Die Blase

I'm sorry to say, having had a less-than-friggin awesome weekend, that I'm sort of at a loss for words this week. I know I usually get all philosophical and mushy on you, but I'm not really feeling it this time. I apologize to those who enjoy reading my rambling, but then again some of you may be sighing with relief that I'm coming up for a breath of air this time around. 

With that said ,and without further ado, I give you The Bubble. oooooh aaaaah! Now you can finally take a good gander at what has fascinated us since we were all little kids and provided endless laughs and smiles. Unless, of course you were one of those kids that thought it was an awesome idea to drink the bubble juice... I have no words for you. 

Enjoy The Bubble and have a wonderful day.

P.S. The title is the german translation for The Bubble. I am currently studying German for the second year and I like to throw in little bits of it every now and then.

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

I'm not quite sure how I am going to go about this blog. I know what I want to say in my head but I can't think of the best way to write it out. Shoot... feels like the essay I wrote in first period English this morning. Well I'll spare you all of that story, but for this just bear with me as I attempt to make sense of the gobbley guck in my head.

Life has been less than awesome for me lately. I can't really give a time table as to when things started to head south... weeks maybe months ago, but its been long enough for me, that's for sure. You might ask what the matter is, but that is an explanation for my parents ears. Ears that have a higher tolerance than anyone else and don't start bleeding until the later half of the conversation. (yeeea I'm kind of a talker once you get me started). An easy way to put things is this; In just about every corner of my life there's been some tough things to deal with. Some of them have just been major stress, but the bigger ones have been major issues that, now in hindsight of it all, I believe God put in place to really test my character and teach me a few lessons. Like I said before about how long this has been going on, its been a long time coming. Longer then I've actually given thought to up until this past weekend. Years actually. A couple issues in particular that I've shared with my parents and a few trusted loved ones have been slowly gaining speed and difficulty over a good deal of time, but it wasn't until fairly recently this year that I felt the full effects of things and started to get really down. Those same few people that I had confided in with my past issues, I now threw new time consuming and mentally draining conversations at*. As always, they gave me more encouraging words of wisdom in an attempt to brighten things up in my world, but that wasn't the cure-all anymore like it used to be. Not say that those words fell upon deaf ears, but I needed answers now. Answers which I knew could only come from God, but at this time I honestly wasn't feeling so close to Him. I'm not sure what it may have looked like to everyone else outside of my little bubble, but I sort of gave up on praying for the last few weeks. It would cross my mind that I should probably check in with the Big Man, but when it came down to it, I really didn't want to and it became easier to continue on with whatever I was already doing at the time. As I learned very recently though, God was still listening. He's always listening. You can shut your mouth and quiet your mind, but your heart never stops speaking. And if there's anything God listens to the most, I believe its our hearts. The most raw and pure form of our character and soul. Even with that though, we still do need to talk to God about it, and fortunately for me, God had provided plenty of people who prayed for me when I couldn't, and I know God got the message that I need a little helping hand down here. I got that hand. My problems weren't necessarily solved, but within a day or two I suddenly had my entire outlook on my life changed for this season of my life. An old friend whom I missed terribly had come back to me this weekend from some other world. Three awesome photography opportunities opened up in just one morning without any notice. And the following afternoon of that morning, I was forced to put a newly learned lesson to the test with a dear friend. A test to forgive and accept and take people at face value and just appreciate the relationship that I have with them without letting insignificant mishaps slowly tear down that bond. 

So what in the freakin world does ANY of this verbal diarrhea (yes I did just use that phrase) have to do with the picture. Well let me tell you, that is if your ears, or eyes for that matter, aren't too tired yet. The picture is a lovely portrait of my good friend Chloe. I was in another friends car with her on our way from church to her house to spend the afternoon hanging out before we both had to go to a church meeting. In my Art Center class we are currently studying lighting and portraiture, and I saw this car ride as the perfect opportunity to practice what we have been studying. So I sat there snapping picture after picture of Chloe go on and on about who knows what and burst in laughs and song and dancing... if any of you know her, you know exactly what I'm talking about. She was the perfect subject. Every second she had a new expression worth taking a shot of. Later on, as I looked through the pictures I had taken on Sunday, I stopped on this one, and just saw happiness. Happiness... thats what I've been missing. I haven't had too much to be happy about for a little while, but maybe I wasn't looking for it. One of my closest friends, Kirsten, told me over and over to be positive... look towards better things and things will get better. I listened each time, but I didn't internalize it or see what she was talking about. It took a picture like this for me to see it. Happiness has been around me this whole time, but I was so distracted with bad things, that I shoved it all aside. Considering that this picture was taken by random chance and I was just clicking away, maybe God set up this shot in a round about way so he could slap a frozen sample of happiness in my face and say "look yuh idiot. here it is. RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! you want it? take it." So I did just that this week and so far things are lookin up. So I encourage you, who ever reads this and might feel a little down. Go find the ones you confide in most and spill it all to them. They'll catch you when you fall and make up for your losses, trust me, and God sees that. Vent, pray, and give it all up. As humans we are not at all big enough to really solve the problems that smack us down in life, but as humans we have the ability for emotion. Raw emotion that comes from the heart. So give the raw downer doses to God and do your absolutely very best to fill up the space with some smiles and laughs. There's always someone around that can provide such a medicine and all you've got to do is stick it out and you'll start to see the brighter side of things. Its hard to explain, yes even after all of that, but just give it a shot. It seems to work.

 

P.S. you may have started singing a monty python tune in your head as you read the title. Ahmen to you.

*As a side note I just want to thank those people with all of my heart for their time, energy, and advise. You are my proof that our God is a loving God... I mean after all he gave me you guys. 

Something Bigger

What must the world look like through the eyes of all those little inhabitants in our yards? The journey up the stem of a rose bush must be epic for an aphid. Or how about when the ladybug lifts off from your fingertip once you've finished counting the spots on its back and it makes that voyage to your neighbors garden? And of course you have to consider what a snail must encounter over those vast distances it travels throughout a good days hard work. Just try to put yourself in their... "shoes" for a bit and imagine what it must be like. How grand a brick wall must be to them. But that same brick wall is nothing to us. Heck we made it and we can tear it down if we want to. So what about us? What we see as big problems or obstacles in our lives must be nothing to someone else. To me, that someone is God. 

As we go throughout our day to day lives, we run into speed bumps and road blocks that totally throw us off track and through a loop, but in the end, how many of those issues really matter? If we just trust in God and rely on God, could he tear down those brick walls so that we might make our way to new parts of our lives? Well its certainly easier said than done. And I wish I had an answer as to how to rely on Him more easily and have faith that we will be taken care of... but I don't. I guess thats one more question we will spend our entire lives trying to answer. I hope that where ever I go in my life, I will be with people who are also searching for answers in God about God. The more of us there are, the closer we are to him and the closer we might get to finding answers. 

A View From The Top

Last wednesday night I took another trip up Highway 395 headed for Mammoth Mountain. I was invited a few weeks ago to take this five day escape by my good buddy Blake Riboli along with his parents, the Gibsons from church, and another couple that are good friends of the Gibsons. We stayed in a slightly cramped, but cozy, condo that belonged to a co-worker of Kathy Gibson. Blake and I got two-day lift tickets for thursday and friday which turned out to be plenty of boarding time considering our legs flopped around like jello with each step when we climbed the stairs to the kitchen for a warm Saturday morning breakfast. The following evening the Ribolis and I went to a 7:30 showing of Watchmen. The previews looked really cool and I was really excited to see it. Well let me warn you, the previews are extremely deceiving. Not to say that the movie is bad, its incredible actually, but I don't recommend such a movie if you are squeamish to blood, buts and gore, or are easily offended with.... well lets say intimate scenes. As the nearly three hour movie progressed you can sort of tell when disturbing scenes are coming up, and I personally just worked through the awkwardness and appreciated the work that must have gone into making such realistic looking blood. Now don't get me wrong, I loved the movie. Especially the opening scene! Shoot, if you enjoy a good action flick fight scene with two macho guys throwing punches at mach 5, then you've GOT to see this. It'll blow your mind right out of your head as your jaw drops to your lap. Bottom line, absolutely stunning cinematography. 

So what does any of this have to do with the picture I've got sitting up there? Well I had an interesting thought just after I uploaded the picture. It occurred to me how much I take Mammoth for granted. The vast majority of people I know have never been to Mammoth and have all said that they would really love to go. The only thing stopping them is a 6 hour drive and a painful sum of money to rent a condo or hotel room. Its understandable, however, as to why its so expensive... Mammoth is a little taste of heaven if you ask me. For every month of the year, Mammoth offers an experience of fantastic beauty and adventure. I've been blessed to have a house only a couple blocks away from Canyon Lodge that we are able to visit many times a year. Before I was even born my family was vacationing in Mammoth. I've got such a great privilege and here I am rambling on about a movie that I could just as easily see in my own home town. 

As I looked through the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that I took over the five day period last week, I realized how beautiful Mammoth is. Unfortunately there was a pretty mean storm on friday, which is when I did the good majority of my shooting, and a lot of my pictures are completely dominated by white outs, but even the overwhelming whiteness comes off as beautiful. That kind of weather is so pure, the air up there is so clean and fresh, and the snow is just perfect, and its right here in our state of California. A state known for insanely hot summers and frustratingly dry winters. This might be a bit of a repeat from my last blog entry, but I really do think we ought to take a bit of a time out and appreciate what is around us. Take a look at the things we pass by everyday. Whether you're in the most urban parts of the city, the calm and collected suburbs, or up in the majestic mountains, we could all gain from studying our stomping grounds.

Inside Passage

For a week straight I had the blessing of waking up every morning to some variation of a scene such as this. Sometimes with more land masses, never one single island, but lots of little guys out in the water, each with a different story to tell of storms and ship wrecks. Kind of like all those fishermen hangin around. Sometimes with nothing but endless miles of freezing water. Water so pure and blue with an intriguing resemblance to Hawaii waters, yet with this eerie presence and chill of death as to swallow up anyone so unfortunate to take the plunge. But this window into Alaska came different to me. This scene didn't tell me a story of tragedies, storms, abandoned light houses, fishing boats torn in half, and aged float-planes. No, this one just had a lot of fill-in-the-blanks. Across the entire horizon, the Alaskan sun was descending, leaving most of the scenery as a blueish black. Yet it fully illuminated this one straight path leading to another land mass way off in the distance. Had I not been on a cruise ship, but on a boat of my own, I probably would have been persuaded to make my way over to that mountain way back there to explore and hear of new tales of the incredible and legendary Alaska.

Now comes the time when I wonder if we all have to travel thousands of miles to far away lands in order to experience the power and mystique of our God given world. Must we somehow or another throw down gobs of money to travel and explore in order to spark our imaginations and blow our minds? Or can we walk out our back door, lay down on the grass, and listen to the tales of the ants, bees, wasps, and rolli-pollies? Like in Brute Neighbors, an essay from Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I think the world has endless lessons to teach and stories to tell if we just give it time to speak. And as far as my personal opinion on religion and politics goes, I've found that the world is so vast and complex, that we humans can't possibly do as much damage to it as what has been preached through our bias agenda based media. I'm not interested in scare tactics through outdated statistics of the polar ice caps, or skewed temperature records produced by bribed scientists that only use favorable portions of their research yield. No I'm interested, fascinated rather, by the natural course of our world which God has set into motion regardless of our actions. Besides, God put us on this planet to be stewards of it and everything else on it. To use its resources to better ourselves and put God's outstanding creations to good use. To use what this world has to offer to praise Him and glorify Him. To consume its animals, harvest its greenery, and extract its abundant riches. 

As my final thought, realizing that this is the most I have ever written on my blog, I just have to say that this is all too good to be "chance". Our world is too magnificent, to glorious, to harmonious to just be a fluke accident. Kudos to you big guy. As an aspiring photographer, I just want to appreciate what you have provided for me and everyone else. 

Amen.