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Yearly Archives: 2012

Sooo . . . pretty exciting day today!  I drive by Image is Found‘s studio pretty much everyday since it is 5 min from my house. I am HUGE fans of their work and I love watching all the awesome stuff their family is doing on Instagram. I finally got my courage up to go have a little mentoring session and my incredibly sweet ever so supportive hubby agreed to fund it – Can you tell I am already attempting to butter the hubs up for another go round? 🙂 Anywhoo I learned a ridiculous amount and it was super fun and encouraging!

I recently bought VSCO film because I felt like the more I knew the more I just ended up getting sucked into Photoshop and I wasn’t really feelin that. Nate encouraged me not to “go down the rabbit hole” and gave me some practical ways to steer far clear of it while still getting the result I want. I like boundaries, I need them in fact. Being trained as a visual artist who is now trying to figure out who I am as a photographer I can tweak until my eyes are blurry and still not end up satisfied with what I’m producing. I loved shooting film in high school and some in college but HATED, yes REALLY hated the darkroom. (I’m just the kinda gal that prefers my Macbook and a cup of tea to a room full of stinky chemicals 😉 So I am excited to get back to the process of working hard to capture a stellar image and then enjoy the surprise and reward of the end result while still enjoying the ease of digital.

So anyway these are the images I shot last night, that Nate and I played with during the session. I came home and finished up and lo and behold, here they are less than 24 hours later, with a minimum of editing – on. my. blog. It’s a miracle! and it feels like turning over a new and fabulous leaf to not have them get sucked into the black hole of my Lightroom catalog, but instead come live on my blog telling the story of our family!

Now it is on to practicing the in camera stuff he encouraged me to work on. After the holidays I put my camera down and didn’t feel like picking it up much. I had gotten to a point where I knew enough of the basics to know there was a lot I didn’t know and that I wasn’t even sure what the next step was. Today he demystified things that had felt so overwhelming to me and now I am motivated to get out there and shoot!

So thankful for today! I got a ton of great knowledge and inspiration poured into my brain and the studio is just freakin cool! (They do online consulting too.)

For me the art is in the story and I am so excited to hopefully learn to tell it better. I want this to be my love note to my kids.

3-20-12 . 85mm . VSCO + LR . 800 Portra . evening window light

 

“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. . . and they felt no shame.” – from Genesis 2:8+25

. . . but then they disobeyed the voice of the One they knew. There can be no shame in the garden and so they had to leave.

Would you want to live an eternity in shame?  amidst war and poverty, cruelty and injustice?  Would you really want to live this life forever?  on this dying planet with it’s false pleasantries?  in this skin, carrying these sins?

But why call it sin? I have heard this too many times to number and even sometimes I wonder . . . A shepherd, he said – “You know wrong when it’s done to you.” I speak a harsh word and my conscience lets it slide, but you hurt my child and I know the evil quick and without question.

The taint is real, the pollution complete, no scrubbing it out, ignoring or arguing it away.

All the magic, golden light and crashing waves, are but glimpses of glory. They tell of Him, shining through His creation – we are not abandoned.

Jesus – and the story is rewritten.

“We are always Eden”  Alli Rogers sings. We can accept the invitation to return to the garden and one day again set foot in it.

No longer left in our shame – we are offered a new heart, a new spirit, a future, a hope. The slate is wiped clean, the debt forgiven. Still I live hunched over, head hung in shame, still carrying my burden. I cling to the stinking facade and refuse to walk in the amidst the blossoming hope. I fear to raise my hands to him because I still hands still clench tight my guilt. I hide behind a halfway, maybe I’ve really been forgiven sort of walk.

But our lover longs for us, He will not leave us in this wasteland.  FORGIVENESS.  It is finished, it is spoken, it is needed, it is real. It is complete. For all the screw ups we thought could never be undone and all the missteps we never knew we took, it is enough. I know a good portion of mine and they are not small. Not the least of which, my inability just to live in His grace and share it with others – my constant wandering from His side. Life gets too hard, the kids are too crazy, sidestep, give in and I miss the mark.

“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” – Luke 7:47

Do we know that we need to be forgiven MUCH, every one of us. And when we turn to Him do we know that we now live in the Freedom of forgiveness? Living Always FORGIVEN.

And here in this beauty, this ever blooming garden we can dance and rejoice, we can raise hands in ridiculous hilarity and fall down humbled. Always, always in Forgiveness. This is where He holds us. This is the shower of blessing that brings new life to a parched and weary land where there is no water.

 

On a rain drenched evening I left dinner on the stove and laid down in the mud to take pictures of the flower garden my children planted.

3-17-12 . 85mm . VSCO + LR .

There is chaos.

There is mess. Toys strewn about the floor, days I don’t exit my pajamas. My patience is lost at least once a day, oh really many times more.

There is noise. So. Much. Noise. And if I do my job well and if God sees fit, they will grow and leave. And then it will fall quiet in our home. I will have time to do all those somedays . . .

and that scares me to death. Motherhood is all encompassing. Motherhood is a slow leaving.

But this, this little film. This is my life. Those million moments strung between frustration, fear and inadequacy. Those perfect moments, all that beauty. And the melody plays through, whispers that God holds it all together. I can’t decipher but He knows what He is doing. They won’t be lost and one day all will fade into the beauty. And their song, it is so lovely

(scroll down for some geeky talk about the video )

This is my first video in Final Cut Pro X. My man got me it for Valentine’s Day – best Vday gift ever! (at least for geeky me ) I am head over heels for Final Cut and can’t wait to learn more! I see some staying up til the wee hours of the morning in my future – it’s kinda addicting. I made the mistake of shooting this with my 85mm to see if I could get sharper focus. Alas using a prime lens instead of my 24-70 zoom just made for more movement and shakiness. I think I will be sticking with the 24-70, I hear it just takes time to learn the focus. Didn’t do much tweaking. Just ran the stabilization and color analyzation and balancing. I adjusted the exposure manually on a couple clips but didn’t go too crazy. I LOVE the controls for exposure, color balance etc.. graphic and intuitive, makes playing fun! I hear this new one is pretty diff from the old one. People in the Apple store that know the old one have to go looking for some stuff in the new one but it sounds like it is way more accessible to users. If you have used iMovie you will have a good start and apparently you can take things way farther than I will probably ever have the know how for. ( i.e. it’s still very much a Pro program) Thanks for looking at my first attempt!

3-13-12 . 85mm . 5D + Final Cut Pro X

 

“In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for He grants sleep to those He loves.” – Psalm 127:2

“Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation.” – Psalm 62:5

“As the teacher sees the child for who they have been created to be . . . dull lessons crumble into the dust they are when she faces children as they are. She cannot go on with her stale commonplaces; she feels that she may not bore them . . . She knows that children’s minds hunger for knowledge, not for information, and that his own poor stock of knowledge is not enough . . . She is not sufficient for these things.”

Not sufficient, but trying so hard and so very tired.

That is how I felt. Sinking slowly, feeling as Bilbo would say “thin, stretched out, like butter scraped over too much bread”

And still I kept pressing. Feeling an odd sense of duty to all the demanding voices. Pushing those “dull lessons” until the flu brought us down with one fell swoop. Then came a month of TV and movies, lying in bed, crumpled on the couch. A month bone tired taking care of each other. A month of feverish sleep. And after all that sickness and sleep I realized I was exhausted to the core,

and I just stopped. I canceled appointments and rescheduled meetings, dropped activities and missed deadlines. But more than that, something inside stopped. My hands went down and something in my heart and head took a deep breath and exhaled all that had been pent up, rising to the surface, about to boil over. My body gave in and a bit of my soul that was getting all bent out of shape was forced to find rest in Him.

Each task was too much, the years piled up and the only thing I could do was let it all go. How had I gotten here? What to do next? Not even the energy to think and sort it all out . . .

Rest. it came forced upon me. it came in silence and brought peace.

Without the energy to worry if I was preparing them properly I saw each son a little clearer. They so alive and full of the years and boundless energy I covet, unburdened by the realities I know, not shackled by the false pretenses I bow down to. I see His salvation in their unkept hair and easy smiles.

He gives sleep to those He loves. Real rest for the weary, the down trodden. In this rest I drop the heavy load and find my hands free to hold the paintbrush, my mind come alive with all I have inside to create. The feet that were knocked out from under me find a steady place to stand, wiggling toes in the sand, walking in awe of all I had forgotten to see. Then I find my steps quickening, a dance begins and I am swept forward with new birthed joy. Waking from sleep to find you misplaced what didn’t matter and are refreshed to pursue what does!

So we drop the weights and do the lessons a little slower. Still reading and writing and making sums but there will be plenty of time for that and this time of lying in the sand and reading books made of nonsense will soon come to an end.  Only an earthly end though because there is a place where they will never fade. Once all this body can do is no more, when all strength is sapped, then will come the real rest. The never ending refreshing will come and I will find there, all these moments that were real. I do not have the strength to hold onto what I love, but He does and will.

Oh may I remember to rest in that when the world clamors to crowd back in.

David asleep on the couch after swim lessons.  3-12-12 . 85mm . vsco  + lr

These surfers said they were grateful . . .

Infectious joy and gratitude spilling all over the place. That’s the only way to describe these surfers.

I talked to them as they were hanging out at their truck after coming in from the waves so they were probably stoked from a good session, but it was more than that…  They talked of the awesome weather and good waves, but more than that they talked of Jesus.

Jesus, His name just rolled off their tongues and lit up their eyes.

I told them how I had been through some stuff that taught me to try and hold onto gratitude, taught me it’s importance. They talked of going through stuff too and coming back through to Jesus. They talked of all He has done and worshiping Him

They flexed and cheered and and smiled and unashamedly shared their God.

I snapped a few shots of their uncontainable joy, heard what they are immensely grateful for and went on my way. And as I edit these photos and write this post it haunts me… The farther I get from the mess and the miracle the more my gratitude wanes. I feel more reasonable, more in control, the grief loosing it’s strong grip on me, but am I grown lukewarm? The hot, the cold they shatter and engulf but at least they are noticeable. They are not a slow settling, a dwindling joy.

I came home wanting to stir up the ashes, fan the flame, speak only His name. Stop and be quiet so I can see Jesus. And like Isaiah when I see Him, all in me falls down. I cover my mouth, my unclean lips and cry out in shame. Then, then I can thank Him for His mercies – full up with gratitude for just this moment, this undeserveded day in His prescence.

All this to say… They were grateful for Jesus.

Jesus, they couldn’t stop saying His name and it rang through the air.

– This post is part of my We the Grateful project

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