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Sunset Time-lapse from my Loft
Originally uploaded by Whateverland
Great time laps sunset capture on flickr.
Over the last few weeks there has been a movie being filmed at Mount Hermon as part of the summer program. After a small bit part earlier in the film, I got to participate again, this time playing a paparazzi photographer at a red carpet event. Of course I took the shots for realzies and it was actually a really fun time. I also got to borrow a Canon 580 flash for the evening. I don’t currently have an external flash and since it is a part of Canon’s big summer sale, I’ve been thinking about picking one up. While the majority of my low light shooting is at Vintage and in situations (like during the service) where using a flash isn’t a real option, it still would be a very useful tool to have. The onboard flash on the 30D is woefully inadequate and as I’m looking toward a 5D (which doesn’t have a flash) as my future camera it’s something I’ll need eventually anyway. Head on over to flickr to check out the shots.
So as many of you are now aware, there is a wild fire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains just about 30 miles or so south of where I am at Mount Hermon. I was thinking about driving up with Danny to see if there was anything worth taking photos of but when I found out that Police were stationed at road blocks making sure no one who didn’t live in the area couldn’t get in I kind of gave up on that plan. I still want to go up there once things have calmed down some and take some shots of the aftermath, but that will wait until later this week or next weekend.
One of the other reasons I figured I wouldn’t be able to get past the Police is that I’m obviously not a member of the press. I was lamenting to Danny about how I wish there was some kind of “citizen journalist” program that you could get a press pass through that would allow you to go in and take pictures in situations like this. Well, low and behold, when I get back home and start looking into it, I come across this blog post from Mark Hancock, a photographer from the Dallas area. Hancock points out the fact there is no miracle super pass that gets you anywhere you want to go. That would require there to be a regulating body which decided who was a real journalist and who wasn’t, which would basically be censorship of the press, which would be a violation of the first amendment. He makes the valid point, and I agree, that there is certainly a pecking order in the journalism world that insures photographers from large city papers get treated differently than bloggers or freelancers, but in effect, calling yourself a journalist/press photographer is all that you need to be a member of “the press.”
While I’m not really the type to push my luck (and Hancock also points out that your photoshopped press pass won’t fool anyone) I honestly hadn’t really thought of it like that before. It makes me much more interested in looking for some kind of freelancer status/access through a local paper that might give me the ability to have some kind of formal standing. It also makes me much more interested in taking a class on photojournalism methods and ethics. I’m the type of person who errs on the side of caution until I know the rules of the game and what is allowed and what you should never, ever do. Anyway, just my latest little nugget on the long road to being a “pro” photographer. 
“As children we assume that greatness is within our grasp. Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best. It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less. A part of growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity. It’s easy to say that we’re just becoming realistic, that it’s just a part of growing up. But, in fact, it’s the death of our souls. When we stop dreaming, we start dying. For some of us, this has been a slow, painful death.” – Erwin McManus “Soul Cravings”
When I was a little kid, I looked forward to the day when I would get to play baseball in high school and college, maybe even play pro-ball one day. My parents tell stories of me rounding the bases in our front yard pumping my fist a la Kirk Gibson celebrating my own game winning home run. When I was in middle school it was computer programming. I was just discovering all the cool things you could do with computers. I even wrote a program in BASIC which you could pretend to have a conversation with. Then in high school and college it was hanging on every word of Josh Lyman and Kate Harper on the West Wing, knowing for sure one day I would get to be “the guy the President turns to when he doesn’t know what to do.”
But then I realized I just wasn’t fast around the bases. In fact, I was slow on a level approaching epic. While I’m a big guy, I’ve never really had a power swing either, I’ve been more of a high average singles and doubles hitter. That dream limped on for a while longer through church softball and pickup games but I’ve pretty much resigned to living vicariously through my fantasy team today.
And then I realized that I really don’t enjoy math, and computer programing requires a lot of math classes. They aren’t the algebra variety either. Maybe if I had a really great math teacher who got me excited about integers and tangents I’d have turned out a little different but I decided I’d rather let other people do the programming while I just tinker around with the hardware.
Finally came the realization in college that I’m not aggressive enough for politics. Sure I want to be in the situation room as world changing decisions are made, but I don’t want to do the ass kissing and hatchet work it takes to get there. I want to spend my life focused on making the world a better place, not focusing on the next election or congressional vote. If I moved to DC the city would swallow me up in a second. There is so much more to life than polling numbers. If some day I was given the right opportunity to become involved in a campaign or political office, I’d probably jump at the chance. But to move up from the ground level just isn’t who I am. I don’t want it enough.
I look back on my (relatively short) life sometimes and kick myself for decisions I made that basically changed the course of my future in just a few seconds. I remember being invited by the baseball coach to try out for the high school team. I told him I’d be no good and walked away. I think about the homework assignments I didn’t put full effort into or the classes I skipped to watch a movie with a friend and wonder if I couldn’t have graduated from SPU with honors. I think about stupid things I’ve said to girls I liked that ensured a friendship at the cost of a relationship. I even wonder sometimes if the seizures I had in high school didn’t change the wiring in my brain somehow, closing off neural pathways or altering my personality.
If you had asked me even five years ago what I would be doing today it wouldn’t have been working in Christian camping. This is not so say that I feel God brought me to Santa Cruz for no reason (in fact, my brief 1 1/2+ year down here has changed me for the better in ways I never would have though). But I was supposed to be working at a web 2.0 company or the State Department or in grad school writing a masterful thesis. I’m not supposed to be a confused, frustrated, cynical 20-something. My interest in history gives me this ominous shadow of time hanging over my shoulder. People may be living longer, but I feel sometimes like I’m wasting important years of my life. To go back to the quote above, I see greatness slipping away with the passing of time and it leaves me feeling a little more panicked with each passing day. Panicked that I missed God’s calling to whatever I’m really supposed to be doing, missed that class or that conversation, or job fair interview where I was going to get my “dream job.” Terrified that I’m going to wake up and realize I’m 35 and working a job I have absolutely no passion for, just doing it because I’m still waiting for God to show me what’s “next.”
So what is next then. Well, my current passion and dream job is photojournalism. I’ve still got a lot to learn, and it is a very competitive field, but I look at my work at Vintage and compare it to “professional” work and I’m not half bad (in fact, if I might boast a little, I’m pretty good). Traveling to Uganda and documenting the trip was an amazing experience. While it has put a pretty big dent in my youthful finances, it was worth every penny for the photos and stories I was able to bring back. One of these days I will finish the book I’m working on to self publish with photos from the trip. Then next fall I’m going to sit down with a friend and put together a professional portfolio of work to market myself. Looking at photos that tell a story is so inspiring to me that I want to go shoot more myself.
“Your soul longs to become, and you can try to ignore it, but soon you will find yourself hating your life and despising everyone who refuses to give up on his or her dreams.” -McManus
I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t have a crystal ball or hot line to Heaven, but for a little while longer at least I’m going to keep dreaming.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, most of the photos I take during the service at Vintage are off limits, but since there aren’t any faces in some of the ones I took today I put them up on my Flickr too. This is a pretty good sample of what I do most weeks at Vintage. It’s a lot of moving around trying to find new and interesting perspectives each week. The lighting is always an adventure as in the morning it is often very harsh and bright light coming in through the stained glass windows while in the evening it almost feels like a cave some times. Usually I end up with a good batch of shots though, so I can’t really complain. Sometime I’ll write a post about my thoughts on taking pictures during a service and where I draw the line between when to shoot and when to just sit back and participate. Not right now though, cause it’s 1am and I’m tired.
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Since I didn’t have anything from church last Sunday, here are some pictures of footprints in sand. Doesn’t get more Christian cliche than that!
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I know I said that I was going to be posting photos from the concerts after church at Vintage but I really don’t have any exciting on interesting shots, so here’s one from the photo walk we did yesterday instead. Not sure who “J” or “L” are but their tag made for a cool shot. I took several from different angles but this is the one I liked the most. This was on a bench at the end of the Santa Cruz Wharf.
I haven’t been blogging much about my photo taking work at Vintage Faith and I’d like to change that. Obviously much of what I shoot during the services is private and won’t see much light of day. The work I do on the shows after the evening services however are a far different matter. So from time to time you may see photos of church life turn up, but I hope to start posting my favorite shot from the week here.
I’ve added some old photos to flickr that I didn’t have there before so you can look back on some of the work I’ve done since last fall. The first one I’ll post here though is from this Sunday’s show. Bradley Hathaway is a spoken word poet and song writer with an amazing band out of Arkansas. The lighting situation was really frustrating this week because they put all of the lights on the sides of the stage so most of the band was silhouetted the whole time. But any photographer of worth won’t let a little problem like the lack of light stop them from doing their job! Thus while I don’t have any great shots of Bradley’s face, I do like this profile I got.
