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as mentioned in my previous post, i had the amazing privilege of shooting at a wedding with leslie of Goodlight Photography. here are 4 of my pictures from that awesome night. let me know what you think.
grace and peace.
saturday night marked a milestone in my photography “career”. i got to shoot my first wedding. i had the amazing opportunity of being a second shooting with leslie of goodlight photography. this wedding was at a small little restaurant off san felipe inside the 610 loop here in houston. overall, i would rate the night as awesome. it was a great opportunity and throughout the night, i learned alot about my photography skills, my routine, and how to make my photography better.
here are a few thoughts on the opportunity as a whole.
- shooting weddings make your feet hurt. wear comfortable shoes.
- make sure that you have enough sd cards.
- if you are borrowing equipment, make sure it works with your equipment before the event.
- make sure you have enough batteries for you flash (i did!).
- i quickly learned that my equipment is nowhere near where it needs to be.
- when you shoot weddings, there is a chance you will get a really good meal out of it.
- there is a nice awkward photography moment called meal time.
- don’t take pictures of people eating!
- laptops are good to have with you if you can.
- dancing is really fun to take pictures of.
- wine makes these dancing pictures better.
- an open bar makes you see dance moves that you didn’t know existed.
- posed dance floor pictures are silly.
this is the last BIG one that i learned from the night…
- this little checked box means EVERYTHING when importing pictures from my nikon d40 to my macbook. i took about 600 pictures saturday night in RAW format. when i uploaded them onto my macbook this little box was not checked, therefore, they are no longer in RAW format, only in jpg. when i noticed this, i immediately got that sick to my stomach feeling. needless to say i will always, from now on, make sure this box is checked when i upload RAW photos.
the night was awesome. thanks leslie for the opportunity. i actually am getting to do this again with leslie this coming saturday at another wedding. its gonna be better than this last opportunity due to the things i learned this last time. you should see some picture from the wedding posted here in a few days. the ones i have looked at…i liked.
grace and peace.
so i currently have 170 pictures on my flickr page. when i hit 200 i will need to upgrade to a flickr pro account or i will only be able to view/work with my most current 200 shots.
so does someone want to buy me a years subscription of flickr pro?
k thanks!
here are some more shots of my friends angelo, sarah and hayden.
grace and peace.
my brother finally arrived. we picked him up at the airport last night. here are a few pictures form the airport.
grace and peace.
i had the privilege of taking pictures of my friend Angelo’s family. Angelo is a great friend that i met at HBU. i was a groomsman in his wedding and he was one in mine. 7 weeks ago his wife sarah gave birth to their first child hayden. she is beautiful and they are a beautiful family. this was my first time to take portraits of a baby. it was hard. babys really do not sit/lay still. but this was still a great photoshoot. these are a few of my favs. and you can check em out here or on my flickr.
grace and peace
so i received an email this morning from my friend leslie. she has an amazing photography company called goodlight photography. she actually did the pictures for my wife and my engagement and wedding day. i think she is really good. during our conversation around the time of our wedding i told leslie that i am an amateur photographer. in response to this comment she told me that she would love to have me shoot with her sometime. i got so excited to even be considered for the opportunity.
back to the email.
she asked me if i was available for a couple saturdays to shoot some weddings with her! how awesome is that.
i just wanted to share my joy this morning. i hope all is well.
if you would like you can see some of leslie’s work by watching a slideshow of our wedding!
grace and peace.
im in portland still. sitting at the stumptown again…
…listening to jimmy eat world. i really need to get their newest cd. i am OBSESSED with their songs “big casino” and “always be”. they have been in my head nearly all week. kimb and i have to be at the airport tomorrow about 10 a.m. i think to catch our noon flight home. it has been an amazing trip.
this morning we went hiking and near mt. hood to see some cool waterfalls…and it was raining. we were such troopers. this week has been really good. an abundance of stuff to do. a lot of good food, and plenty of the office. i also finished “jesus for president” and “velvet elvis” and i have started “on the road” by jack kerouac.
it has been good.
more to come later i’m sure.
now for some fotos.
grace and peace.
more to follow
grace and peace.
i am currently in the division st. stumptown reading velvet elvis by rob bell. i am flying through it. im hooked. attached. completely submerged. in the chapter that i am reading rob is writing of a time when he had locked himself in a storage closet at his church between the 9 am and 11 am services. he writes of being burnt out. he writes of pain that he has received even in a time when his church is thriving. he ends up going to a counselor friend of his and the following is what he gains out of this counseling session.
…in what has become a pivotal moment in my journey, “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.”
The relentless pursuit of who God made me to be.
I started identifying how much of my life was about making sure the right people were pleased with me. And as this became more and more clear, I realized how less and less pleased I was with myself. What happens is our lives become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves. We become split.
I was split.
this is where i am right now. i am split. i can’t stand it.
more later.
grace and peace
grace and peace
this is our second full day here in portland. today we woke up and went to the farmers market and bought some food for the week. the farmers market was really packed, but we had a good time. while we were there we happened to stumble upon a hotlips pizza booth. the day we arrived, todd and julia ordered hotlips pizza for us to eat. it was grand. now a cool thing about hotlips is that they make their own soda. we tried pear soda, blackberry soda, raspberry soda and i wanted to try apple soda, but alas…they were out. today has been great.
also, i found some chacos!!! i mentioned in a previous post that i wanted to find them cheap…well…i found chacos for 50% off! i was so happy.
that is pretty much the day so far. i am loving portland. i am not doing any work and i love it. i finished reading “jesus for president” on the plane here and now i am reading “velvet elvis”. it is my plan to finish that one too while on this trip.
until later my friends…here are a couple pictures.
until later my friends.
grace and peace
i have not given an update on mission trip since we have been back. mission trip was very, very good for our group. i had a couple students really since God’s leading, and for me…that is very encouraging. one of my girls who wants to be a pediatrician feels God is leading her to be a pediatrician in africa, helping people who don’t have or can’t get medical coverage/help, get what they need. another one of my girls feels a very strong call to serve the Roma people of europe. these are just two examples of the many great things that God is doing in our group.
on another note…a photography note…i got to do my first bridal portraits. they were fun. some turned out pretty good, and others turned out rough, so now i know angles to def. not shoot again. the mother of the bride told me that she got alot of comments on the pictures and how much people liked them…this made me feel very accomplished. ill include some pictures at the end of the post.
on a completely different note, my friend david ramirez is in the running to play at the Austin City Limits Festival. you can vote from his myspace page, or simply by clicking on this link. you can vote once per day. please do so. this would be simply amazing if he could be on the ACL Festival bill.
now, for some pictures
grace and peace.
i would like to introduce all of you to lucy.
kimb and i got her 2 weeks ago and she has been great. so to all of you out there in the blogosphere, this is lucy.
pictures taken by my wife.
editing by me.
grace and peace.
these are a few of the shots that ashley and her parents wanted me to do final edits on. from this final edit session she is going to choose one or two to print and mail out with her graduation invitations. these are the ones i hope she chooses but hey, its not really my choice. maybe i can have some influence ;).
grace and peace.
here are a couple more of chris’ senior shots.
grace and peace.
my wife and i went last friday to a ksbj brown bag at the chick-fil-a on westheimer and fondren. needtobreathe was playing. needless to say, these guys are good. very good. you can check out their myspace here. listen to “more time” and “washed by the water”. amazing. here are some shots from the night.
grace and peace.
last saturday i had the privilege of taking chris’ senior shots. he is one of the seniors in my youth group. he goes to needville high school and is an all-state trumpet player.
i will post more in a day or two.
grace and peace.
here are a few more shots from my photoshoot with miranda and ryan.
grace and peace.
i spent saturday with some good friends of mine, miranda and ryan. i took miranda’s sister, ashley’s, senior pictures and after seeing them miranda asked me if i would take her and ryan’s engagement pictures. it was alot of fun taking these pictures. they knew exactly what they wanted and that made it easy. they wanted a more traditional photoshoot so i did a little of both. i really liked alot of the shots but here are a few of my favorites.
grace and peace.
and now after the photographs, here is a thought. i read this on ragamuffin soul and it really got me started thinking. we spend pretty much 2 months celebrating Christmas. why do we only spend a few days celebrating Easter? the birth of our Savior is great, something very much worth celebrating, but it is the resurrection that completes the story. why don’t we celebrate Easter for almost 2 months?
my sister-in-law asked me to shoot some pictures of her son david while they were in town. i took quite a few shots. you will be seeing quite a bit of david john farley for a while.
david…meet the blogosphere
grace and peace.
this is my wife’s “sister”, lindley. she is awesome.
sorry for the lack of fotos lately. here is one i took at a paramore show probably a year ago with my little point and shoot digital. we were on the front row, or should i say rail. it was great. yay for meet and greets.
day five was spent in jamaica. in all honesty, when i looked out the window and saw jamaica it was not what i expected. i expected jamaica to be beachy and flat. instead it was beachy, with huge hills and forests. it was b-e-a-utiful.
in jamaica we rescheduled our dolphin swim that we missed on the first day. swimming with dolphins was really cool. our dolphin was named Calypso. she was nice. she dance for us. she sang for us. she pulled us through the water, and she jumped 16 feet in the air for us. one of the cool things that they told us was that dolphins can swim up to 120 mph. that craaaazy.
after swimming with dolphins we got in a bus and went to dunns river falls. we climbed up this waterfall. over 200 feet. it was beautiful but the water was really, really cold. after climbing the falls we walked through an area where they allowed the locals to set up shops and sell their stuff. they are so pushy. i dont think i have ever been that uncomfortable.
after all of our experiences on the island we went back to the boat and ate lunch with our friends from canada. (they said “eh?” all the time. it was funny. but then they laughed at us cause we said “y’all” all the time).
day 6 was a day at sea so we really just relaxed all day. by relaxed i mean we spent time at the buffets.
overall, our honeymoon was great. we had a great time and made many memories that we will remember when we are 80 years old and drinking coffee on our porch. it was a great way to start my life with my wife.
now here is a picture for your enjoyment.
this is taken from our room balcony in the bahamas.
grace and peace.
in the previous post i mentioned that day 3 was a day at sea. so here we are at day 4. day four we were in grand cayman. this place was very awesome. loved it. our excursion this day was snuba. it was dang awesome. basically it is a mix of snorkeling and scuba diving. you can go 20 feet underwater with no tank on your back. you are pulling a raft above the water with two tanks on it. there are 4 people per raft, 2 people per tank.
after we got off the cruise ship we found our snuba guide and he took us to where we would be diving. they told us all the rules and how-to’s and then we got geared up and got in the water. at our dive site there was an actual shipwreck from the 1800’s. it was really cool. it took me awhile to get the hang of breathing under the surface, but i finally got a hold of it. it was amazing. we dove for 30 minutes and after about 25 minutes another guy attached to our raft and i looked frantically at each other and realized that we had run out of air! we were 18-19 feet below the surface with no air. that is a horrible feeling. we went back up to the surface and realized that they had hooked 3 people to 1 tank. it was supposed to be 2 people per tank. but we got it fixed and right after i got back under the surface kimb got stung by a jellyfish. watching your wife panic 15 feet under the surface is not a great feeling. after we got back to the base we got her jelly fish taken care of (white vinegar) and took our gear off and then went to eat.
we ate at this place called breezes. we both had fish and chips and the was really, really, good. we did some shopping and then caught our boat back to our cruise ship and then relaxed on the deck for a hour or so until the boat left the dock.
i would totally do snuba again.
here is the picture for the day. this is one of the excursions they offered in grand cayman. you got to go on this pirate ship dress up like a pirate and do pirate things. i.e. shoot canons, play with a parrot and even walk the plank. this picture was taken from our room balcony on the back side of the boat.
day two was the day of our first excursion. we docked in the bahamas during the night so monday morning we had to be at the end of the pier at 8 o’clock in the morning. this monday morning we were going to swim with dolphins. we were both really excited. so we got down to deck zero about 7:30 thinking that 30 minutes would be enough. NOPE SORRY! it took us 45 minutes to get off the boat and our dadgum dolphin swim excursion left without us. THEY LEFT WITHOUT US! we were a little upset. (and by a little i mean we were totally hacked) well, we got stuff worked out. we got reimbursed for the missed excursion and lined up dolphin swin for another day.
so while we were in the bahamas we went snorkeling. it was niiiice. we bought a bag of fish food for $1 and while we were in the water we would simply drop a small handful of fish food in the water and then look underwater at the mass chaos that was about to take place. it was a great experience.
we had to be back on the boat at noon on monday so after snorkeling we went back to the ship, waited in line, boarded the ship and then hung out at the food buffets for lunch and then that evening we went to the musical on the ship.
day two was a great day.
day three was simply a day at sea. not very exciting. we just floated on sea for a day and again spent time at the buffets. 24 hour buffets. amazing.
here are a couple more shots.
a shot from our balcony before we left port in ft. lauderdale.
kimb on the beach at ft. lauderdale
*post-script
i don’t really like getting bills, but yesterday my compassion international monthly statement came in.
i smiled when i opened it.
so after the reception last saturday night, kimb and i went to the marriott at bush airport in houston for the night. we woke up around 4:30 sunday morning to catch a flight to ft. lauderdale to get on our cruise ship. we had found out on saturday that our cruise was going to be arriving in ft. lauderdale late due to a “medical emergency” but we had already booked the flight so we dealt with it. when we arrived in ft. lauderdale we caught a taxi to the port and got our luggage checked in and then we were put on a charter bus and taken down to the beach to hang out while we waited for the ship to arrive. we met a couple from seattle in ft. lauderdale and hung out with them the entire afternoon. they were awesome.
due to the late arriving ship, we missed lunch so carnival cruise line credited each of our accounts $15 for that meal so we went and used that $15 to get some lunch. we went to bubba gump shrimp co. for lunch. the food was really good. to bad it took them over an hour to bring us our food and then when it arrived, it was the wrong meal. needless to say we were upset. so kimb and our new friend from seattle raised a stink about it and WE GOT THE MEAL FOR FREE!!!! that was awesome. thats my wife!
we eventually got back to the boat and were herded like cattle for awhile until everyone got on the boat. it’s amazing what a little medical emergency can do. we got to our room (we had a balcony room. it was nice.) and our luggage arrived and we had nice dinner that night. it was a busy and long first day but it turned out to be the start of a very memorable honeymoon.
more stories to come, but for now, here are a couple pictures.
grace and peace.
some of kimb’s family came into town tonight for our wedding on saturday. we shared a great meal together then just hung out. during this time i got to play with the kids. here are a couple from the night.
hope you enjoy.
im getting married in two days. actually, its after midnight…
im getting married tomorrow!
…certain things can remind me of my redeemer. yesterday was a very interesting day. probably the worst day i have had, emotionally, in a REALLY long time. in all honesty, maybe the worst day i’ve had, ever. this morning i got into the office. i did my habitual round of websites (myspace, facebook, fantasy sports @ yahoo, astros.com, livejournal, wordpress) and then i decided to sit down and play with photoshop. something that always calms me. i went to find picture that could be a good one to edit in my iPhoto library and ran across this one…
i love how my redeemer is faithful.
we know that every morning the sun is going to rise, and that it is going to set that evening. thats how it works. thats just how it is. i know that my redeemer is faithful to take care of me (i really don’t know what this means), to provide for me (im understanding this more and more), and to never leave me. i am thankful that i serve a God that walks beside me. that is with me in my struggles and in my pains.
please continue to pray.
its going to be an interesting couple of weeks.
