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. :)

Daily Rush Harmony

The difference of shooting with God and trying to go out shooting on your own is nearly ridiculous.Sure I can struggle through and manage a few shots but in the end I dont enjoy it and my work is..well.. sub par. Being in harmony and in sync with the one who created your very eye is key if you want to see the world as anything more than grey. Today being completely not in the mood to take pictures at all I slept until I almost lost sunlight. But out there in the field as the sun was falling slowly I really felt a peace with Him. Capturing photos of the harmony He has created. 

District 6, Waterfront Outing

Our second "Field trip" into the city.

For Love of Country- Assignment

The assignment was to take one photo and write three stories from it  a narrative, a news story and a creative piece. The catch is, somehow it all has to revolve around the theme "Explosion" in some way.
Here is my photo

For Love of Country

Here is my narrative piece :) Its corney.. I know.

For Love of Country

I tried to remember what life was like before the war.

Was anyone really alive before this?

Before the war everyone minded their own lives, the only thing the neighborhood seemed to do together was tune into Hymen Brown’s “Radio Mystery Theatre” at seven o’clock. Dials turning over in sync, that was our idea of community. But now there’s this.

Every girl is everybody’s daughter, every boy is everyone’s son. Ma and Aunt Nessa work downtown at the seams factory for hours sowing uniforms. Ma tells me she prays over each stitch, praying safety over our boys. If Pa was still here he’d be so proud of how his wife is taken up after him. Joining in the fight. 

Ma didn’t want me to but I started working in the steel mill down on Dale Hollow. Mostly it’s just fixin in nuts and bolts in the factory line, but I know the boys need me to help piece together the arms that will fight for our freedom. I wanna be like Mama and pray over each bolt and screw, but halfway through my shift my hands are aching so badly it’s easy to forget. Don’t think I’m complaining neither, I love the dull ache I get from a full days work. It might not be blood, but I know I’m giving something of myself for this land.

We all are.

Flags hang from every window sill like the houses were designed that way. When those bombs went off in Pearl Harbor an explosion shook our entire country. Red shot out like fire, blue like sparks and dust, and white like smoke. 

We were bombed as well. We fell victim with our brothers, with our fathers, with our sons. When the smoke cleared we simply stood.

United by stars.

Bound together by stripes.

Off Center

Off center.


God lead me to share this as my devotion and now after praying I'm posting it up here for all the people of the world to see :))


It all started a few weeks ago.
I just felt so disconnect from God so very distant in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
This feeling was accompanied by two dreams, nightmares I guess.
Both dreams dealt with the same concept and went a little something like this:
I married someone I didn’t love and was appalled by them. I didn’t want to be alone so I started my life with someone who repulsed me. In the second dream I ran away from this person and eventually found someone I truly did love… but because I was already married I couldn’t be with them. My question in both dreams was- Why hadn’t I waited??
During this time God started showing me contrasts quiet heavily.
In between both of my dreams I started reading Song of Solomon, and God started drawing me a picture of His all encompassing love


Song of Solomon 8:6-7
⁶Set me as a seal upon your heart,
   as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
   jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
   the very flame of the LORD.
⁷Many waters cannot quench love,
   neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
   all the wealth of his house,
   he would be utterly despised.




The day after my second dream my friend took me to church with her and her family, there God revealed to me so clearly what the dreams meant.  In the dreams my first husband that I didn’t love was the world. I had married the world. When I heard this I burst into tears.


And much like God, that morning I had spent my time reading the book of Hosea, paralleling Song of Solomon just a few days before.  This is the verse God highlighted to me
Hosea 2:5-13


⁵For their mother has played the whore;
   she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, 'I will go after my lovers,
   who give me my bread and my water,
   my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'
⁶Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
   and I will build a wall against her,
   so that she cannot find her paths.
⁷She shall pursue her lovers
   but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
   but shall not find them.
 Then she shall say,
   'I will go and return to my first husband,
   for it was better for me then than now.'
⁸And she did not know
   that it was I who gave her
    the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
    which they used for Baal.
⁹Therefore I will take back
   my grain in its time,
   and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
   which were to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰Now I will uncover her lewdness
   in the sight of her lovers,
   and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
¹¹ And I will put an end to all her mirth,
   her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
   and all her appointed feasts.
¹²And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
    of which she said,
'These are my wages,
   which my lovers have given me.'
I will make them a forest,
    and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
¹³And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals
   when she burned offerings to them
and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,
   and went after her lovers
   and forgot me, declares the LORD.


God showed me my response to His words to me
Hosea 6:1-6
¹"Come, let us return to the LORD;
   for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
   he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
²After two days he will revive us;
   on the third day he will raise us up,
   that we may live before him.
³ Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
    his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
   as the spring rains that water the earth."
 ⁴What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
   What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
   like the dew that goes early away.
⁵Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
   I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
   and my judgment goes forth as the light.
⁶For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.


Revelation 2:2-4
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring for my name's sake and you have not grow weary. But this is have against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.


What good is any of this if I’ve lost the one I’ve truly loved ? If I’ve abandoned my first love?
For me it wasn’t that I’d had other lovers, it was the fact that I hadn’t waited for the one I belonged to. I’d married the world when I thought there was nothing to wait for.


The cost of the one I had married
Hosea 2:5-13 ( written above)


The beauty of the one who is waiting
Ezekiel 36:26-31


²⁶And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will put my Spirit within you,and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. ²⁸You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.²⁹And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. ³⁰ I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. ³¹Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.


Have you really given Him your whole heart? Or like me have you married the world  and are only offering Him what’s left? Like Hosea’s wife He will begin to take away bits of ourselves, the good we think our other lovers give us, to draw us back to him. 
He is faithful and He is jealous. He won’t accept our cheating. He is a jealous lover demanding everything.
Ask  God
Am I like Hosea’s wife?
Do you really have all of me?

Psalms 6

We had an open Daily rush today- 10 shots of anything we wanted. I felt for some reason God pressing me to do this Psalm He used a few months back that really sits heavy with me. I had done something in disobedience and I knew it, maybe it would seem small to anyone else, but to whom much is given much is required... and I've been given so much of Him. I reached my end and was literally crying out to the Lord, weeping like I don't think I ever have in my entire life. I was fighting with God, wrestling with Him like Jacob. He showed me Psalm 6 through it all. Showing me how He doesn't just want me when I'm altogether  and a good Christian girl. He wants my anger, He wants my sadness. He wants me to be raw and real with Him. David was so real and true with God. So much so in fact I think we over-look Psalms like this because we don't understand how he could speak to God this way. That night I cried out to God nearly these same words and afterward he showed me how a man after His own heart had done so too.
God wants us to be real with Him.

Psalm 6