The Forrest

It is one of those trying times for me right now....challenges, challenges and more challenges.  

As I processed this photo it pretty much matched my mood.  A dark forest being slowly being lit by the morning sun after a rainy night.  The morning haze showing off the rays of light and mist.  i see a lot of darkness, but I can still feel the light of the Lord guiding me step by step through the woods.

As a newer artist I still find it extraodinary when emotion guides your artistic decisions and direction.  I think that is what makes the whole adventure enjoyable and thought provoking.  Yet I cannot help myself from asking if anyone else sees my vision the same way...or will it merely become whatever they want it to be?  If someone does not see what you intended are you a success or a failure?  

To answer my question, I think it would be silly to think everyone will look at the photo the way you intended.  We all have different thoughts, perspectives and references.  Success and failure of a piece really depends on whether or not the image gets you to simply stop and think about your photo as they apply their thoughts to it.  

-ehw

P.S. X-E1 with 18-55 shot while cooking eggs and sausage.

The Slow Spring

I don't know about you, but this almost feels like we're going to have a year without a summer!  The flowers and blooms though are trying to come out and enjoy the sun.  Just a quick shot from the yard in the fading spring light this weekend.  These flowers are very graceful for a day at most, then they get twisted, and lose a lot of their appeal.  So if I want a shot of them, I need to photograph them as soon as they open.  So the lesson of the day is to take the shot now, because you never know if it will be there tomorrow.

Good lesson for life as well.

-ehw

P.S. Fuji X-E1 with 60mm close up lens.  (This is not a true macro as it will only do 2:1, not the full 1:1 a traditional macro will obtain)

Premium or Regular?

I received a blessing from God today...I went out to fellowship and take photos with the His Light Workshop Crew.

If you have a few minutes I suggest you take a look at the work of Bill Fortney ( http://billfortney.com/) and Jim Begley (http://www.wowphotoshdr.com/).

What you will find are stunning images of life.  You will not find subjects created for shock value or pure sex appeal.  You find written word and art which lifts you upwards...toward an appreciation for God and all his wonders. Bill is fond of saying he loves texture in his photos.  I also think he is very good at helping you appreciate the textures God adds to your life.  Jim makes High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos which knock your socks off in content, technical excellence and message.  When you talk to him, you can see feel his love of God coming out in the same manner of an HDR photograph where something we think is too dark for perception reveals itself and the composition makes sense so the message takes root in your heart and mind in equal parts.  How do these men do this?  By actively listening to you, and letting God work through them in a very humble manner.

See if you come to a His Light Workshop, you better be ready for God to speak through its many members.  You need to understand that when you join the crew, they will care about you more as a person than as a photographer.  The funny thing is when they do this, they offer more of themselves to you as teachers than most others ever will if they did the reverse.

I saw many examples today of agape love in HDR.  People freely giving of themselves to care for others,  offering a prayer for others in need, and providing an environment for people to engage in the sharing at a level their personalities and life texture permits.  It is not loud, it is not outlandish...it is quiet and subtle..it is the sound of the Holy Spirit working his way through people bringing Christ where needed for their sustainment.

So why the title?  Well we all have many choices in life for everything we do.  In choosing friends and services I think we also have a choice...we can chose Premium or Regular friends.  A regular friend will be with us as we travel through life, but when a challenge arrives they'll just walk on their own trying to help you with a man's knowledge.  A premium friend with walk with you, and when the time comes not be afraid to invoke God in the discussion of how you shall overcome life's challenges using his revealed laws of nature and scripture.

The men and women of His Light...they are Premium.

-ehw

PS X-E1 with the 35mm Prime

Hardened Steel

I took this photo on Saturday, and when I took it I immediately thought about Lent.

One of my goals this lent is to work on accepting God's love myself in my personal life.  I've noticed over the last few years that when I accept more of his agape (self gift) I can give more of me to them than I could before.

I know it sounds funny, but it really is true.  I see this in the lives of many saints.  Little Mother Theresa is a giant in what she she accomplished because of this very lesson.  So if I can do this on even a small scale in my life, maybe this could help my family more than I ever could going it all alone.

So even though the world crushes us with all it has to make us harden our hearts towards God, we have to fight that.  We have to get a peace in our lives that can only come by keeping hearts unlocked to his spirit's love.

Might be a neat idea for you to try as well!

-EHW

PS Pentax K-5 with DFA-100WR, post in Aperture.  I used a combination of global contrast, definition and brushes for detail, and polarization.

A mother's sorrow, and our salvation

Imagine the sorrow a parent feels when death stands at the doorstep of their child's life.

I personally get rather sick at that thought, and feel a sudden panic to account for my children wherever they are.

Now imagine you are Mary the Mother of God incarnate.  You chose the path of God your entire life.  You accepted the saving grace of your son before you could understand what it meant!  Then after 33 years of raising this man you see your son unjustly condemned.  He then walks past you beaten and broken as his final mission...walking to his death on a tree.  Yet in her sorrow, she still watched her son Jesus become the ultimate passover sacrifice.

The Bible says Mary kept these types of things in her heart from Jesus' earliest days.  I wonder when it all came together for her, when she understood the events she witnessed.

How I'd like to hear her explain how her simple childhood wisdom carried her through these burdensome times!  Or what she thought when she realized the earth shattering gifts her son obtained for us!

When I think about it, I can only say that I've got it so easy compared to her right now...she is definitely a role model to follow as we take the journey towards her son.

-ehw

PS Fuji X-E1 with 18-55, post in Perfect Effects 8

A Lenten Lesson

Ash Wednesday!  The preparation for the most important day of the year started today.  I attended mass near my office at the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary here in Atlanta.  The priest provided a great suggestion on a Lent tradition.  The usual tradition is that we give up something we really like for Lent.  Our celebrant put a twist on that tradition.  He reminded us Jesus does not mind us giving things up that we like as a method of preparing ourselves for a spiritual journey...but what what makes him happiest is when we give up the things he does NOT like before we meet him!

That matched up pretty well with my daily devotional in the Liturgy of the Hours.  So I'm working on giving up a vice everyday (lets say improving my language and vocabulary skills)....and a an extra vice (coffee) on Fridays.  Accomplishing #1 on a normal day will be interesting....without coffee on Fridays?  Oh maybe I'll find a way to stay in bed and hide!

I hope and pray that you too will grow in faith and wisdom on this Lenten journey.

-EHW

P.S. Fuji X-E1 with 18-55

Spring's Flowers

Well not to rub it in to those of you looking at more white stuff this evening, but look what was in my yard today!

Two weeks ago we had an ice storm.  This weekend we had springlike weather, flowers, and our first baseball practices with the boys.  

Walking the yard today, I think the big tragedy may be my gardenia bush near our deck.  The frost just ravaged the leaves.  It is mostly brown now, and I don't know if it will recover.  We also took some damage to the shed, and it needs roof repair now.  Hopefully I can teach myself to fix it without too much trouble.

This all just reminds me life is so precious, and our journey in the world so tenuous.  

See we're still praying for a lady our age who after having her fourth child in December collapsed in the parking lot at our children's homeschooling music group.  Her husband, knowing she was not feeling well that day was with her and immediately started CPR.  The ambulance came and she went off intubated to the hospital.  All this while her four children sat in the van...again a little miracle since friends nearby swooped them up and took them home for safety.  70 minutes later .... yes 70 minutes later.. her heart started working again on its own.  At first there appeared to be no brain activity...and they they tested again the next day....and found some hope.

By the third day she moved her feet, hands and made sounds.  She even wanted to know if the baby was hungry.  A little over two weeks later she is teasing her husband, who still sits at her side.  She knows her children and family.  She thinks it is 1996...but she is alive (and with children who were not born yet in 1996) and moving towards recovery.   Three doctors already said this is a miracle, even compared her to Lazarus more than once.

I told told my wife I was satisfied a miracle occurred when her husband was at her side that day...and even though feeling queasy she went along to help him get the kids to music. (probably knew Dad would get the times messed up...I know the drill because  my wife writes down everything for me and tells the kids they are my alarm clock).

The cause?  An extremely rare injury to an artery resulting from childbirth in December.

When told about the cause...she said without hesitation the child was worth the cost.

This my friends is a miracle we should all take note of.  We are witnessing a husband and wife who gave all without question to each other, and a witnessing their faith journey with us out here on the outside of their family.

For my wife and I it reminded us to love every moment of our lives.  They could be us.  Our children could be theirs.  It reminded us we need to be living our lives the best we can, because in a flash we could be meeting Jesus.

If you can, add a Marrietta family to your prayers .  They have a long way to go before the healing is done.

If you envisioned the scene, and you shed a year of sorrow and joy just hearing this love story...let this miracle help you be better than you were before for the rest of your lives.  I think the Lord will be pleased, and help his family even more.

-ehw

P.S. X-E1 with 60mm macro.

Cold Rabbit

This was a fun shot.  This darn rabbit watches over my yard day in and day out.  An I finally caught him in the camera.  He was so cold I could not miss him!

I initially did this in color, and got a pretty nice file from it all.  However I wanted to express how cold this rabbit had to be.  So I turned over to my B&W in Nik SilverEfx2.  This Nik (well now Google) application is simply awesome in rendering B&W.  Perfect Effects is getting closer all the time, I just know SilverEfx and can get the results I want very fast right now.  So I turn to it most often for B&W.

I hope this type of photo inspires a few of us to get out and look at our environments when seasons change.  Just the addition of snow, of new pine needles, leaves and green grass change our perspective significantly.  If we all take a few minutes to enjoy our environment, maybe we'd a little extra motivation to realize how lucky we are to have what we have.

I just mention this, because today a mother of four (the youngest being three months old) collapsed in front of her family just a few feet from my wife and kids.  We're waiting on word of her condition, and praying for everyone involved.  Luckily her husband was at her side and was the first responder, and friends and family were able take care of the children while Dad tended to his wife.

Life is precious.  Life is short.  If we do not recognize that, we'll miss moments like this when the whole world of Atlanta, Georgia turned an unusual white..or our children smiled at the sight of the sun coming out from behind the clouds...or the fleeting moment we get to hold the hand of a loved one for what could be the last time.

Wouldn't it be a shame to miss that moment?

-ehw

PS Pentax K-5 with 16-50 F2.8.

HDR Love

Here is a photo that is a little more than meets the eye.  It is another High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo I composited from seven clicks of the shutter.  Each click gives me information, and when I composite those seven shots I can do a whole lot of art with it.  I can pick realistic, surreal, structured, B&W you name it.  There is no "right" answer, it is just how I see it.  Over time I am also blessed because I can come back to the shoot with new lessons learned, and make a photo which takes those seven layers into a new and different direction.

Today is St. Valentines Day and he is the patron saint of marriage and love.  It will sound geeky, but marriage and love require HDR.  Our english language does not serve us well when we talk of love.  The church fathers knew there were four dynamics: Agape (Divine Love), Philia (Friendship), Storge (Affection) and Eros (Emotional).  Today our society outwardly values eros, and seemingly on purpose denies the others even exist.  This is of course a recipe for failure in families and human commitment.  We all know that emotional love fades, that when the hormones fade and age sets in...the pull of another set of hormones  or selfishness will tear the relationship asunder.  The self giving love flowing from Agape is the most important to emulate as it feeds everything else, yet to speak the name of the Lord in relation to being the example of human love will only get you scorn on the major networks and advertisements.

My love just read me a story about a couple married 65 years who said the secret they held was they grew up in a time when you did not throw a damaged item away...you fixed it.

That story says it all.  Just as I may find a new direction with my HDR next year, and could create a new version of this image...so must we adapt in our marriages finding the right mix of agape, philia, storge and eros as we advance through our lives. What was right for us as newlyweds, is not what will sustain us on our 16th anniversary this year or our 50th...I can foresee we have many a layer to examine and thrive with in the coming years.

I see the same example in the longevity of marriages by my parents, my in-laws and grandparents.   I pray St. Valentine and you will join me in asking the Lord for the wisdom to help us all down here to do the same.

-ehw

P.S. Fujifilm X-E1 with the fabulous 60mm Macro

Kids at Twilight Part 5

By the time you read this it will be five days since I found out a friend of mine from West Point died last year, right up the road in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Deirdre Sisson Etheridge was like my big sister when I was a Plebe at West Point, and a tremendous lady.   We snag in the Catholic Folk Group every week.  Without her support and encouragement life would have been pretty dreary those first few years.  She left behind a husband and two children.  I hope they are going strong, and she is in the arms of the Lord.

During the week these photos will post we are also burying our pastor Father Austin at St. Thomas Aquinas in Alpharetta.  He too passed unexpectedly.  In just about a year he invigorated many efforts at our parish to reach out to many people and help them enhance their spiritual journeys though kindness, love, encouragement, and being a Father moving changes along.

This picture of my youngest is the type of moment I know I need to continue to enjoy, because in a flash we could all be history...and I may never get another opportunity to enjoy them.  Life is short, and it will be full of struggles.  I hope it is full of struggle, because nothing of excellence built for the Lord ever comes easy.  The Devil can't let us have too many free successes...it would ruin his reputation.

So here is to Deirdre, Father Austin and us...that we may all one day be able to enjoy such memories (and make new ones) together worshiping in heaven with the Lord.

-ehw

Kids at Twilight Part 4

Kalen is always fun to photograph.  He is always trying so hard to be a good kid...and like his Dad can lose it a bit.  Sorry son for the bad trait I handed off!  He gets very serious or very silly at the tender age of 10, not much in between.  Age appropriate for sure.

In this photo I opened the lens way up to f2.  I can go up to F1.4, but I wanted both eyes in focus, just like on Julia.  So if you did blow this up, you would see those eyes are both tack sharp, but I start to get bokeh pretty quickly thereafter.  Nice lens from Fuji at 35mm for sure.  I still am drooling over the 23mm and now 57mm though to give me a 35mm and 85mm equivalent fast glass.  Only got to save up a ton of money for those two!  But dreams are what we need to have to drive us forward.

-ehw

Kids at Twilight Part 3

Oh my my funny guy was a handful! All is good though!  He and Dad got to go out to lunch at the doughnut shop!  Cool beans huh!  Subway was way too crowded.  Then we worked on the yard while the other kids did more schoolwork.  He showed me a lot more focus than ever before today...3/4 a yard bag worth of pinecones all by himself with one hand!  He is growing up in his own unique way, and I am happy to see it.  Yep dirt does make this guy cuter.

-ehw

Kids at Twilight Part 2

Who's letting this kids grow up?  Just yesterday she was pushing her dollies around in the stroller!

Really, snapshots like this really make me think about how fast life flies by...guess that is why I need to enjoy every minute.

-ehw

The Sentinel

Up in Old Car City I enjoyed a trip down memory lane, and I found myself wanting to shoot photos of my grandfather's cars.  One grandfather (my DjaDja) had a Cadillac.  My other grandfather (my Pappap) like Plymouths.  After previously finding the Caddies, I went searching for a few Plymouths.

This hood ornament was on a Plymouth, and it is one I never remember seeing in the 1970's.  It was long gone before I could remember them.  I thought the ornament was stunning, and it gave the appearance of crystal inside the chrome still perfectly smooth to the naked eye.  This Puritan soldier from Plymouth still looks fierce and ready lead people to the new world!

When I took my class with Bill Fortney, Jim Begley and RC Conception both discussed ways to purify the HDR Chrome in Photoshop.  For whatever reason, HDR turns a lot of chrome blue.  So the way you deal with it is to brush away the blue and doing a mask operation.  Now first I don't own photoshop, and if I did I've never been able to understand the language of Photoshop.  So I turned to my OnOne Perfect Suite 8 and its filters.  I found with a quick application of Purify Highlights, either by brush in or whole photo, I got pretty much the same effect as six actions in Photoshop.

Cheating?  Yep. At least to the Photoshop experts out there.  Perfect?  Probably not.  Can I live with it?  You betcha!  In the end it just goes to show you there are a lot of good tools out there, just find the one  you can understand and exploit the best!

-ehw

P.S. Fujifilm X-E1 with 60mm macro.

The Long Haired Lady

This Long Haired Lady still looks elegant up in Old Car City.  I really wish I could see this car in its glory.  I love the long lines, the grace it would have sliding through the air, and the roar of the engine.  Even today you can clearly see the blue of the sky reflecting in the chrome at this partly bright sunny day in North Georgia.

Working in the cold weather my camera did just fine, and the battery did not crash.  What I did find a bit harder was staying comfortable with all the layers of warm clothes I had one...and realizing I forgot my most vital accessory for serious rolling around...my knee pads.

About 16 years ago I fell down a Georgia mountain in the cold of winter while in the Army.  I smashed up both of my knees, and they got good infections.  Today I still feel the soreness, especially on cold winter days like this one.  So forgetting my knee pads really hurt my movement up and down with the tripod.

In order to really work a scene well, a great photographer once told me to get high-low-middle-near-far-get front-back-rear and anything else.  You have to experiment.  It does not mean you have to click the shutter at each spot, but it does mean you have to observe each spot and think through the opportunities it can offer.  As with any skill, experience and creativity will drive the end result far more than the equipment available.

So the moral of the story is, I think I captured a good composition.  I still wonder however how much more I could have done if I remembered the knee pads and worked this scene even harder.

-ehw

P.S. Fujifilm X-E1 with 14mm, F/18 on a seven shot jpeg EV Comp setting processed through Nik HDR efex Pro2 and touched off in Aperture

Capturing a sunbeam

Yesterday afternoon I had a couple fun experiences with my girls.  First I got a hours of time with my big girl, we went out to lunch.  We talked, and talked and talked.  It was fun, and a good time to be a Dad.  After we arrived home, Mom had to depart for WalMart leaving me in charge of the house.  After a mere thirty minutes my little one found herself startled out of a good deep sleep.  When this happens you have two choices, let her go with a minimal nap and watch her feel ugly all night...or hold her as she tries to sleep.  Well this Dad scooped her up, and held her close.  She did what we all do when we want comfort, put her head down and listened for my heart to calm herself down.  After getting her calmed down and almost asleep, I put her in the big bed and she fell asleep on my arm.  This resulted in forcing me to get a good nap too!

Ok the point of this is that after we awoke, the sun was shining in the way only a winter afternoon sun can into out living room.  We both had energy now, and could really enjoy playing with the sunbeams.

Thankfully with my camera at hand, I was able to capture a sunbeam in the eyes of a happy little girl.

-ehw

P.S. X-E1 with 60mm Macro at F4.5, 1/150, ISO 800, -.5 EV.  Minor edits in Aperture using the RAW file.

The camera you have with you

The old saying is that the best camera you have is the one you have with you.  Here is an example in point.

During mass on New Years Eve Kellie was not being bad, just demonstrating she had more energy than the two parents sitting with her in the pew.  She also had more curiosity in everything around her than the next fifteen people you could find in the adjacent pews.  So of course I had to take her out to the narthex for most of mass.  While we were there, she of course found the nativity scene fascinating.  Not having time to get good angles, or my good camera sitting in the pew...I grabbed my iPhone and snapped two frames.  Then like a hawk I switched into protect the church property mode, and became the hover parent.  Meanwhile one of the deacons from the parish sat behind me, laughing with his whole family.  He just looked up and said, I've been there three times myself!

So I would not have an image to share with you of her sweet doting on the nativity set without the small little camera I had with me.  If you want an image you have to have something to capture it.  You have to know the tools you have with you as well...so it should behoove me to learn a little more about the darn thing as well.  I guess I should give it some of the attention I normally reserve for my "good" cameras! It just might pay off when I capture the moment I would otherwise lose to unrecorded history.

-ehw

P.S.  iPhone in Program mode using the standard camera program.  Post processed in Perfect Picture Suite 8 and Nik Define to reduce some noise.

Joy in Keeing the Faith

On Veteran's Day I took my family down to the Georgia Aquarium to enjoy some of the lovely things our country can do.  After participating in two incredible Veteran's Ceremonies the previous two days, this was the reward.

At the end of the day my wife asked me what was my favorite part of the aquarium.  I told my wife the joy in the eyes of the children.  I don't think she understood what I meant.  How could she?  These photos still were locked up in my memory card!  Me?  Well I knew what was there since I had seen it through the lens!

-ehw

P.S.  Fujifilm X-E1.  Polarizer brush in Aperture on the glass.  The JPEG was pretty much straight out of the camera other than that.

A Veteran's Day Salute

Each year this Veteran's Day becomes more emotional for me.  This year I reunited with an Infantry colleague from 20 years ago on a project for our current employer, and  he had sad news to share.  He spent some time going back and looking for soldiers we worked with in our first few years in the Army, and found many of them on the casualty roles in the since 2001.  He shared a name, and I remembered the face and a story.  I myself often did the same thing, and had only found a few of my old soldiers or comrades in the casualty roles.  The number of names my friend found though, staggered me.

Over the weekend my family participated in a Knights of Columbus Patriotic Rosary filled with invocations by our founders on the need to follow the guidance of the Christian God (or as some called him Nature's God).  It was so powerful my ten year old son came home wanting to say that forty five minute rosary every week for our nation.

Yesterday we held a brief Remembrance Ceremony during mass, just seven minutes.  We Knights of Columbus provided an honor guard as the roll of Georgia veterans who lost their lives in the last year blended with taps.  We closed with bagpipes playing as the poem of why remember the fallen from World War I filled the hall.  I barely kept it together as I stood at attention rendering an honorable salute with my sabre.  I know I saw a lot of handkerchiefs out afterwards, so I know it was not just me being sentimental.

What made this even more stinging right now was the insanity I see around me, with national core beliefs being challenged with a fervor that can only be fueled by the great enemy of all mankind.

Sitting in our Supreme Court is a challenge to opening civic meetings with a prayer from New York brought forward by two atheists.  Every meeting of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, the U.S. Congress , Supreme Court and Presidential Inauguration stated with a prayer!  That is over 240 years of prayer invoking God to raise us above narcissistic selves to achieve a higher calling for all of mankind through faith, hope and charitas!  How this even has grounds in the court is a tribute to people not reading the Founding Fathers.  Time after time they found historical examples of leaders thinking they knew the answers, and trying to rewrite natural law to create failed nations.

Can you imagine priests being threatened if they serve their God by offering the sacrifice of mass?  That happened this year!  Practicing Catholics and religious people being forced to pay for abortion!  That happened this year!  these are not alarmist stories.  These happened, documented six ways to Saturday, and twice on Sunday.

So on this day taps meant a lot more to me than every before.  I've seen these evils coming for a long time, and today as they wrap themselves in the law of the land around me I have to question the implications they have on everything I do.

I know a soldier fights on the field of battle for his buddies on his right and left....but what are they enlisting for?  What are they keeping up?  Is it anything that resembles what those intrepid souls stood up for in the previous centuries?  Or I have to ask, was this taps being sounded for a lot more than a few men....but as a warning to the soul of our nation?  I fear the latter was why my tears were so plentiful this year.

-ehw

PS The photo above was scanned from my analog files.  Taken in 1994 in Luxembourg American Cemetery with a Canon Rebel on that thing called film.

Dodo Bird spotted in Alpharetta!

Contrary to most textbooks, the dodo bird does show up from time to time in the wild.  This one wore a mask to disguise itself amongst the busy downtown Alpharetta Canton Street.

For this photo I did a little bit of work in Capture One 7 Perfect Effects.  One thing I've learned is that many, many effects can be done in your primary photo editor.  Programs like Perfect Effects and the Nik products (I own both) can make the process of having fun with your image faster.  Yes there will be some things you can only do in Photoshop, but reality is that for 95% of your work these tools will do just fine.  Yes I did use some one shot HDR work with Perfect Effects for this...as RC Conception says...everything can look better in HDR.

-ehw

PS Fujifilm X-E1 with the old 18-55 again.  The darn thing is just so versatile!