Airline food just doesn't do it for me

I usually can't eat for a few days after traveling. 

Last time I was traveling and after being stuck in the airport for several days all I wanted were uncooked green beans, and when I finally got home thats all I ate. I would just walk to the garden and eat them with my feet in the soil. Mmmmm uncooked green beans. 

So this time when my parents picked me up and handed me a tin full of Whitman's chocolates you can imagine how my stomach felt. 

It was less than impressed.

But here you can follow me as I opened this tin of Whitman's chocolates :)

My family knows me so well :)))

Graduated

Another three months.

It was anticipated.

It began.

It was.

It ended.

 On the way I learned photography,

 my shortcomings

 and I even got a trophy!

Look mom! They spelled my name right :)) 

There was so much more to be had than simple skills with a camera.

and sitting here in my room my heart hurts with all of the things I'm realizing. 

Exibition

Taste of the final product.

The theme for my exhibition was frames. Thrilling eh? :))  I had a center area on the floor and framed it in with  several long boards.  With lots of random wood collected from trash bins and wood piles I hammered and sawed until I had all the other frames you see below. Framing the beauty of God that I had the chance to capture during these short 3 months.

Left side! 

BAM! Heres the front!

Booom! Heres the back!

Wham! Right side coming for you!

Awww Cute quote to tie it all together :)

(The Gypsy) Band Shoot

The Jack Mantis band
^Click this link to go to their page and hear some music^

So while at first I had an almost panic attack on my way to meet my band.

Breath in.

Breath out.

But after praying for the last five minutes of the car ride

 I felt a little more calm.

Until I met them.

Then I had a Leilah freak out.

I was pretty uncomfortable and looked very much like an amateur, but thats exactly what I am.

We all start somewhere. 

Meet Jack Mantis Band.

 If you were all over the Capetonian music scene you would probably know these guys. But since I'm neither musically inclined or a South African, I just showed up to take their photos :)

1950's photo shoot

Our time capsule assignment went as follows

Choose an era.

Take photos.

 Photoshop them to look like they are from that era.

And present them in some way that seems fit to the time period.

I chose the 1950’s and took the photos in a small diner about 30 minutes outside of Cape town

Here are some of my final photos, I’ll post the final project tomorrow hopefully :)

Welcome to the 1950's

Hope I did ya proud Grandma :)

What do the 1950's, a gypsy band, and a product advertisement have in common?

All will soon be part of my photographic collection :)

I worked all weekend on my 1950's shoot and yesterday I started painting and sawing (my favorite part) for the display of the whole thing. Im excited to post the pictures!!

The deal with the "Time capsule" assignment is that we had a selection or eras to shoot in 1800's 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 and 1970.

After finding the most amazing diner in Paarl, where my friend lives, I decided to shoot the swinging 50's. We also have to photoshop our photos to look like they are from that certain era as well. After printing our pictures we have to come up with a creative way to display our photos for the exhibition- I love this part. 

On top of all this I have my band shoot tomorrow! 

If I really was thinking I would have done a Glenn Miller cover band.... 

And we recived some other product assignment I'm not going to think about because my brain will over heat and ill be bed ridden for the rest of school. I'm under the perfect measure of stress right now.

Just enough to make you feel alive.

I hope I make you proud Grandma :)

I'll try to post at least the '50's shoot this week, besides that I dont know because my life has become editing.

In the spirit of things I'll give you a sneak peak of my sweet awesome 1950's photo shoot

Your excited for the rest aren't you?
You can just smell the burgers and fries.
Takes you back eh?

Mint Tea and Self control

Ill take a cup of both please.

Product shot for one of our daily rushes

Today I was annoyed.
At everything everyone said,
Everything everyone did
everything I said and did…
pretty much everything.

Something is up.

Annoyed at myself:
A problem of self realization

Before I came here my friend Amanda and I were talking a lot about “Self-Realization”, about finding out who you are. She was saying how self realization is actually completely against everything God wants for us, because the more we try to find OURSELVES the more we loose Him.
You get a choice.
Go down the dark dreary road to who you are.
Or loose who you are completely and become like Him who is perfect.

I think I’ve been self-realizing. I keep looking in through the murky window of my soul and seeing all this stuff floating around like a public swimming pool that has been left to fend for itself for several months.
The moment we turn our eyes inside ourselves we start down that dark road.
While looking in at our faults and even our good points we completely loose site of the goal.
Here’s where we start veering, with eyes looking at ourselves we just end up wherever.

Its like someone trying to make a sketch copy of a beautiful piece of work, the moment they start looking at what they are doing and not at the model, they could come up with anything. Concentrating on the lines they have drawn and going off from those… no telling what picture they will end up with.
Me, I’ve never been good at art, and thanks to my walk down self realization lane my sketch is totally off.

You can’t fix the problem when you just keep thinking about the problem.
Loose your view of yourself. Start looking at the one who is perfect.


Annoyed at everyone-
An indulgence of attitudes

I don’t know if I can do justice to what I want to explain, so I’m going to steal words from someone much wiser than I, Oswald Chambers. This was conveniently my devotion for today, I hope it makes sense in context of my issues of heart and state of mind.

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt —Psalm 123:3

What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind.

“Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously” (Malachi 2:16).

Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.

Beware of “the cares of this world . . .” (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by “the cares of this world.”

Another thing that distracts us is our passion for vindication. St. Augustine prayed,

“O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.”

Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul’s faith in God. Don’t say, “I must explain myself,” or, “I must get people to understand.” Our Lord never explained anything— He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.

When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.

Daily Rush: Circles

Our daily rush today was simply circles.

But given the broadness of the topic I somehow ended up narrowing it down to 

Wait for it…..

Abandoned circles.

Which mostly just makes me laugh. 

Putting emotion on things that completely don’t need emotion  is necessary at times like these.

Despite my slightly off mood today I think the photos turned out ok., but I really have been feeling uninspired these days. 

Which is weird because I’m totally drinking enough mint tea.

Now It’s time for you to feel with these sad lost circles.

Isn't your heart swelling with emotion?

From crisis to band shoot

Last week they began talking to us about one of our bigger assignments, one that would be shown at our exhibition at the end of school
The dreaded
Band shoot. 
 I realized I should be very wise with time and should find a local band quite efficiently..
So I spent this week freaking out.
I’ve started to notice how bad I am at trusting that things will work out, in fact my first instinct from the get go is “Quick, its already failing! Move! Move!”

So pretty much I wasted so much time and energy, as well as air every time I spoke of how worried I was.
Ect. Ect. Yadda. Yadda.

Sigh.

Well I just phoned my band today-or as we professionals would say- my client,  and they seem so chilled. I couldn’t have asked for a better fit.
If I would have tried to find the quickest answer to my problem I would have ended up with a Screamo Punk accordion band with N’sync influences that wanted to shoot in a 50’s Ice cream parlor. And those jerks would have  made me provided them with all the free double dip cones time would allow.
Ughhh.
I hate you imaginary first answer band.

I reeeally tried to give this one up to God. It’s easy to leave Him out of decisions that don’t seem spiritual...but for more than two reasons I think that’s very sad. But, as I am tired and human, I am only going to give you two of those infinite reasons.
And just because I can, being the one writing the blog and everything I’m going to give you the second reason first… although you could scroll down and read the first one first if you want to.. But you probably didn’t even think of doing that until now.
Jokes on you though  because now your going to read that one first and that one is actually two anyway.

Bam.

Internet power.

…the day is obviously wearing on me.


Reason number one of those infinite reasons it’s sad we leave God out of the small decisions begins now.

2. He is an infinite God who sees both beginning and end. Meaning in every small minute decision He sees the perfect answer, or if you want to argue there is no perfect answer- He sees one that holds great good.
For me that means He sees the band that will work the best with me, or at the very least really well. Where as I only see a time constraint and the first answer band, who will leave me both annoyed and penniless. I could think “This is a stupid thing to ask God about.. He has better things to do than help me find a band that would let me get this project done.” Which leads me to reason number one.

1. If He is a close and personal God, someone we know wants a deep relationship with us, wouldn’t He want to be involved in every detail? Im hoping someday when I’m married my husband doesn’t just want to talk about how much we love one another, all the time. Although those times are valuable, if everyday when we sat down to watch TV he went on about how much his heart beats for mine I can say I would get a little annoyed.

Me-“How was your day hunny?”
Loving Annoying Hubby-“I couldn’t stand being away from the one my heart longs for.”
Me-“..So it wasn’t that great? Well I’m fixing chicken and gravy chips, it should be ready in about 10 minutes”
LAH-“10 minutes without you would be painful, you are my one, my only.”
Me-“Thanks… did you want broccoli with yours? I made some for me but I wasn’t sure if you wanted some too.”
LAH-“I want all you have to offer. I love you.”
Me-“…K… I’m just gonna….go… upstairs for a minute… or so.”

24/7. Although those times ARE crucial, there’s more to a relationship than confessing your love.
It’s the same with God. He is a personal being, who want to be involved! He loves speaking with us about everything, He loves us asking His input. Like a husband would love helping his wife.. Find a band for her photo shoot… God loves helping us too!

Personally I think some of his favorite times of helping us are when we talk to him about the small things. He wants to be included and involved in every moment of our lives.
From crisis to band shoot.

Daily Rush: Contrast

CONTRAST!

I spent the day on Long Street looking for locations to do my band shoot :) (more on that later)

So my mind wasn't totally into the daily rush for the weekend. We swung by a little African market and I got a couple of these shots, not my most interesting entry but it was awesome to get out into the city for the day :)

Daily Rush: Distortion

Our daily rush was distortion.

 I was aggravated at first because I could only think about taking blurry distorted pictures that were unrecognizable... and I didn't want to do that. After talking with a few of my classmates I figured out I was going to shoot "Distortion of the Truth" or "Distortion of reality".

Heres the result of my photos with the combination of the skills we learned in photoshop :)

Despite my negativity I ended up actually really enjoying this topic.

Lesson: Skip a step. Just be more positive from the start.

Fact: Fire makes a nice refreshing drink after a hot day

Fact: South Africa is famed for its magenta fields.

Fact: Due to her size, Becka is actually a better photographer because she can see from a much different view than we can.

Fact: Becka's twin doesn't enjoy photography school as much as she does

Fact: This is why room and board is so expensive at Media Village

Fact: This is the reason I'm always dehydrated.

Fact: We told her not to eat the green ones.

Daily Rush: Flight!

Our daily rush today was "Flight". I had the options of taking pictures of birds or throwing things in the air... After deciding I hated both of these ideas I came up with the story of Conrad, the airplane. :)