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An encounter with Jesus changes us forever.
Growth comes from many encounters with Jesus.
When we have not met Christ or know what He has done for us, we are lost, with out redemption. When we have an encounter with Him and see Him for who He really is, we
have that life changing experience called salvation, our chains are gone, we’ve been set free!
Growth is the continuation of encounters with Him. Every challane we face, every loss or gain are opportunities to see His view of our lives and make steady growth in Him. If we know that God never allows anything to come into our life if we love Him, that is not for our good and for the glory of His Kingdom, we see life’s trials and in a much different way.
Becasue of His amazing love and grace, we can face the hardest of times in the knowledge that His ways are higher than our ways and His ways are better than our ways. That may not relieve all the pain we feel, but it gives us, hope knowing He is in control and is working out a glorious plan that we do not see or understand now.
In my study of NDE’s (Near Death Experiences) one of about a dozen very common experiences among those that get a glimpse of the life to come, is that they say that in the presence of God they finally understand it all, that they have all knowledge and can see how His plan is perfect, and it all makes sense. We cannot understand that here and now and that is why faith is so important, it is the glue that binds us to His eternal promises.
My prayer for you is that you will be filled with His comfort, love and stamina to go on day by day in this world with a hope for your eternal destination.
Blessings,
the pilgrim
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This entry was posted on Monday, February 3rd, 2020 at 1:40 pm
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We’ve been having a spirited interaction about photography and photo art, I would love to hear your thoughts on this image.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 15th, 2020 at 10:51 pm
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I just recently finally got my hands on the new Fujifilm X-Pro 3 in the Duratect Silver color, which to me is more of a Champagne color, but I love it, very classy looking! There are hundreds of Youtube reviews and online reviews that go into every detail and spec. so I won’t do that again, instead I woud like to share about where I see the X-Pro 3 fitting into the Fujifm X Series and how I will use it!
My overall impression, is that it is the best made and most ergonomic of all the rangefinder type cameras so far from Fujifilm. It fits great in my hands and has wonderfully natural feel in use. The “so called” hidden rear LCD that folds down is actually, for me, a nice touch. It is no touble to use when you need it, but it does help you keep your eye to the viewfinder. I set up the front button on the viewfinder lever to turn on playback and I can now shoot, review and continue without taking my eye away from the viewfinder. For waist level street shooting, something I rarely do, you can use the LCD folded down very effectively.
If I don’t do street photography and am no longer a photojournalist/documentarian, how could I like a camera designed mostly for that crowd???? I actually think the X-Pro 3 is a wonderful choice for people, travel, and Americana photography, and would work fine for nature/landscape as well. The X-Pro 3 has the same sensor and processor as the X-T3 and therefore makes identical images! It has some added features that we all hope will come to other bodies via firmware. A very effective HDR setting that delivers very nice and not overdone HDR shots for added dynamic range without looking like, well an HDR shot! Apologies to Jim Begley who is one of the very best HDR guys out there and his stuff does not look like a lot of poorly done HDRs that have given HDR a bad name!!!! The X-Pro 3 also shoots focus bracketing, and allows you to select a focus range to shoot within and has in camera clarity settings, very cool and very effective.
One question I’ve gotten from several friends is that since you have to pull down the rear LCD to do settings is that an inconvenience? No, not really. The X-Pro 3 can be set up to do almost anyhting you want to do wothout ever going into the menus. The Q menu of course can be displayed in the viewfinder, which is the best yet in terms of refresh rate and resolution for Fujifilm! By setting some of the back, top and front buttons to custom settings you can call up any frequently needed menu items up quickly. I found in a few days I could do almost everything with my eye still on the viewfinder!!!
One very nice change is that the self timer can now be set in the menus to stay on until “you” turn it off!!! Thaks you Fujifim, I know it’s a small thing but it ended a long held frustration as I use the self timer a lot for tripod shooting. ,Speaking of tripod shooting, would someone please get us an L Bracket soon!!!!!! Truthfully I don’t think the X-Pro 3 will get a lot of tripod use, I see it as a great hand holding camera!
When doing travel photography, or people work I will use this Lowepro Flipside Sport 10L AW bag to carry it and a selection of single focal length lense that bmath up withit grea! The 16mm f 2.8, 23mm f 2, 35mm f 2, 50mm f 2, 60mm Macro f 2.4 and the 90mm f 2 lenses, all fast and a great fit to the X-Pro 3.
When using the 23mm f 2 or the 23mm f 1.4 on the X-Pro 3 I love the Optical viewfinder, especially when things are happening and I want ot see what is happening outside the frame, this is a great featue of this camera!!!
So my Score is a 9.5 out of 10, Why not a 10?
If Fujifilm had added IBIS, it owuld have been a solid 10, but even without it I am falling in love with this classy, fun to use body that delivers the spectacular image quality we have come to expect from Fujifilm’s X Series cameras!
I bought a Vi Vante Luxury Arctic Fox Sheetline Rope Camera Strap from Amazon and for this body I love it, just adds to the already classy look of the body, plus it’s a very nice strap too!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 15th, 2020 at 5:21 pm
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Above are four illustrations of what you can do with Luminar 4 and their sky replacement Artificial Intelligence! The question is, should you? Let’s talk about that, but first a little history. Many years ago in a galaxy far, far away, sorry about that, just couldn’t help myself. Long ago, in the early years of my career everyone in the nature field shot Kodachome 25. The goal was to shoot images that were as close to reality as possible! Then, Fujifilm introduced a new transparency film called Velvia. It produced slides that had deep rich colors that were far from accurate. While the goal of the moment was to reproduce natural colors, everyone fell in love with it and it became the “new” look. We gladly dumped Kodachrome because, well, we liked the new look, it wasn’t accurate, but the editors loved it, the rest is history.
As photographers we have to decide what we are going to make as our standard or goal with our work. If we are a photo journalists, or scienctific photographers then accuracy and realism is the standard we have to adhere to. If you are an artist trying to make a statement with your work, all bets are off, but it’s rarely that simple.
When I, and many of my friends, got into photography, the goal was to shoot accurate images, as time passed and Velvia came along, then digital, photoshop and well, you know the rest. Old horses like myself and some others I know, were thrown into a new world, one that was not what we came up with. The adjustment has been difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.
I don’t believe that doing post processing, even replacing skies is a sin, wrong or improper! Depending on how you learned this craft, it may or may not be and easy choice. As a photography instructor, it is important that I can be clear on how to deal with theses new possibilities when doing image reviews. Let me address that now. My first personal rule for all my own work and the work I review is that the photographer should simply tell what they have done if major changes to the image have taken place. For instance if the post work is levels, maybe curves, saturation and sharpening then I don’t think that needs to be mentioned. If the changes include Sky replacements, as the illustraitons above, then I think it would be approriate to mention that.
I think all photographers have the right and opportunity to do as they wish with their images. You will get no judgement from me. If an image works, it works. If you can live with your post then so can I. We do this for fun, let’s keep it that way!
Blessings,
the pigrim
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 10th, 2020 at 7:50 pm
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