Words and deeds

    This week's readings and homily at church brought to light a concept of our faith as Christians.  It was that God's ways rule, not ours.  Simple concept, making perfect sense, if you accept that God is perfection in every way.

     In our lives, however, the natural cycle of things is we are born narcissistic looking out for ourselves.  As such it would be only natural for us to think that whatever we need, want or think gets our desires covered is the correct course of action.  Good parenting knocks that silliness out of us young.  We can start seeing how selfishness actually causes separation from our brothers and sisters.  Only by working with others, and caring for them as much as ourselves do we build the friendships needed to survive in this world.  This basic understanding of friendship is the antidote to narcissism.  Friendships allow us to  succeed as a husband, father, coach, soldier, businessman, farmer, or priest.

    The Gospel (Matthew 21:28-32) today told us the story of the two brothers.  One brother said no to his father's commands, but went out to follow them anyway.  The other brother said yes to his father's commands, but did not heed the instruction.  One was in the right, and one was in the wrong at the end of the day.  For the man who repented and did the right thing, salvation awaited him.  For the man who talked the talk, but walked away life would end.

    Obviously we would rather say and do the right thing all the time!  This would surely be the easiest way to unity with Christ in word and deed!  We are however fallen creatures, made with weakness and stubborness.  As such we are very capable of failing in word, deed or both! 

    Thankfully our perfect God knew this, and provided us many paths towards redemption from our birth until the very end of our earthly lives.  It is truly the only way we could be saved given our original state of mind.  I guess it is just one more way to understand why God's ways rule, not ours.

-ehw

Homeward bound

It was a great week in Miami learning a lot about the town...now it is off on the plane heading for home!

Slowing Down

     I will take a little time to enjoy the family today....so I'll leave a minimum wake on the web!  Enjoy your loved ones and worship The Lord today!

The Skateboarder

     The weather broke wonderful this afternoon in Miami.  I could tell the locals were loving it.  The lonely benches were full, men and women dressed up to go out, boats started moving in the marinas, and families were back in the park walking.  I was loving the break in the weather myself as the breeze kept me cool and comfortable in the afternoon sun walking to dinner.

     Today I wanted to catch a few people in "street photography" mode.  I got two keepers.  The first was this skateboarder.  He was having his fun here near, using this launching pad six to eight feet from three lanes of traffic.  He was quite good with his tricks.  To him they were just warm ups.  If it was me on the board, it would be death defying.

     Home tomorrow!  I cannot wait.  I know it will take more than a few minutes to get used to the noise of five extra bodies running around with their own agendas, but that is what being a Dad is all about right?

-ehw

The Three Block Alternate Universe

     This building on the Bay in Downtorn is massive, modern and very interesting.  Yet just three blocks away is historic downtown Miami...are buldings just as interesting in different way! 

I've never seen a perfume store this large before!  Of course I probably could have used this store to hide my sweaty self!

There were also other veteran buildings to enjoy....

Classic architecture!  Love it...I just hope the electrcal gets updated to keep up with modern technology Walgreens will want to cram into that store!

     You'll also find neat little eateries tucked in like this cafeteria right across from resturants I could not afford to eat at!

     And four blocks south of the cafeteria is this across the canal...modern wow factor.

     Miami is an amazing city in many, many ways! 

-ehw

Midday Prayers →

Gesu Catholic Church

     Whenever I travel have a little game..its called make a pilgrimage.  Today as I finished up the daily session, I looked at the weather and it said thunder storms due in town by 3PM.  Since I could fill out my homework anytime, I figured I better make the pilgrimage sooner rather than later.  

     The weather held up all of 15 minutes after leaving the hotel.  I then ducked into a resturant and got lunch.  I waited for a break in the weather to make the final dash up and over four blocks to the city's oldest Catholic Church, Gesu.  As I walked up I could see all the symbols of my faith on the outside.   I entered the door and felt myself overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of being at home while being away from home.  I was happy to have a wonderful environment to focus on Jesus, the blessed sacrament, and have the story of salvation envelope my senses.  This was a wonderful gift people made a hundred years ago for us today.

     As I left out the door for another adventure I said a thank you prayer to those who labored and freely gave to make this sanctuary.  I prayed that others may also come and find the Lord's lessons here in the stained glass, the lives of saints presented, and the sacrament of the Eucharist.  I also...yes...left a little contribution so it will be there for the next soul who seeks refuge for a few minutes from the wild world outside. 

-ehw

P.S. I did a little experiment today and edited as much as I could with my camera for color, contrast, and sharpness.  I did a little cropping in Snapseed.  Interiors worked the 23mm out, and outside I used the 18-55mmm zoom.

The old and new altars in the Sanctuary

An amazing baptismal font

I always try to find and photograph St. Joseph...what a good example of a father he is.

Everything has meaning, everything presented beacons one to join Christ on the Cross.

Love a Rainy Night!

     I love a rainy night...ok twilight!  The rain was very, very light but the open ground was soaked!  So that of course means dark, contrast filled colors if captured right! 

   The mood was pretty somber as well.  I thought the taxis would get busier (and therefore happier), but the rain was so light it actually felt good in the humidity...sort of portable Miami air conditioning in an old school manner!

     Even the park benches were quite lonely.

Maybe some sun tomorrow?  Oh that is another song...."The Sun will come out tomorrow! Tomorrow! You can bet your bottom dollar...."  Ok I'll be quiet before security comes up and makes me an offer I cannot refuse.

-ehw

P.S. For you gear heads all these came from my Fujifilm X-E1.  Today was zoom day. I travels with my standard zoom (XF18-55 F2.8-4).  Nicely made lens, and it did allow me to reach out and grab a few photos without moving my feet.  I will say that the biggest thing it did for me was the mild telephoto effect.  The second and fourth photos show what happened when I racked it all the way out to 55mm...or a short telephoto of about 78mm Full Frame equivalent.  The telephoto allowed me to compress the elements in the frame, and they seem closer than they would with a standard focal length.

     Something else I learned is that I got the shots in low light by increasing my iso to 3200.  However this also made much the photo very bright, approaching daylight scenes.  So I went back into the camera and applied negative compensation to bring the scenes closer to what I saw.  I did not want a night vision goggle effect here. 

    Finally these are almost exclusively out of camera jpegs.  Your camera probably has a very powerful RAW converter.  Use it, save variants and shoot some more.  If the product is good, variants will help you explore the what if's of your camera's potential.

Miami Day 2

Good Morning Miami! @ 540AM

   After a rough introduction Sunday, Miami provided a lot of fun today.  The town is an engineering marvel.  Everywhere I turn in downtown there is something fantastic to capture.  The people also have a rather nice temperment here to us tourists...especially those that don't speak the prefered language downtown, Spanish.  The town does shine with a Central and Southern America twist.  You can see it in the business links, food, culture, and vibrancy of the town.  Despite all that it does really have an American flavor to it all.  In the business district there is the normal go get 'em attitude I found in New York earlier this year.  So all in all I am finding exploration here rather fun.

The old Miami Freedom Tower..once a newspaper's home and now a museum to Cuban Culture

I am enjoying the juxiposition of the classic 1920's Miami and modern day construction.  The bridges between islands are facinating...and the huge skyscapers extending all the way to the water's edge.  Wow!

   Even inside our hotel there are so many fun things to photograph...outside my room by the elevator these lights just screamed to be photographed. 

Oh I hope tomorrow to get even better light to photograph this remarkable town.

-ehw

P.S.  All photos shot with the Fujifilm X-E1 and the XF23mm lens.  I took the day to practice with one lens and one focal length.  I did this to make my mind conceive and execute the photo in a 35mm equivalent on a 35mm film camera.  The lens  is fantastic.  I just need to get better at using it.  

One other interesting test I made was to work harder at using the internal controls of the camera to create the tonal curves.  One, Three and Four are examples of this with minimal cropping or alignment corrections in Snapseed.  The camera is much better than I am still. 

Cheers!

Miami, Florida

    I'm off on another adventure to Miami, Florida.  Attending a work convention in downtown.  So far this downtown is different than most towns I've visited in this country, and I'm doing my best to explore the unique flavor of this city.  One minute you're looking at a Little Havanna or Latin America area, turn around 90 degrees and view the avant garde billion dollar condo sykscrapers.

     So I'll endeavor to bring you a few good photos from the city while avoiding the fun any city can offer.  For instance today I saw three teens rescue their bicycles from a theft right in front of me.  It was very interesting...guy riding down the street on two similar bikes, then a bike rams the guy perpendiculary to knock him down.  He got in protest only to face the two girls whose bike he stole, and the teenage young man who was with them.  The perp said someone sold him the bikes... and gave them up without a fight.  As this resolved itself a guy decided to try and run a red light right through my body about 30 seconds later in the cross walk.  Just a minute after those two episodes I watched fancy boats (worth three of my homes) float on down the waterfront in a leisurely manner, and families enjoying life in the park.

      This war memorial is from 1942 and right down the street in Bayfront Park.  The lighting was not particlarly wonderful today, so I resorted to B&W on few photos to get something interesting from my travels.  The photo below is the reflection of my hotel in the hotel across the street.  

Self Portrait

Just had such a fun time this weekend, that I also snapped a quick one of me that actually came out alright...

I will not make self portraits a habit, but for a change up I wanted to toss it in.

-ehw

Angel Flight

As the new year dawns I hope some light can break through the storms and make your days a little happier!  It was just what my wife's guardian angel would order up to make her smile after such a run of doldrums.

We were joking at work that with the storms it seemed like the Mayan calendar was a few days off...Thankfully we had a break in the weather today and the sun buoyed up our spirits on an almost warm winter day.

-ehw

Palm Tree Christmas

Being born in Hawaii...I should be use to this site...but I was three when I left so I'm not!

Palm trees are fun to look at.  To my mind it is like peeling back an onion that is 60 feet tall!

The moral of the story is that anything can help bring out the Christmas spirit!

-ehw

Definition of long shadows

I've been reading about what long shadows are, and I've watched for them...but this one morning was a really cool example of what they can look like.

You can see the early morning sunrise here has a really short angle of incidence with the earth, and for just a few minutes those posts look like something from the Giant's house Jack visited.  Each of those cross beams are maybe 9-12 inches apart, yet on the ground the shadow is about four to six feet apart.

The moral of the story is that as a photographer we have a narrow window to play with light like this each day if the sun comes out to play.  If you stay alert we may be able to capitalize on treats like this to make some interesting compositions.

-ehw

Southern Christmas Glory!

The lights were on in St. Mary's as they prepare for Christmas last week.  It was a combination of lights, pine wreaths, and palm trees!  After so many Christmas pasts up north, this was a new perspective on the season for me.

Thankfully the symbols of Christmas are all there, and it was those symbols that tied me in with every other season I've enjoyed.  The round Christmas wreath of pine symbolizing the eternal God, the celebratory red has many other joyful meanings, and the lights fighting back the darkness as we near the winter solstice all made me feel like I could be anywhere preparing for the Lord's arrival.  Those common symbols are so important since they convey a message from one generation to the next.  They made me feel right at home in their midst.

It was a lovely night for a walk amidst such splendid sings of the season.

-ehw

What is your travel camera?

I am traveling right now with my Pentax kit and my Olympus P&S. After listening to all the camera podcasts during my drive I had to wonder what some of my friends were using when they travel. (St Mary's first church, one of the oldest in Georgia. Pentax K-5, Sigma 17-50 F2.8 EX OS) [polldaddy poll=6749711]