Monthly Archives: March 2012

 

Well I’m finally off the road and in for the night!  Started at 7:00 a.m. in Corbin, Kentucky and arrived in St. Augustine at around 6:00 p.m. around 700 miles.  Not a bad day at all, I once drove 1,100 miles in a single day!!  I was much younger and a good deal more foolish!  I love being on the road, and I hate being on the road.  The good part of today was a full day in the car alone to just think, the best part was seeing my family in Florida when I stopped for the night, another 8 hours of driving tomorrow!  The worst part was that with every mile that rolled up on the odometer, I was another mile further away from Sherelene, my bride!

 

Working at what I do means travel, and travel means being away from family, and being alone, but then even in the alone times God can teach me, and get my full attention!  Even travel days lead to photographic opportunities, here are some of my favorite images of the day!

 

 

Dinner with my family after a long day!  Front, Hannah, Ramona, and Ben, my two grandchildren and their foreign exchange student, and now part of our family!  Back, Diane and Scott Fortney, my oldest son and his wife, my daughter-in-law, more like a real daughter!  I’m really proud of my son, he is a wonderful father, husband and man.  A miracle considering that I helped rear him!  It shows Sherelene’s parenting powers, and God’s grace…….

 

 

I call this one “Beautiful Hands….”  It’s actually a self portrait done by my granddaughter Hannah, she is a very talented young lady!  One of her many talents is a great eye!

 

I did a rest stop at the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum, (I always rest stop there!), shot this nose art that was new, pretty cool!

 

Before I left home I saw this old garage scene on a local road, and stopped to do a quick HDR with my iPhone!

 

I promise more as the week goes on, thanks for your prayers, I’m this far safely, don’t stop!!

 

In Him,

 

the pilgrim

 

I need to apologize, I have been a sports junkie, and i’m ashamed of my self, I’m also ashamed of sports!  Sports were designed to be a pleasant past time that we could enjoy and take our minds off the more serious things in life like working and raising families! With every passing decade sports has become a bigger and bigger business.  In the U.S. alone we have ESPN, Fox Sports, ABC Sports, CBS Sports, and now NBC has started a 24 hour sports channel.  And what is the result of all this?  When you have to talk about sports 24 hours a day 365 days a year, you quickly, very quickly, run out of relevant things to report on.  So, you start to obsesses over the irrelevant ad-nauseam.  The latest major 24 hour news cycle sport story has been the Peyton Manning, next team up story.

 

Here is the quick rundown for those that don’t know or care (God bless you for not caring)!  Peyton Manning was and All American quarterback from Tennessee who went to the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL.   He has had a stellar career having been MVP, (most valuable player), several times.   Many consider him among the two or three greatest quarterbacks of all time in the NFL.  By all accounts he is a good guy, family man, respected by his peers both on and off the field. Last season for the first time in his career he missed an entire season due to injury and surgeries to repair his neck.  In  his absence the Colts collapsed into the worst team in the NFL.  The Colts, having so much respect for him, and all he had done for the team over the past decade, said that he was their man and they would stick by him!  Nope, remember this in 21st century professional sports, they dumped him for the latest, greatest kid out of college.  The big story of the off season has been where would he go??!!  As he shopped his talents around to a number of other teams, at the thought of getting as QB of this level of talent fell all over themselves trying to entice him to join their teams, at the same time sending the message to their current (formerly loved QBs), you are yesterday news. Now every team that pursued him, but didn’t get him, have to explain to their remaining quarterbacks that they still want them and think they can win with them, even though they wanted the Peyton badly!!!!

 

I’m sick of it, 24 hours a day trashing players that ere yesterday’s heros, criticizing every decision, second guessing everyone’s value.  Nitpicking every players personality, all the while,  everyone in the business is making high six figure incomes.  It just makes me sick to my stomach.  I know sports was never as pure as the driven snow, but it once was something we took a lot less seriously.  I was talking with my brother Homer at the Old Car City workshop a couple of weekends ago about this very subject, we have both been big University of Kentucky fans for years, and our beloved Wildcats are advancing through the NCAA tournament with ease, we agree though, that even though we would love to see them win it all, we will be fine the day after our first loss. In the big picture,  it’s just not that important.  (I will be hunted to the death now by fellow Kentucky fans for even breathing such harassey!)

 

The movie that I talked about a few posts back, 7 Days in Utopia, puts it all in perspective.  I guess it’s not too surprising that ESPN has not raved about that film!!  It’s kind of the anti-ESPN film!  Look, I admit to being a sports addict, but I’m going to try and get some help, I’m going to try and remember that no matter what others make it, it’s just going to be recreational for me, I’m going to care about who wins every game,  about as much as I care whether it’s sunny tomorrow.  I wish Peyton Manning all the best, and I hope the teams that trashed their current quarterbacks can make amends and work things out with them.  I can’t really hope that the Indianapolis Colts have great success with their new draft choice,  after they dropped Peyton like a hot potato.  The bottom line is this, it’s just as game!

 

Maybe we should be thinking more about Eternal Trophies!!!!!!

 

game 1 |gām|noun1 a form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

 

 

the pilgrim

 

 

Definition of the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NCAA, NHL, and all other sports organizations;   a place where years of exceptional performance are rewarded with near total amnesia when the next great player or team comes along…….  Interestingly enough the image above is of Donovan McNabb long time great player for the Philadelphia Eagles, once consider one of the NFL greats traded to the Washington Redskins when he failed to take the Eagles to the Super Bowl, he was cut after one season with the Redskin.  The Eagles, by the way, signed Michael Vic to a record breaking contract  only to see him have a performance melt down the following season.  See any patterns here?!

 

Note:  I will be leaving at O:Dark Thirty headed out on a three week swing through the south.  Florida Camera Council, then Sun n’ Fun air show, and finally the Masters Golf Tournament.  I will continue to post, but some posts may be in the evenings after long travel days!

 

 

 

As we approach Easter you will see many illustrations of the cross.  The cross is the central focal point of the life of Christ, it was that final great sacrifice that gives us such hope.  My pastor, Tim Thompson, delivered a wonderful sermon yesterday about the power of the cross, it was well worth sharing with you.

 

The power of the cross;

 

1.  Can Save a man.  If we believe and accept Christ Jesus, we can be saved from our sin.  We can have the promise of eternal life with Him.  He took on Himself the punishment for our sin, we can be free at last.

 

2.  It can Change a man. We can me totally changed by the salvation that comes through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection for us.

 

3.  It can give a man Purpose.  When we accept His death for us, we can be renewed in our purpose for living.  Fully restored to Him we can have a higher purpose in living, one not based on satisfying self, but honoring and serving Him.

 

4.  It can give a man a Destiny.  Having a destiny is greater by far than just living out your life.  It is a defined, guaranteed, purpose.

 

The Cross of Christ splits the world into something, pitiful or powerful,  something of foolishness or of salvation. It is your decision to make, will your life lead to purpose and destiny or loss and hopelessness?  You don’t have to be locked out of His blessings!

 

the pilgrim

 

 

I never said I wasn’t a gear geek, I sure love lenses and cameras, and all those cool nylon bags, and accessories!  But the the new must have tool for me is the iPad 3 better known as simply the New iPad!  Why?  The screen my friend, the screen,  it now is much faster and has that incredible Retina display screen from the iPhone 4s.  Whenever you want or need to show your work to someone, their is now, no better way than with this new HD screened wonder.  I have to say, my images never looked better, and that’s a good thing!!!

 

Two years ago, at about this same time,  I was headed to Sun n’ Fun Air show in Lakeland Florida, Scott Kelby met me a the show to ride around in a golf cart and shoot some early morning images.  We had a blast.  I had already decided that the iPad was just too much money for me, and something I didn’t really need, until, Scott showed me his!  I bought my first iPad at the Apple Store in Brandon, Florida that afternoon!  For the last two years it has been my constant companion and been invaluable to show illustrations to clients and friends.  Not to mention having 27 gigs of my favorite music, usually 10 or 12 feature length films for watching on airplanes, and in the hotel at night.  I can watch TV shows I’ve missed on Hulu Plus and sports on the ESPN App.  Maplets gives me instant high res maps of everywhere I go,  and Google Earth can show me my exact location!  I can surf the web for information, and my grand kids love Angry Birds!  I even carry about 50 of my favorite books and audio books along for the ride wherever I go.  A year ago I bought my wife the iPad2 but decided to wait for the chance the  newest one would have the higher resolution screen, good decision!

 

Another great feature is that now iPhoto in a very powerful form is available for the New iPad.  Whether you download your images grom your Nikon or  iPhone, the processing power of this App is amazing, lots of fun to play with and yields pretty incredible results, and the price is very un-Photoshop like, $4.99.    Yep,  five bucks!

 

Seriously, we live and work in a visual world and this is truly a tool that can serve a number of needs, it now even contains a pretty decent 5 megapixel camera and shoots 1080p  video.  I bought the 64 gig model with wifi, but not 4G, I always have a Verizon Mifi card with me anyway.  All these new tools make the practice of photography even more fun, and hey,  a little fun is never a bad thing!

 

Have a great weekend!

 

the pilgrim

 

*Photo note, yes the image at the top is from Apples website, I just added my image from Old Car City!  The shots below also illustrate the new iPad as well, also from the Apple site.