Friday August 3, 2012 I don't get to see my Aunt Mary and cousin (more like sister) Michelle very often, usually less than once a year. So when we were in Michigan a couple of weeks ago, this was a priority stop. She hides it so well, but when David took this picture of us playing around, Aunt Mary was in quite a bit of pain. She has a degenerated spine and was waiting for the date of her surgery (August 1) to come. We couldn't make her pain go away. But we could shower her with kisses. And it made her smile. Aunt Mary had her surgery a couple of days ago. The damage was worse than her latest MRI showed. But the surgeon said that the surgery went well. Aunt Mary, I love you so much. You have been a driving force of love in my life since the day I was born. I hope that the moments that have made you smile fill your heart with joy through each and every moment of your recovery.

Constructive critiques welcome here :)
Please feel free to tell me what you really think. I want to know:
1. What I should keep doing
2. What I should stop doing
3. Different perspectives on what I've done (for artistic ideas in the future)
Sometimes in this community, I feel like I'm in over my head among so many very talented artists.

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Sunday
August 12, 2012

Get Holy or Die Trying!

Have you ever wondered what God hears when a teenager prays? What does it look like to Him? Their lives are so turbulent and often, their decisions seem so irrational. Just when a teen thinks he has the world figured out, everything changes and he has to rethink all of it. Most of the time, he forgets to ask God for direction. And when he does, he usually doesn't listen for the answer. But every once in a while, it happens... and it is so amazing to watch.
This is far from a flawless photo. But because this young man grabbed my heart in that moment, I had to share. This is what it is to be "down in Adoration falling". I'm moved by his faith and so I'm sharing my flawed photo of a perfect moment :)

Note: This took place in a popular amusement park in San Antonio as the temperature peaked for the day at 104 degrees. There were about 1600 teens in attendance, praying together. I saw a group of teens wearing a shirt that read " Get holy or die trying". I thought it was pretty fitting for the day. The heat was enough to kill, but I could not have spent my day in a better way.

Saturday
August 11, 2012

This is Chelsea Florence. She opened for The Thirsting last Friday. While the main band was playing, she asked me about how to get pictures for her own use. Of course, I'm thrilled to give them to her. So we started chatting. Turns out, she and I went to the same all girls high school in Michigan... well, not at the same time. I was there in 1979-80, just for 9th grade. Then I moved and went to five more schools before graduating in Arizona in 1983. (I moved a few times.) Chelsea graduated at Mercy. She's 27. So that would mean she was there from 1999 to 2003. I know. I'm kind of babbling. But Chelsea is the first person from Mercy I have run in to in my adult life. I haven't thought about that place in years. I guess in a sense, she is a kind of younger sister. So, what did our beginnings at Mercy High School do for us? I guess it instilled a love for youth ministry. She inspires youth with her music and I minister to them through event planning and religious education. Isn't it funny that we started out in the same institution so many years apart and our paths would cross for just this brief moment because that institution instilled one thing in both of us? Maybe that's why the women who come from all girls schools have a unique bond with each other.
Having said all that... I'm off to take six teens to an amusement park for an end of summer event. Have an awesome Saturday, everybody!

Friday
August 10, 2012

Ghost of Butterflies Past Explained

Happy Friday, everybody!
Thank you for all of the comments and questions on yesterday's post. Today, I thought I'd share with you the process of making it.

Tile 1: The original image
Tile 2: The original image with the detail mask over it. (This is a Kubota action called Enter the Dragon Old World Color)
Tile 3: The mask has been flipped and the background layer (along with the premask layer) has been hidden so you can see what the mask looks like by itself. It is somewhat transparent and lets some details from anything beneath it show through.
Tile 4: The final image with all the layers showing.

I actually discovered this process accidentally on another image. But the image is a little too stirring to share just yet. I am saving that image for a specific day.

Thursday
August 9, 2012

Ghost of Butterflies Past

This was an experiment. The original shot was at a wall at Antietam Battlefield. After creating a detail enhancing mask on the image, I horizontally flipped just the mask.

On the "critique discussion" that is circulating in the community: Count me "in". I absolutely love the idea of a network of artists helping each other grow. I enjoy reading compliments on my images. But what I really want to know is what I did right that I should keep doing, what I did wrong that I should stop doing and things that I might consider for artistic purposes (variations of what I've done). If I know that you are interested in the same nature of comments on your images, I will do my best to give you that. Another concept that i think helps with artistic growth is asking questions. I've done this with some of you and I hope that you feel free enough to ask me questions as well. Also, I think we should keep in mind that not every critique is meant to specifically improve the quality of an image. More often than not, when I critique something, I'm lending a different perspective, not a suggestion for improvement. Having said this, I'm excited. I think if this approach catches with enough of us, we all have the power to mold and form each other as artists :)

Wednesday
August 8, 2012

Remember full service gas stations and "regular" gasoline? I saw this station when we were in David's home town, Rome, NY. Rome is an interesting blend of historical structures (as far back as a fort from the Revolutionary War) and modern buildings (as recent as the late 20th century). David's mother grew up there and his father moved there for his job as a young man. It was a pretty "booming" town until 1995 when Griffiss Air Force Base closed. Of all of the historical things there, this old gas station caught my eye the most, even more so than the fort. So of course, it's in Andrew's senior portrait package :)

[edit by david] Fort Stanwix was reconstructed in the mid 70's; the original structure was long gone. It never fell to the British during the Revolutionary War. They tried mightily to capture it to split the colonies and more easily defeat those yankee upstarts but to no avail...

Tuesday
August 7, 2012

Grandma's Dolls

Amy's mom collects a variety of antiques (particularly bonnets and dolls. She had told me about them before, but I had never been to her house to see them until this summer when we went to upstate New York. The bonnets are destined to go to a museum when she passes away. But she is not sure what to do with the dolls since nobody in the family has expressed an interest in them. I reminded her that Celine loves history and dolls and would probably love to give these treasures a home some day.
(For those who are unfamiliar with Amy, she was David's first wife and three of our kids' first mom. She passed away from breast cancer at the age of 33.)

Sunday
August 5, 2012

Michelle and Denise
How blessed their parents are to have not one, but two bright, loving and beautiful daughters! They were standing in a popular fountain in Downtown Austin for this shot. There were at least a dozen children running in and out of the fountain around them. This was just simply a really fun shot.

[edit by david] The location is the Liz Carpenter fountain in Austin, TX: http://goo.gl/maps/y54Xs

Saturday
August 4, 2012

Thank you everybody for the well wishes for my Aunt Mary. She is home and recovering and Michelle tells me she is in good spirits and even walking a little.

On our way back to our car after doing an engagement shoot at UT, we saw this mural. Actually, this is only part of it. The mural itself has a fisheye perspective. I took this shot with my 12-24 mm lens (at 18 mm) standing at about a 45 degree angle to one end of the mural. I though the double distortion was kind of interesting. I'm thinking about revisiting this mural and using it as a backdrop for some of the senior portraits this year. But the bong smoking naked bongo guy might be problematic. I'm thinking not very many moms are going to want that guy in their kids' portraits. Maybe I can just post my seniors in front of him every time.

Friday
August 3, 2012

I don't get to see my Aunt Mary and cousin (more like sister) Michelle very often, usually less than once a year. So when we were in Michigan a couple of weeks ago, this was a priority stop. She hides it so well, but when David took this picture of us playing around, Aunt Mary was in quite a bit of pain. She has a degenerated spine and was waiting for the date of her surgery (August 1) to come. We couldn't make her pain go away. But we could shower her with kisses. And it made her smile. Aunt Mary had her surgery a couple of days ago. The damage was worse than her latest MRI showed. But the surgeon said that the surgery went well. Aunt Mary, I love you so much. You have been a driving force of love in my life since the day I was born. I hope that the moments that have made you smile fill your heart with joy through each and every moment of your recovery.