The Mighty Seahorse

I spent a week volunteering at a soccer camp for 7-14 year olds, although almost all of them were 8. Being that I havent played real soccer since 3rd or 4th grade, I opted for the "hey, you take pictures right? Could you get some of the camp throughout the week?" option. Playing and shooting, though, was a real blast. These kids are GOOD.

Breaking My Own Rules

It may seem like I've given up on my blog, but I've decided to give up on my rules. You know, the whole tuesday post thing. With my sumer having been super busy and not slowing down until summer itself runs out, I've found it really difficult to stay on track with posting every tuesday. It also used to be that I felt like I didn't have any new and fresh selections to post here every week, but now, after a soccer camp, trip to Mammoth, trip to Louisiana, and many church events, I have many hundreds of decent shots not being used. So I've come to the decision, as I sit at a cafeteria at Chapman University (enjoying the free wifi...and not enjoying yearbook camp), that I'll post new pictures ASAP after an event. They may not have those long, deep, and philosophical entries afterwards, but I'll try to write something. I'll try to be more consistent with my posts, and hopefully I'll get more traffic to my blog because this is what I plan to keep running as I finish high school and go through college. Stay tuned!

What Does The Future Hold?

This was a fun day. 

A few sundays ago, I had the privilege of attending a graduation at Mayfield Senior High School. The older sister of a good friend of mine was about to take the big plunge into official adult hood and I has hired to document the event. I was more than happy to be a part of such a big moment in someone's life, where they finally get to see their future unfold. 

The school is a gorgeous one and had a ceremony to match. All of the graduates wore the most elegant white dresses accented with rich bouquets of red roses (dont worry, its an all-girl school...no guys were wearing elegant white dresses). However, I couldn't keep my soon-to-be-senior mind from wandering and wondering what my future holds. With just one more year left to go until I am able to break free and explore the world, I seem to be fixed, more than ever, on what I want to do with my life... what God wants me to do with my life, rather. I've been convinced for some time now that I will be diving head first into the photography world and hopefully coming out with a degree from Art Center and a hefty list of clients to keep me busy for years and years to come. My dad, however, thinks I'm destined to fall into ministry somewhere, somehow, and hopefully contribute my photography and design talents to a Church. When he first mentioned that, I wasn't too stoked or supportive of the idea, but now I've had about a year to sit on it and look into it, and I'm starting to lean that way. 

Within the last couple of months, I've been really interested in Biola University. They've got a pretty decent design/art program and are 110% devoted to God and carrying out His will. Also, I've gotten to meet some awesome people who graduated from Biola, some with design degrees, and are continuing to live a God driven life to this day. After Biola, I would imagine that I would start up my own little photography and design business and be freelance until I got a sick job offer or feel pushed to go somewhere and figure out some form of ministry. Even this afternoon, I found an inspiring blog ( promisetangemanblog.com ) which serves as a near perfect example of what I would love to do. 

As for now, I'm just tying to find God in more aspects of my life, so that I'm that much stronger when I graduate and am on my own. I am continuing to look for more photography opportunities for experience and hopefully some mulah so I may someday afford legitimate photography gear. Pray for me, Stay tuned, and watch it all grow. It should be exciting! :D

Giving Myself An Excuse

To those who check my blog every tuesday, you may have noticed that its been almost a month since I last posted anything. You can thank school for that! I've had tons of work dumped on my lately as CV approaches the end of the school year, and I haven't found time to pick up my camera and go to work. I have thousands of pictures that I've taken over the last couple of years, but I can't bring myself to post anything that isn't fresh or intriguing enough to write about. I'll be leaving my blog alone until I get out of school and settle into summer. Next week is my last week of school, but the work load will not be slowing down until the end of June. So give me a couple weeks and I'll be sure to have plenty of sweet shots to show you guys and write nonsense about.

More Than Meets The Eye

Think about the person that you think you know the best. The person that you could confidently say you know just about everything there is to know about them. You could complete their sentences, laugh at jokes that they tell don't make any sense to anyone else, and make eye contact with them and know just what they're thinking at that very moment. Think about that person. Now think about how it is, exactly, that you got to know them so well. Has it just been a cumulative thing over time? Have you had specific conversations with questions directed at learning more about them? How? Have you ever wondered that maybe there are things that you don't know about them? I don't mean things like what they're doing at this very second... of course you won't know that unless your right next to them watching their every move, but I mean things about them. Things that define them... define their character. Things that make them who they are. Things about their past, present and future. Hopes, dreams, and struggles. Do you know all of that? Well, here, let me answer for you...

NO.

And we probably won't ever know for the most part. They won't tell us everything thats inside of them. As humans we are inclined to lock up so many things. We are SO good at putting up walls and putting on masks to shut our real selves off from the rest of the world. I think so many of us are afraid to show what's really inside of us. Maybe it's because we're afraid of what others may think, or because that might prove that we aren't all so tough. Is it a bad thing to admit that we are weak? That we have vulnerable hearts and minds? What ever it is, someone's got to break down those walls and see through those masks. If you ever can... it will rock your world. Just look into their eyes. Eyes don't lie. As I mentioned in a previous blog, you can shut your mouth and quiet your mind, but your heart never stops speaking (from Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life). If there's any outlet for your heart, I would say it's through your eyes. As cheesy and cliche as this may sound, its completely true. I have been blessed a couple of times to just stare into the eyes of those who I thought I knew so much about. During a couple church trips I participated in an activity where we rotated around a room in two concentric circles, stopping at each person, face to face, and spent what seemed like for ever staring into their eyes. With the right introduction, an appropriate atmosphere, and all immature giggling from awkwardness thrown aside, we all began to cry. The entire group. With each person that we stood in front of, we became more overwhelmed with a feeling of such vulnerability and weakness. We were letting go all that was locked up within us and taking all of the weight off of our shoulders without saying a word. If there has ever been a moment when I knew God was present, it was right then and there, between two faces and flowing tears. Some of us tried to smile and act like we were okay, some of us tried to act like we had nothing to cry about, but looking into each others eyes we could all see how fake we really were and had always been. We hadn't necessarily learned more about each other, but we saw that we were all in the same boat. We all had weaknesses, failures, and downfalls that we had gotten sick of covering up for so long, and we were finally able to let them go. As good ol' Dr. Phil says almost every day at 4 o'clock, "you can't fix what you don't acknowledge!" I've found that to be very true in my life time, and its as simple as praying. My example of letting go of it all by staring into people's eyes may get you a black eye in return if its not set up properly, so I'm not necessarily instructing you to do that, but give it a shot with God. I mean really devote time to him sometime. Block out every distraction as best as you can and focus on Him. Dump all of your crap on Him... He can take it. Just give it a shot. When you finally get there, well... the feeling is indescribable. 

You might recognize this picture from the Blackout post i recently submitted. These are the same eyes as the black and white eyes hovering in the skyline of the city. So... I may have saturated the blue in her eyes a little bit for drama's sake, but its not that far off. C'mon, it looks cool right?

Garbage In, Garbage Out

So where do people get off just ditchin their trash just about everywhere BUT in the trash can? Is it really that hard to walk a few feet to the nearest trash can and take care of it there? Have we gotten THAT lazy? Have we lost all regard as to how our communities look and the image portrayed by them? Sure seems like a lot of us have become that way.

This is an issue that has really gotten on my nerves over the past few years so I'm just going to dive right in. When I see someone toss their crap on the ground and walk away without the slightest thought given to what they just did, there are a few things that come to mind. Call me judgmental, presumptuous... what ever, but they must not care about anything or anyone but themselves. They must expect the school slave...or I mean janitor... to come around and pick it up for them. They must think themselves above those few foot steps to the trash can. They must disregard the fact that others that share the community might care about how things look and that they might be interested in preserving or improving the wellness of the community. They must ignore, reject, and flip-the-bird to a lot of things with one small gesture such as this. 

Look, I know I don't live in Beverly Hills or Flintridge or South Pas or the upper portion of Altadena, but I don't live in the ghetto by any means, and I'd like to keep it that way for as long as I'm around and for as long as my family and friends are in this nice little (and booming) town of La Crescenta. I feel very blessed to live where I do with a good sized home, three pets, generally friendly neighbors, safe streets, cops that rest more than arrest for lack of anything better to do, and two of some of the most elite public schools in the nation... so blessed that I would do what I can to appreciate all of it and keep things the way they are. And I would REALLY appreciate it if others might give a rats patootie ( yea so that was corny... just go with it.) and take care of the community too. 

I've heard of studies that inquired what it is that turns nice comfortable neighborhoods into sketchy ghettos. One of the biggest contributing factors, as they found, was when a building (house, office, shop, etc.) is left vacant and run down for a prolonged period of time. If the property is unkept, trashed up, tagged on, littered on and left to rot... chances are thats a good glimpse of where the community is headed in the not so distant future. Some of you may know this as The Broken Window Theory. 

Now you may say "oh well c'mon... thats a little extreme. No ones going to let their quaint town turn into a trash dump that easily." Well I would hope not! But there's evidence every day that proves the theory to be true. Just within the last few years that I've been in high school I've seen waaay more people throwing trash all over the place. And just a few weeks ago I learned the story of the Pico Union District and how it used to be a pretty upscale place, but as families moved out and things weren't taken care of, things dove downhill and now its looked down upon as one of the worst areas of LA. So what do we do about it? Well, I've gotten a good sense of who reads my ranting and I don't think you guys are the ones that would trash up a place, so thanks for that! But next time your out and you see someone else dump something on the ground, try saying something... don't get yourself beat up, but if you don't feel threatened or uneasy about the person, tell them to pick it up. And if that doesn't work, then pick it up yourself and throw it away for them because you don't know who else is watching and that act may trigger a thought in their mind to clean up there act, so to speak. We really shouldn't let these things slip by because the more we do, the more the become a cultural pandemic. And when you think about it on a bigger scale, such carelessness and disregard leads to graffiti, even more foul language (now there's something to write a blog about), and just lower standards all together. Not to be a total pessimist, but I don't have a whole lot of hope for my generation, but maybe we can all work towards making the next generation a lot less selfless and a lot more courteous. 

Fog

This is a picture I took during last summer at a church event we had once a week called The Yard. This one specific evening we had dry ice... naturally we couldn't keep our selves from playing with it. In some ways we just never grow up. Fog is so much fun!

I couldn't seem to come up with a topic to write about for this post, and seeing that this is being posted on a Wednesday instead of Tuesday, I figured I'd dig up a cool shot from the deep, dark depths of my external hard drive and just go with it. Enjoy :D