog, I am just writing to let you all know that I'm back. I will be sharing my personal work and thoughts on photography here, rather than on social media. I could rant on why the sudden distaste for social image sharing, but that's perhaps for another post.

The title of this post has to do with a self-assignment series called "Insignificant". It is a series of photographs on simple items of "insignificance" to keep the axe sharpened, if you will. Finding beauty in the mundane is an exercise that I've always enjoyed and struggled with. Stay tuned for more...

Day 283

We took the kids to a nearby park and had a blast. We took a few photos, and then put the camera away for the rest of the night. Best decision we ever made. Sometimes mental photographs are more important than digital ones.

Canon 30D w/30mm 1.4 Sigma Lens
f/2.8
ISO 200
1/2000sec

Day 282

Shot with the iPhone

Day 281

Day 280

This past weekend I had the chance to do a photo session with some good friends of ours and their children. This was one of my favorite shots.

Canon 30D w/85mm 1.8
f/2.2
1/6400sec
ISO 200

Day 279

Shot with the iPhone

Day 278

Shot with the iPhone.

Day 277

Shot with the iPhone 4. And yes, it was the same day as the last post.

Day 276

Shot with the iPhone.

Day 275

Lately, I've been doing a lot of photography. In fact, if I would have an easier way to share it on this blog, I'd have finished my 365 project on-time, rather than still be in this predicament. I take a photo about every day, and on most days, I sometimes take close to 100 photos. Anyways, back to this photo:   This was a shot that I took (and processed) with my iPhone while waiting at a red light in the car. The scenery of Lancaster County is extremely photogenic in any season. It's pretty easy to find great landscape shots around here, you simply have to be there with your camera and you're all set.

Shot with the iPhone