Generation to Generation Toys

    If you ever get a chance to look at a list of the top ten toys history ever created...you will not find last year's Christmas craze on them.   You will instead find toy cars, soldiers, trains and digging supplies for boys.  For girls I am sure you will find dolls, stuffies and all their accessories.  I know there are exceptions out there, but the reality is you will not find many!  This is what kids play with!

    So here we have Uncle Micheal's trucks out back one more time.  At home we have the matchbox and airplane toys from both myself and my brother...and even my uncle (or my kids Great Uncle).  These toy trucks and planes are universal hits.   When built American tough, like a child, they will last generations.

    It got me to wondering...if toys go from generation to generation why don't we look closer at lessons from the past.  I'm sure what God said 5,000 years ago or 2000 years ago really still has some staying power.  It might help us in our present circumstances!

-ehw

Happiness is a Good Book

    Well we were not in Lake Havasu for more than a day when Grandma loaded up the two big kids and took them to someplace they find better than Disney World...a Library.  Out they went, and back they came with one and three books respectfully.  When not engaged with board games and outdoor fun their noses are buried deep in their books.  

    Simple things we need to remember are all part of Capturing His Glory in our daily lives.  I'm glad I get to see it!

-ehw    

The First Cookie

    I bet you don't remember your first cookie...it must be a magical moment though.  Normally Momma does not let the kiddos get a cookie or serious sweet until they have their first birthday...but there is something to be said about being child number five!  Momma gives in to the magic of the moment a little more than with the first four!

   Oh he loved it!  What a joy to see!  Uncle Micheal thought he'd have these all to himself....not anymore!

Believe in the Unicorn

         With the news from Dallas and Tennessee today, one could rightly believe the world is up in flames.  The world is changing and there would appear to be no hope....but this is what Uncle Screwtape would have us all believe.  There is hope...more hope than we can imagine if we still believe unicorns can walk amongst us!

    I am being  a bit silly, but it is true.  Amongst all the terrors of the world, we have plenty of signs of natural law bringing joy and hope to people.  How can I say this?  Do you love your child?  Do you sacrifice your personal conveniences to help your spouse when they have a bad day?  Do you pray and give alms to the poor in some way?  Does any one of these items fail to let grace and mercy through you to others?  

   Amongst pain we see now, and know that is coming, we can still bring Christ's gospel through us in word and deed to the world.  It is this grace, flowing through us to others, which will provide the world the renewed church.  One which will conquer the evil at some point, and let God's plan unfold in ways new and unexpected to us mere mortal men.

   Oh..and the Unicorn water cannon my daughter has in her hand packs a heavy stream pounding. It made me believe in its power a few times in our water wars last night!

-ehw

What a DIfference a Few Years Makes

    A few years makes a huge difference for all of us...and the power of photographs lets us see this so easily.  Here we see my son Kalen jumping to Grandad in June 2010...and then July 2016.  In 2016 Kalen was all about fun, toy trucks and legos.  Today all those apply; but now he has his own sunglasses, Leatherman tool and enjoys serious talks with Grandad after pool time.  

    Vacation is a time to enjoy your family, but also time to reflect on where you are, came from and need to go.  I think I'll be doing all that for a little while this month!

-ehw

Helen's Best

    Still working on some of my images from Helen, Georgia.  We had a fantastic time there, and I would recommend it as a great place for a family trip.   After living in Germany, and traveling through Bavaria, the facade was fun to experience.  I often wondered what America would look like with some German architecture, well now I know the effect of mixing the two building codes. The most important three things about the town though were: the people were very nice, the recreation readily available, and the ladies loved our John Paul (and he loved them).

    With this final point made...I can say it was fun and could be visited yet again!

-ehw

Beauty in the Rough

 Do you edit your photos?  Well of course I do!  The reality is, every photo coming out of a camera is already edited to the exposure and composition tastes (or mistakes) of the photographer, the film or sensor have an effect on what you can actually capture, and the software or physical development of the photo before it even hits the viewfinder.  Very little coming out of a camera will be absolutely perfect to my eye, so I will tweak the photo until it fulfills my vision of the art coming out…and it is art because it is my interpretation of the photo. 

    I know some people will shrill at this, but it is really a reflection on the reality of the fallen world we live in.  God made a perfect Garden of Paradise at the beginning, and then the whole Adam and Eve thing occurred where humanity fell to fear and pride and separating our actions and will from God’s.

    The good news for us is God’s laws permeate into our world naturally.  We can discover right and wrong just as we can discover beauty inside our man influenced environment.  The better news for us is if we look for and listen to God’s Wisdom from the Church’s Catechism, with its rich source material, the beauty becomes self evident.  The best news for us is good materials to learn from are closer than ever to our fingertips, if we but look for them.

    So the story of the lead photograph is no different than what our spiritual journeys should be.  I walked out of my hotel, the pretty new lobby shinny and sparkly, into a smelly alleyway facing the back of an abandoned business.  The brick and paint needs attention, the inside of the business really needs some TLC.  To my my naked eye the natural light blows out the color , the situation gritty, and the remaining beauty hidden in a low contrast area with no eye grabbing potential.  It is easy to see the despair of the building and have no hope for a photograph “straight out of the camera.”

    I had other tools though in my head. Tools and lessons in photography which gave me faith I could find the beauty in the smelly alleyway.  I looked and saw a classic shape inside a shape…good…I thought.  Then saw the flowers and knew they could be drawn out and made a centerpiece brought to prominence by the eye focusing shapes.  I knew my camera and lens.  My trusty 23mm would not distort or give in to great lens refraction at F/16. My camera sensor with a high ISO would be sharp and still have good color detail with a larger aperture giving me depth of field to be sharp from front to back.  I knew the distracting wires would not pull eyes away, but highlight the fallen nature of the setting.  Still in camera I knew the result would be flat, and without great interest.

    So I knew I’d dive into my favorite adjustment set on my Capture One 9 software, and get a quick taste of improvement.  See in the rough photo I knew there was beauty to be brought out, and I was just warming up.  Then I looked at my film simulations on hand, and saw one I like and applied it.  I added some texture and dodged some light in…in a matter of minutes I realized the image in my head which reflected a whole lot of learning and applied photography lessons.  I paused, reflected, worked on other images and returned to adjust a few more items before it was where I wanted it to be for a final product.

   I ask you though, is this any different than how we should approach the world in all our endeavors?  In each person we meet, or situation we encounter, will we ever experience perfection as God intended?  No!  Can we make things perfect ourselves?  No!  We need to know God’s plan to become better.   We need to know how to work with each other as we together try to rise ourselves up to deserving entry to heaven.  We need to not reject every sad situation, and look for the opportunity to glorify God in it.

   So yes I edit every photo I share.  I also work at editing myself and the world around me by bringing a bit of God’s plan into it one snap at a time.  I think if you look at your day in the same way, you’ll realize you do it as well.  I hope and pray we can do all we can to grow into the Glory of God’s light by doing this as a community.  I am really thinking it would be a great work of art…I could even title it “Capturing His Glory.”

And just to demonstrate...here is what the camera generated as a RAW image and the camera generated "correct" JPEG....and my edited image at the end.

Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse

    We went on a nice food adventure this evening to Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse this evening.   This is the Inwood Road location in Dallas, Texas.  The manager even helped me to get a few behind the scenes shots in real quick.  Food was good, and the company nice.  Nice Americana feel to the restaurant, and the warm dry evening made it a wonderful night to sit and eat in the open air.  Again the people of Texas keep being pretty nice to me!  That is a huge blessing in today's day and age where meeting people can be a business full of bruises.

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The Knife selection....

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The Tea Selection

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Old School Seating section...

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Open and fun....nice combo for an evening with friends.

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-ehw

Horse Sense

    In bright sunny midday light some subjects just don't work well with normal color.  The color actually becomes a distraction.  Some subjects also really don't lend themselves to color photos either.  This was one of those days where a good black and white image was able to much more effective at conveying a message from an image.  In this case I just wanted to show off the power of the horse, and I think it worked.

    I'm liking the people I've meet here in Dallas so far...nice town and people.

-ehw

Dallas, Texas and Thankful Prayers

    On a short visit to Dallas, Texas and it is already a good adventure!

    On the trip to the hotel I learned it was near no traveller destinations, unless you consider the red light theater and Bombshells Restaurant (with a less than stellar Google rating).  Then to make things more exciting the taxi blew a tire on the highway!  Luckily we were able to cruise to a stop at the exit where the hotel was located.  Just under a half a mile walk with roller bags through tall grass on an access road and I was there!  I must say my driver was very courteous and concerned, although I was more concerned about him!  I even walked back to check on him after I dropped off my bags.

    Walking around town was interesting.  I saw seven different patrol units from various local law enforcement agencies.  I think the razor wire around a hotel, fenced in compounds near the hotel,  and cars coming together for short visits with people popping in and out of windows was what detectives call a "clue" the red light theater was not the only thing exciting around here for them.

    It was a mile walk to IHOP, and I was a little sad when I got there since of course my world favorite pancakes were not on my available eating list.  It was very crowded, and the crew was working their tails off.  Service came with a smile.  On the way home, belly full I got a little creative with my photos.  When I arrived home I realized most of them were going to end up black and white since I had a high and bright sun.  I'll share some tonight.  

    The purpose of this is to say I had some real thankfulness when I said my Divine Mercy Chaplet and Rosary last night.  I was thinking this type of day was why our forefathers would build devotional sites halfway between towns in old Europe.   Evil and nastiness is a part or our world.  Recognizing the good people we meet on our travels inside these crazy evil clouds, lets us remember our job is to Capture His Glory in our hearts through them each and every moment of the day.  For this I was thankful, and we all should be when we see people living virtue powered by God's grace.

-ehw

And so it begins...the Triduum

    The commisioning of priests and institution of the Eucharist...two great gifts

    The beauty of Holy Thursday never escapes me  Last night as even more beautiful because of the lessons taught to me by so many God seeking people over the last year. Lessons from people who past over 1800 years ago, and lessons from those living amongst us now filled my mind, heart and warmed my soul as we heard the liturgy of the word and celebrated the liturgy of the Eucharist

   Father Tri, of St Brigid Catholic Church, reminded us the story of each life is what makes the church breathe the world. The story each life brings to the church helps pass on its's lessons and beauty from generation to generation  These stories allow the priesthood of the family to connect with the priesthood of the Church.  To make this occur we all must listen, observe and react to the wisdom of God as it works its way into our lives throug everyone around us. 

   The Holy Eurcharist is the foretaste of heaven, the perfect mana, needed to nourish our souls with the grace to navigate e challenges of a fallen world.  When taken in concert with reconciliation it enables us to stay on the path to heaven.  It keeps Christ within our very blood...commingling a bit of heaven with our life here on earth..as we go about our day.  So when we say take Christ with you wherever you go, if we partake of this holy nurishment we can do exactly that.  No other God before or since offered such a gift to mortals.  In fact no other God offered to make lowly man part of himself, and join in perfect communion in heaven, for all eternity if we choose to do so.

   Pray for our priests that they may lead all souls to heaven.  Pray for our priesthood in the family, that each man will be willing to lead their family to the best of their ability to the altar of God.  Pray each mother makes their home a place where the stories of old, new and the future will enable The word of God to reach fertile ears and move those souls to Christ.  Pray for the religious, that by their concerted life they make offerings the rest of us cannot for the salvation of the world.

   So let us begin our Triduum journey, and honor the sacrifices made to bring us all the way to heaven.

-ehw

Kalen helping bring the gifts forward with our Decon in formation Randy Ortiz

Fall and Hope

  Each fall I get very reflective on my mortality.  I see my passing life like the leaves.  I hope and pray my colors will be strong and bold for the Lord when my time comes to pass to the next phase of life.

    God does things mysteriously to us mere mortals.  This week I witnessed a testimony of faith from men and women of amazing power as we lifted up others in prayer.  I felt the sting of arrows of despair when evil crossed my path.  I heard the wisdom of the Lord written down over a period of three thousand years from his disciples across the ages, and found hope to deflect the disparaging arrows in the Divine Office.  I also received a gift to help my discernment on future missions to advance the Lord's intentions with the gifts he entrusted to me.

        The week still has time to go, but it is giving me much to ponder and wonder about in the awe of his Grace.  God is good all the time.  I hope my ability to see his works, and those of evil trying to tear us apart, will help my colors shine brightly for him all my days here and the hereafter.

-ehw

The Doctor is In!

    The Doctor was in last Saturday night.  She did house calls for everybody!  Luckily she confirmed we are all in pretty good shape headed into our Fall Break from school.  We are almost homebound since we still have three days of dance, two Robotics classes, doctor's appointments, a dead refrigerator, and music!  Regardless of our staycation status, we should have time for plenty of moments like this one where we enjoy a few moments of family time...can get the house set for fall both inside and out!

-ehw

Remember 9-11 and Pray

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    Today I had the opportunity to attend the Blue Mass honoring and praying for all First Responders with Bishop Gregory at Christ the Redeemer in Atlanta.  Met many men and women who man the line and guard us from the terrors of the night.  Thanks be to God for such men and women.

    I pray our nation returns to God with respect for Natural Law and the life of the unborn so we can be the great nation our founders intended.

    -ehw

The Roar of the Lion

    The lion is ready to finally roar!  After months of pretty serious thinking I thought I would remind folks out there I am a photographer, who is serious about learning his craft!  

   My attempt here was to create some emotion in the viewer with this photo.  Let me know if it worked!

-ehw

The Request Granted

    Tonight I finished up a long deployment worth of work far from home.  I took a walk and for the first time was able to enjoy a few minutes of golden hour sun bathing the sights around me.  The Cathedral was already locked up tight, so I could not visit the Blessed Sacrament one last time before I went home (Mass was wonderful yesterday morning though!).  Then my little phone buzzed.  I saw a note from my friend, fantastic photographer and master marketer Kristi Church (Here is one of her current projects http://infinitereachagency.com/) while I sat at the corner of the street in front of the church (cool..Mrs Church sends a note while I am at the church).

    In the note she asked me to post my photo from a few days ago...well I looking at the light I said there has to be something new I can do for her.  So here you go Kristi!  A new photo session just for you!

    This photo goes to my Americana side of my artwork.  This statue sits in front of the Federal Reserve Band of Cleveland.  (You can find out about the Cleveland Fed at this website)  The statue reminded me of my youth, when John Wayne and my grandfathers seemed to me made of the same cloth.  A cloth of masculine strength and obedience to a power far higher than they.  The monument still bursts forth more symbology telling a story through timeless allegory.  Through the story I could understand the mission of the organization housed inside, and a mission greater than merely survival.  I could sense a call to greatness.

    Then I turned to some fascinating modern architecture adjacent to this site.  It was rich geometry, but devoid of character.  No story do they tell, and no greatness other than self importance do they speak to.  They also can change like the wind, by merely changing the sign you change their purpose and function.  In modernity I found no timelessness enduring story, only narcissism for serving a purpose here and now.   Sadly I could see in it those modern buildings a desire to replace the role models of my youth and American heritage with a one world order world.  A skyscraper here is the same as Dubai, Mexico City, Tokyo or Shanghai.  Scary thought, but the symbolism stood starkly there before me.  

    So here is the request granted Mrs Church!

God Bless

-ehw

Using Constraint to Grow

    Today I walked out on a perfectly dreary overcast day.  No lighting existed for making magical images the eye naturally follows.  Instead I found myself working towards composition to make an interesting photo.  I had on my camera a trusty 35mm prime lens (it is a normal 50mm equivalent on my APSC).  This is a hard lens for me to use.  I really see the world normally at more of a 23mm view (a 35mm lens on my APSC sensor).  I found myself already constrained twice, so I added another constraint to my day.  Compose everything for black and white as well!

   I should have felt depressed and boxed in.  Somehow that did not happen.  I found myself invigorated to look at the world in a whole new way instead.  The resulting shots were some I'd never thought to do if I was just plain being normal.  I grew, maybe, a little in my versatility and creativity because of this experiment.

    When you really think about it, it is the same in a lot of endeavors.  One of which I may get to discuss tomorrow night.  As for now, I hit the constraint of time available in a day.  It is off to bed with me now.

God Bless

-ehw

PS Fujifilm XT-1 with 35mm.  Fun gear!

Playing Tag

If you thought playing tag at DjaDja's house meant running around 14 acres of land on your feet...you'd be so last century!  Heck we give the two year old and seasoned citizen the leg up in every way.  In fact the only guy running on foot was the cameraman!

-ehw

A Different Day

A different type of day today.  It is a Federal holiday, so I had the day off and wrote up a busy schedule for myself.  However it was a still a school day for Regina Caeli Academy so the four kiddos with the momma got up and at it in the early morning light.

Nine days out of ten...well 95 out of 100...I am the guy up first and out the door while they enjoy their warm blankets for another hour or so.  So to be roused by my wife's alarm, and the sound of lots of other feet is a game changer.

Today you can see the Silver Bullet headed out the door on its mission.  As it left I found myself reading the news alone with my coffee.  I found myself experiencing the same fears I had in my bed last night at 2 and 3 and 4....Ebola, TB outbreak, Flu type 68,  ISIS, Russia on the move worldwide, China on the move in the South China Sea, a disarming US, Bishops in the middle east and Africa reminding their people they need to defend themselves, and a blatant turning away from natural law this country was founded on on every page.  

Now fear is not a good state to live in, instead it is an emotion that should push us to new work to right the situation.  So I made my list for the day, heard the divine office, read the morning prayer, and moved out to 9Am mass.  During mass I listened and fell deep into thought.  I wanted to ask God where he was.  I wanted to ask him to do something about this madness around me, to help my family survive the coming turbulence.  In the silence of post communion I my head rang with words from so many other sources me like a piece of lead dropped from the roof.

"Son I did do something about all this.  I made you."

With that I got myself into motion working on preparation for Blue Knights tomorrow night (6 new boys coming in for the first time making their shields), meeting with a friend, and saying a few prayers along the way.  I guess the big guy reminded me, to do what I can, where I can to build his kingdom.  So I better get a little busier!

-ehw

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