Monthly Archives: January 2012

 

I shared yesterday about a chance, (actually a God planned),  encounter with some people in the Sky Room on my way home from New Orleans.  In the conversation the older of the two gentlemen ask me a question that has resurfaced continuously since it was asked,  “What do you want in your future?”   I couldn’t stop thinking about that question.  The more I mulled it over in my mind the more I realized what an important question it was.  I decided to pray about it, consider it, and come up with a list of what I really want in my future!  I even shocked myself!  I would pose the same question to you,  “What do you really want in your life?”  Here is what I came up with in order of importance;

 

1.  I want to find myself closer and closer to my Lord Jesus Christ every day.  I want to develop a deeper relationship with Him that makes me more of what He wants me to be.  I want my closeness to Him to spill over into the world around me.  I pray that people I meet and get to know,  want to get to know Him because of what they see He has done in my life.  I want Him to get all the glory.

 

2.  I want to see others the way God sees them.  I want to feel the compassion, and love my Heavenly Father feels for others.  I want any judgement I may feel to fade away and be replaced with the same love, and gentleness He has offered me.

 

3.  I would like to wake up more mornings next to Sherelene!  I travel way too much, and I miss my bride.  I want to not only spend more time with her, but I want to be a better husband.  I want to consider her feelings, needs, and wishes more carefully, and work harder at being the kind of man she needs in her life.  I want her to know how very much I appreciate all her sacrifices and hard work, love and devotion.  She deserves the very best husband I can be, and more.

 

4.  I want to spend more time with my children, grandchildren and brother Homer.  I love my family, and this life keeps me too busy and too separated from all of them.  I love the time I do get to spend with them, I want more of that in my life.  The Christmas season reminded me again of just how much joy they bring into my life, how very proud I am of each of them!

 

5.  I love being with my friends, and sharing our love for photography and our faith.  I want to have more time spent in their company. When I’m feeling tired, stressed, or over loaded,  all I have to do is close my eyes and go back to New England, or Shaker Village, Savannah, or Arches/Canyonlands and remember all the great times with my brother Homer,  Jim Begley, Chuck Summers, Richard Small, Snake Barrett, Chuck Barnes, Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, Jim & Sue Haverstock, Raymnond Jabola, Ricky Skaggs, Tim Isaacson, Susan S., Lynn R.,  Larry W., the Obers, and I better stop now before someone gets their feelings hurt.  I truly love the folks that share and learn with us at the workshops, I am so looking forward to the ones to come and more time with my buddies, brothers, and sisters!

 

6.  I want to have more success at taking care of myself.  I need to exercise more, eat better, and get enough rest.  I’m totally at fault for not doing a better job at that, I need to put a better plan into action!  God has miraculously kept me on this side of the grass with little help from me!

 

7. I want to be the kind of employee at Nikon, that when it is time to leave, they will genuinely be sorry to see me go.  I appreciate my job and the people I work with, I want to make them glad they hired me ten years ago!  I know we do important work and I appreciate getting to be a part of this team.

 

8.  I want to do more Kelby Training Classes.  Nikon has asked me to not teach anymore, until after I retire.  They see it as a conflict with Nikon School and other classes Nikon offers. I have really enjoyed doing them and look forward, in the not to distant future, to resuming.  I still have one unreleased class that will be coming up this year, after that I hope to continue adding to that list of classes well into the future!

 

9.  I want to become a better teacher.  I love photography and I really enjoy sharing that love, and my experience, with other photographers, I want to work hard to get better and better at it.

 

10.  I  don’t ever want to loose my enthusiasm and love for the craft and art of photography.  It is a wonderful thing to get to this age and still be so excited about photography.  I hope I stay this motivated until the moment I go home to be with Him!

 

* Bonus one:  11.  I want to get better and better as a photographer.  Not better than any other individual, just increase my skill, vision, and joy!

 

So there are my top ten + 1!  I know the more I think about the more things will be added.  Give it a try, start thinking about what really matters the most to you and make your own list!

 

Be blessed,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

Got into Knoxville, at midnight, an hour late, stayed over to drive home this morning, Delta, gotta love em’……  I’m not going to rant today, too much more important to touch on anyway.

 

I’m teaching a webinar next week for some friends and associates at the Bio Communications organization.  The title of the class is “Taking a Break from Reality!”  The class will encourage those that can get by the emotional trauma to try doing some interesting things with their photography, HDR, filters, radical color and tone changes and Black and White conversions of all kinds.  I have a good friend who is an exceptional photographer and he is a very traditional shooter.  He thinks this stuff is awful, I won’t repeat the word he uses, but trust me, he makes no bones about how wrong he thinks it is to do all this stuff to a straight image.  It’s interesting because his images are very artistic, but just without manipulation.  My favorite line to him is, “if you don’t like it, don’t do it!”

 

Everyone has their own personal philosophy about what is fair game in photography, I’m sure some people go way beyond what I can allow myself to do, and some won’t leave the “photographic” straight and narrow, my a millimeter!  I enjoy being able to do things with my photography that I was never able to do in the past.  In the history of photography all mediums, glass plates, film, and now digital have all had limits in terms of the range of light they could capture and display.  Then along came HDR and we were able to capture a far greater range of shadow to highlight detail.  It has opened up exciting new worlds, if you are open to it??!!

 

Walking closely with our Lord will also opens up an infinite world of joy you have never experienced before.  To receive all that God wants to give you, you have to be open to it, prepare for it, and expect it!  Simple, stay in His word, stay on your knees before Him, and pray constantly for Him to intervene in your lives, and the lives of others!  It is an adventure you want to have happen to you!  Please trust me on this one!

 

Last night in the Sky Room in New Orleans, (Delta’s lounge for frequent flyers,) I got a diet coke, and found a quite corner in hopes of just letting the day start to fade away and relax.  I saw Bill Frakes, a dear friend, and acclaimed Sports Illustrated photographer/videographer, across the room, so I got up and went over, gave him a hug, and we chatted for a few minutes, then I started back to my nice quite corner.   As I was walking back two business men in animated conversation walked into my little corner of the room and took the two seats opposite of where I was planning to relax.  I looked around and the room was pretty full so moving would not have helped.  I’m glad I didn’t.  I sat down and quietly went back to sipping the diet coke, when one of the men asked me a question.  As you can imagine, a conversation ensued, and I soon learned they were top executives of a very prominent photography company that I often work with.  I shared some images with them on the iPad, and then gave my usual short witness.  They both lit up they were dedicated believers as well.  This led to an even deeper conversation now on faith and out Lord.  It was a marvelous time, I think God knows when we need that kind of fellowship and He served up a great one.  One of the gentlemen had to leave to catch his flight and the other young man and I continued to talk, and it got even better.  Soon a well known photographer,  who I know, mostly by reputation, (and  he is an exceptional shooter), who had been overhearing the conversation, joined us and the good times continued to roll.

 

He was on the same flight with me to Atlanta, so we continued to talk as we walked to the gate.  Fast forward to this morning.  Having gotten into Knoxville in the early morning hours, I decided to sleep in this morning, about 8:30 a.m. my wife called and it awoke me, but it was time to get up and get going anyway.  Laying in bed I started my day the way I always do, I prayed and thanked God for;  Being safely back, close to, home.  I thanked Him for the great show, the not to difficult travel, and especially the wonderful company of my fellow Nikon friends, and the new friends I made in the Sky Room last night and as a bonus seeing an old friend on the plane to Atlanta, and making some more new friends all of who were up lifting to visit with.

 

Yes this is an advertisement!  Yes, I want you to have such a fulfilling life!  And yes, I’m selling something….  Jesus!  I want everyone I meet to get to know Him, to become very, very close to Him.  I want everyone to know the incredible joy of having Him direct your path.  It is an awesome thing to see events unfold right in front of your eyes, because they are the will of God!!!

 

We have an Awesome God,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

Today is my favorite day of any trip, I’m flying home!  God has given me a wonderful gift, I love what comes next!  If I am having to leave home, He gives me anticipation for the trip that is starting.  When the trip is ending He gives me anticipation and joy that I’m going home.  You may be saying Duh!  Actually if what you do for a living requires you to be in the road over 200 days a year, that is a valuable asset!

 

I spent the first dozen years of my career with jobs like most people have, worked all day, was home every night and weekend.  Then I took a job that had a fair amount of travel, maybe 60 or more nights a year were spent away from home.  It was an adjustment, but it went fine.  A few years after that I started a workshop company and the real travel began, approximately 160 to 200 night a year.  It was at that point that Sherelene and I had to really adjust to being apart.    We both learned that even though we missed each other, we couldn’t dwell on it, night and day, it just made us miserable. We had to live in the moment.  If I was in Olympic National Park teaching a workshop, I had to concentrate on my students and enjoy the great opportunity God had given me,  Sherelene had to do the same thing back at the hospital where she was a Nurse Practitioner.   We prayed for each other and talked each day by phone (now we text, can’t believe, I’ve gotten that modern!!  We still talk too!).  Anyway I don’t love her any less, I probably love her even more, but I have work to do, she has work to do, and we “just do it!”

 

What won’t work is to simply not think of each other at all!  That won’t work with God either.  A relationship is on going, it’s constant, and to keep it alive and healthy, it has to include constant communication.  Paul said, “pray constantly.”  He wasn’t kidding!  I find that to keep my relationship with Christ vital, I have to be constantly taking my petitions and concerns to Him in prayer.  I don’t have to get on my knees in an airport terminal or behind the counter at a show to pray.  I simply talk to Him in my mind.  I’m sure everyone is different, but I don’t pray “King James” prayers anymore.  I don’t say, “Our Father who art in Heaven…..”  (of course I do still recite the Lord’s prayer), but in moment to moment communication with Him, I think and speak my prayers in a much more natural way.  I embraced a friend yesterday who was sharing a very touching story relating to his family and how God miraculously intervened, as his eyes filled with tears, I hugged him.  I said, in my spirit,  “Father thank you so much for making yourself so real to my brother, bless him and keep him close to you! I love Him so much I know he is precious to you!”   Simple words, profound request!  I believe that God hears our prayers, real time, right now, and He always answers them.  It may not be the answer we were expecting and it might not be apparent immediately that it was answered, but I know the moment we utter a prayer, God puts things in motion.  One wonderful revelation is that He never makes a mistake!  Whatever He does in response to our prayers is “always” the right answer, and if we wait, He will show us why it was in His good time!

 

So this morning as I finish packing, (another of my favorite activities), I will be thanking Him for a great show, for my wonderful Nikon friends, for the people I’ve gotten to meet and visit with, the old friends that work for other companies that I’ve enjoyed seeing again.  I will thank Him for my close, dear friends that support me in prayer, and love me in spite of my being who I am!  I will thank Him that we have some exciting new products that will make my job a pleasure for months and years to come.  I will thank Him for allowing me to love photography so much, for getting paid to do something I still do when I have a day off!   I will thank Him for protecting Sherelene while I’ve been gone, for watching over my family, for giving me things in the future to look forward to, and for knowing, when I go home to be with Him, I will hug Him, and this time the tears will be in my eyes!  Oh how I look forward to that embrace!  I don’t deserve it, but like everything else in this life it will be a gift from Him!

 

Be blessed,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

I had a great day yesterday!  First I know this bog is not about me and technically this entry is not about me.  I would hope that you would understand that what I’m going to say for the next few paragraphs is in reality, praising God!  Please allow me to set this up?

 

As a Tech Rep for Nikon one of the things I’m assigned to do is go to big shows like, Imaging USA (where I am now), Photo Plus in New York, The WPPI Show (mostly wedding photographers), CES (Consumer Electronics Show), and PMA (Photographic Marketing Association).  The purpose  for all these shows is to display and answer questions (marketing) about all our products, especially new ones.  this is only the second show, CES was two days ago in Las Vegas, that we’ve shown the D4 to the public, it has been really busy.

 

At these shows you generally stand at a booth, behind a glass case, and pull out what ever camera or lens the customer want to see, handle, and ask questions about.  If you took all the questions from all the shows and wrote them on a legal pad, it would end up being essentially the same ten or fifteen questions.  Sometimes it can get pretty tiring.  Most folks that do this for a living dread doing the shows and are so happy when the show is over and they are on the plane home.  Some of my friends, o.k. most of my friends think this is all so glamourous, but it’s not, however this show has been really different.

 

On the way down to New Orleans, on the plane, I closed my eyes and prayed a long prayer.  I prayed for Sherelene’s safety while I was gone, I prayed for my family and my grandchildren, I prayed that I would hold up physically for the show, keep my voice, feel good and do a  good job.  Then I asked God to give me the strength, wisdom, and concern for our customers to really reach out and help them as best I can.  I also asked God if He would send some believers to me to fellowship with.  I also prayed for my fellow Nikon folks.

 

I had a great day because God truly answered my prayer!!!   Sherelene and the family are doing great, I’m feeling physically better than any show I can remember in the last four or five years.  I’ve had a great group of customers with relevant questions and it has led to some very good conversations that I think have really helped them.  But most of all, I’ve had a pretty good number of people walk up and tell me they read the blog!!    They kindly expressed their joy with being able to come here for His word and His inspiration.  A number of people have engaged me in truly wonderful spiritual conversations and a lot of joy has been raised up in me.  This has been such a great show!  People are excited about our new products, are primed for future ones, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

 

Now how can this entry not be about me????!!!!  Actually, it is about His faithfulness.  God wants us to be filled with His joy, and His presence.  He also wants us to be ready, willing, and able to reach out to others with His love!  He can make all of that possible, by giving us the strength, wisdom, knowledge, compassion, and “opportunity” to serve Him.  How do we serve Him?  By showing how joyful it can be to be His servant.  Believe it or not, that greatly encourages people.  I had more than one person or couple, say before they walked away from the counter, “Thank you so much, I not only learned what I wanted to know, but I just feel great!”  Folks, that is God.  Only our loving Heavenly Father can turn talking about a new camera or lens into a spiritual, uplifting, experience.

 

Please let me challenge you to pray, this morning, that God will give you a day filled with joyfully serving Him, and buckle your seat belt, it will be a great and exciting day!   I believe that is one prayer He loves to answer!

 

I bet you can guess what I prayed for this morning!

 

In Him,

 

the pilgrim