A Light in Dark Places

Discovering the World Without Color

[Stage Notes:: Road weary and smelling popcorn]
[TV:: Grey's Anatomy]

Yesterday afternoon, my sister and I drove down to the Detroit Institute of Arts and went to an exhibit of Ansel Adams photography. WOW. I was absolutely in awe of the work that he did! I had some idea of the type of photography he did, but was amazed at both his style and variety.

His early nature work was soft with carefully chosen focal points and the rest of the picture blurred. When he was shooting people, it was often native americans in the southwest. You could not pick out faces but there was fantastic detail in their dress. Though, despite these, it was his later work that I was fascinated with.

He was a lover of nature; especially that of Yellowstone National Park. Looking at the collection, it was more than apparent that he desired to show that park as well as several others in ways that the human eye cannot see. He wanted to show a world that you cannot see in color, and can only be seen in the most dramatic forms of black and white. I Cannot help but wonder what it would be like to see the world through his eyes. For example, this picture of Monolith is one of his big breakthroughs. He said it was the first time that the picture he saw in his mind is the picture he captured on film.



Wow.

After looking at the gallery, I realised that I have loved his style of photography for a long time...I just didn't know it was his. He formed a group with some other photographers called f/64. The group was dedicated to crisp, sharp, high contrast photography. It is the one thing he was dedicated to during the meatiest part of his career.

One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit was the picture of Ansel Adams that the DIA was painting. They showed a portrait of a quirky and silly starving artist. He was good friends with Georgia O'Keefe (which I had no idea). He seemed to vary widely in the subjects of his work, but was consistent in the way he shot those subjects. Some of his photos had a witty sense of humor about them, while others showed a delicate femininity, and still others had a sort of dark beauty that he could see and wanted everyone else too as well.

Going Live

[Stage Notes:: Stir Crazy and anxious to go home]
[Music:: Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own | U2 ]

Since I am going to be gone for a while, I am going to start posting things for the few reader's I have to do while I am gone. First, check out the Mexicali Trip Blog. This will be updated ever day or two while we are in Mexico, and for your information, my team name is Asi-Asi Seis.

Second, over the past few months I have been doing some photography work for Epic. Most of the work has been for the new website as well as some rather large banners that have been made and scattered around the church when you walk in. Well, all that work is finally coming to fruition because the new Epic website will be launched on Easter Sunday! Sadly, you will all get to see it a week before I can so I do not know the extent to which the pictures have been used, but I am still hopeful! The new site is http://epicchurch.com.

That's all I can think of for now :)

Squishy

[Stage Notes:: Can't seem to keep thoughts in my head, they just run away]
[iPod:: All I Can Say | David Crowder Band]

Despite my current state of confusion about life in general, there are some things that are still exciting. Travel is always exciting and now I am only about a week away. It also means an opportunity to take the camera out and go to town. Ever since I got my new camera and a few lenses, I have been trying to soak up every piece of information I can get surrounding the subject. Lately I have even started going through old National Geographic magazines to get ideas on how to do photojournalism. I mean this trip is really an opportunity to do exactly that for myself. My goal is to capture the trip as more than just a series of events (that is what I see in many people's travel photo albums).

Don't get me wrong, I do not think there is anything wrong with that, in fact that is what my camp pictures generally look like, and each story tends to have its own story to go along with it. That always makes going through the pictures fun. However, on this trip I want to challenge myself to move outside of my comfort zone and capture the emotion of the people I am going to help instead of the emotion of the people doing the helping.

On a related note, I have been doing a tremendous amount of photography for Epic both for the new website that I hear is launching around Easter and for banners that will be around the church and other events. I am really excited and a tad nervous. This is the first time any of my photography will get any publicity. I will let you know when the new site is launched and let you see my handiwork [beaming smile goes here]

All of that said, I thought I should start sharing a few pictures. The one above was taken on a trip to Tennessee last April.

Happy Wednesday!

I'll take two...

If anyone is looking for gift ideas for me for no apparent reason whatsoever, here you go. I want this :oD

It is a 200-500mm F2.8 lens, that when combined with the 2x converter and the 1.6x field of view crop for my camera it is roughly a 640 - 1600mm F5.6 Lens.

The only word that comes to mind with this is...absurd! None the less I still want one just to see how far I can zoom. I honestly believe this is roughly the equivalent of a small telescope.

P.S. If you don't feel like getting me the lens, I will also be needing two college football linemen to probably carry this beast. Take a look at the picture...that thing all the way at the right end is the camera...it is about the same size as my camera. That means the other end is roughly the size of a small car tire. And you thought my big lens was scary looking!!!!