Recent Posts
11 years, 10 months ago 8

Sorry guys, I have been in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the last couple of days testing the D800 as a Landscape camera, and I’ve been shooting from daylight to dark both days and the wireless connection here has been awful even if I had the energy to write anything!!  I met up with a photography friend, Eric Harmon and we have been giving the D800 a real workout. Nikon has advertised the D800 as a landscape camera among it’s other uses, and since that is one of my loves, I really have been anxious to see just how well it would perform on subjects I very familiar with.  I’ve been on the road constantly and will be out traveling for Nikon all but three days in June so I felt like late spring in the Smokies might be the best option.  I will not go on and on about the camera, I’ve done that already!  I will say that it has proven to be a real joy to use in field work.  I will let the images tell you the rest!  Needless to say this is one incredible picture making machine!

 

 

 

O.K. I haven’t died, but I may have been hanging around heaven for a couple of days!

 

the pilgrim

11 years, 10 months ago 1

Over the next week and a half I will have several opportunities to teach, and learn.  I always find it amusing that participants at workshops and students have such a high expectation in teaching sessions and seldom realize how much we learn from them.  Learning truly is a two way street.  All participants enter with a full bag of experiences, the to success for everyone involved is dependent on how much we are willing to dump out of our bag onto the table.  If we go “all in” we can get the maximum benefit from the experience, everything we hold back, blocks off something we could learn.   If learning truly is to be a two way street, you can’t shut down one lane!

 

Our relationship with the Lord is much the same, we can’t sit back and wait for Him to do everything, of course He can, but I believe He wants us, “all in!”  What ever you do in life, have enough passion for it, to go all the way!

 

the pilgrim

 

 

11 years, 10 months ago 3

Forty three years ago I started on a journey struggling and striving for a destination of my own choosing.  I thought I knew what I wanted, and where I hoped I would be  now.  I didn’t end up there, I ended up here.  If I based my happiness, my peace and my joy on what I had dreamed for myself, I would be desperately depressed, but I’m not!!!  I’m filled with  joy and a peace that passes understanding.  I feel incredibly fulfilled.  I didn’t know what was best for me, but thankfully God does and did!

 

The world tells us that we need to be successful, famous, admired, rich, and oh yes, attractive too!  What a set up!  My father once told me to do what you love, and everything will follow. The enemy would like us to buy the first set of desires.  I would love to tell you that I came to my senses and changed my desires, but that is not exactly how it happened.  Over time, God worked in a lot of ways to help me to see that the path I had hoped for was not the best path after all.  From the moment  I started to trust Him the more He opened my eyes!  So I’ve arrived at exactly where He wants me to be.  So it didn’t end with me being successful, admired, rich, or attractive, just gloriously content!

 

You didn’t ask, but may I offer some advice?  Choose Him!

 

the pilgrim

 

11 years, 10 months ago 3

Every Memorial Day I slip off and watch the last 15 minutes of a great film., Saving Private Ryan.  If you haven’t seen it in a while in the last chapter the character played by Tom Hanks, Lt. John Miller, is shot and dies on a bridge in Germany.  As he is talking to Private Ryan who his men have saved,  many giving their own lives to send him home to his family, he pulls him close and whispers “James, earn this, earn it.”  It transitions to Private Ryan as an old man viewing the graves of his fallen comrades, he speaks to the grave of his fallen savior, John H. Miller, “to be honest with you I wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming back here, every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I’ve tried to live my life the best that I could, I hope that was enough, I hope that at least in your eyes I’ve  earned what all of you have done for me.”

 

In life we must earn much, with our sacrifice and call to duty, our duty as a husband, a father, and for me now, a grandfather.  Our duty as an American. In the spiritual realm we need not earn our salvation, in fact we never could, the pit is so deep and dark that nothing we could ever do would lift us out of that miry clay.  But Jesus did it all when he gave His life for us.  We can never thank Him enough, and all He asks is that we will give Him our lives so that He can make them more complete and blessed than we could ever do ourselves.

 

Have a blessed Memorial Day,

 

the pilgrim