WorshipFest ‘09

This year WorshipFest (an annual worship festival put on by 6:22 Ministries) will be held at Open Door Ministries on August 7-8, 09. Friday 7pm until … and Saturday 12pm until … The feature artist will be Jonathan David Helser, Brandon Willett, Scott Hobbs, and 6:22.I can not convey how excited I am … these musician truly follow after Gods heart and worshiping with them is just amazing.

There are three primary purposes for this event – unity, creativity and life-long impact:

Our goal is to draw many diverse students together from our region. Even though we are meeting at a church, we are not promoting one church or denomination. This event is about the body of Christ and the kingdom of God! (John 17:20-21, Psalms 133:1) Although aimed at students, all are welcome regardless of age, race or church affiliation.

We hope to see students step into freedom as they begin to worship God in new and creative ways. Along with varying creative musical styles, there are other “instruments” – our bodies for dancing, paint brushes for art, pens and pencils to write, our voices to sing and shout, and more! (Exodus 31:1-5) There will be Saturday afternoon workshops especially helpful in experimenting in new ways to worship God.

The few days spent together is only the beginning. Worshipfest will only make a difference if it is followed by a lifestyle of worship. (Romans 12:1) The music and messages are geared so that this event will fan a flame of passion for Jesus Christ that burns in students for the rest of their lives impacting their youth groups, school and families.

Also this is a FREE event!

Here’s a little that went on last year -

The Edge, a band for The Edge Ministries out of Goldsboro, played at 12am. Since our official photographer needed to sleep some I covered for him from 12am to 8am.

So here is 12am to 2am Saturday, August 9, 2008:

Sights Beyond

(This is an old draft that I am just now posting)

Recently I went to Florida for a close friends wedding. Afterward I went down to Orlando for about a week.

While in Orlando I stayed at a YWAM house for DTS students. I loved getting to know them and seeing them grow that week.

For the first time, in the USA, I took the train. It was a rather interesting endeavor. Definitely a lot more luxurious than my last train ride. Also a lot colder. I mean they crank the air; I was very tempted to buy a blanket from them, then of course that was most likely their aim.  One thing I did enjoy though was the view. Each way I was fortunate enough to get the window seat.  On the way there I didn’t get to see much since it was an all night ride, but my return ride was very scenic.

The train station in Orlando had beautiful arcitexture. Lots of stone and some very pretty flower beds. There was a real sense of history behind the building. A sense that only enhanced ones times spent there.

I love Orlando.

My Christmas Eve

Usually Christmas Eve is just another day that I spend sitting around the house. Maybe pick up a couple groceries last minute and watch a movie with my family.

This year though I went out. I’ve been promising my sister a shoot for a long time now and since I got a new camera on Monday I thought it was apropiate for her to be the first one to have pictures taken by it.

We got a late start but at 2pm we were on ECU campus searching for a site. Decided on the commons area infront of the library.

From there we went and grabed lunch while trying to figure out our next site. Finally, almost an hour later, we decided on Green Springs Park.

Here we found a fallen tree that went across the creek. Perfect for some neat shots.

I especially like geting the water in the photo, which proved to be a challenge but was fun.

For more pictures from this shoot click here

The Leis Family

Saturday was beautiful. It was chilly with no wind and compared to earlier days it felt rather warm once you adjusted.

There are these fields, overgrown lots that never got developed and eventually stopped being taken care of,  out near my friends apartment. As we’ve moved into winter the field have slowly died, turning into a sea of autumn.

My friend, Kaitlin, had plans to get her hair done later on Saturday (her sister too) but since their dad was only in town till that evening and it gets dark around 5pm I went ahead and gave them a photo shoot.

Rebecca, the sister, is not one to do a pretty pose. But this did allow me to get plenty of personality in the photos.

At one point she decided to pull up a weed to see if it had cool roots, which it did. She decided to keep the root referring to the entire plant as a tree. Kaitlin and their dad werent so thrilled about it as she was.

While Kaitlin is quite the model. I’ve done several shoots for her before so having to work with me was no problem for her.

We didn’t spend much time on the shoot but I, and they, am rather pleased with how well the photos came out. Hopefully I can do some more family shoots soon. They are rather fun.

Below are some of the more traditional family portraits …

The Act of Giving Thanks

acción de gracias

þakkargjörð

θεία ευχαριστία

благодарственный молебен

صَلاة شُكْ

There are many ways to say this simple phrase. Here giving thanks is most associated with Thanksgiving Day. A day when family gather together, eat and express gratitude for what they have. Course the tradition various per family, city, state and region. In my household we have dinner that day for family and friends … and then again later in the week if family members are unable to attend the first time. Usually this means we have at least two thanksgiving meals.
We crowd ourselves into the sunroom around two small round tables and eat till content.

The house is deep cleaned. Candles are lite and a movie runs in the living room just in case things get awkward or conversation lags.

The night usually ends in the entrance room where we sit on the couch, stand, sit on the floor and finish catching up.

Бог благословляет вас

Back in the Day

At the same time that I took the pictures for A Statement I also did another series with Loren.

He told me he got the old camera awhile back at Dapper Dans (an antique store in Greenville, NC) and that he wished it still worked, but still admired it for the simple fact that it use to take pictures.

Upon research I have found out that Tower, the brand of the camera, was a camera series put out by Sears, Roebuck and Company. This camera is the Tower “97″. Here you can read an article about it in the Sears Tower Camera catalog. Take notice of the price!
It takes 6 by 9 images on 120 film. The entire camera is made of metal.
The camera series were designed for films from ISO 50 to 100. Also the small the camera number the newer the model.

This series is by far my favorite of him so far. The look, the setting, the camera. Amazing.
Hopefully I’ll be able to do some more photo shoots like this soon.

First Friday – November 7, 08

Every first Friday of the month, starting in September, 6:22 ministries has been putting on a night for youth to gather together and worship God. They meet at St. Paul Church, on 10th Street across from Bojangles, from 7 to 9pm.

This month there was special guest speaker, Jerome Branch, from Adamsville Church of God.

And everyone wanted to continue worship so we carried over till nearly 10pm.

((Im not a writer. I can’t express time with God. To me its just simply amazing and that doesn’t do it justice))

Rick Pino

On October 17 and 18 Rick Pino, the founder and leader of Fire Rain Ministries, came to Vision Caster Ministries in Winterville, NC.

The two nights that him and his band were here they led worship and prayer. To put it simply it was amazing.

I took more pictures but I haven’t been able to get around to editing them. I had a wonderful time hanging out with the guys in the band and really enjoyed doing photography for them.

A Statement

Recently my friends, Kaitlin and Loren, and I decided to do another photo shoot. We planed two weeks in advance and I set about deciding on outfits to wear. Course I knew I wouldn’t love my photos due to the fact that I don’t have a tripod so I would have to have one of them taking mine. Now Loren is a decent photographer and he does it for a living, traveling around with Eddie James Ministries as their photographer, but our styles are very different. He likes me style but for the most part I don’t like his.
Well the day of our photo shoot I ended up coming into work early. Didn’t have time to do anything to my hair except throw it into a ponytail. And Kaitlin …. well modes just weren’t the best for having our pictures taken. But I was still set on having it. I was scheduled to leave for Florida the next week and if we postponed till after I got back I knew it would take forever to find time for the three of us again.
So we went ahead with it … well I went ahead and did a photo shoot for Loren. He was fine and still wanted pictures. In the end I’m very glad I went ahead with it even though Kaitlin and I were in horrible modes, because Loren ended up leaving town a five days after I got back from Florida.

Now something about Loren.
He loves style. Especially in his shirts. I have gone to Express many a time with him in order to look for shirts. He likes making a statement with his clothing. And that day was no different. It also made for a good shoot.

that was one little set.

I should have gotten some of him standing here

another set … I love the piece of metal leaning against the factory.  That with the vines that are growing onto the steps really is what makes this set to me.  I added words to the last one because I feel like the space between him and the metal is a little too open.  Is has great composition for an advertisement.
And one more but I was using his camera and I was only able to get some of the pictures so I don’t have the rest of this last set.

The fact that the cones move further to the right of the photo as they go back really makes this photo. And notice the ground behind him; more lines, this time in a vertical directions while the cones are horizontal.
I choose the sepia tone because of how it emphasises the contrast between his bandanna and shirt and it shows off the concrete very well.

Oh I also started adding my logo to photos. I’m still working on the proportions but I think I like the font and the opacity.

Portraits

Did a photoshoot recently with two of my friends. He did my pictures and half of hers and I did his photos and the other half of hers.

We found this place before hand while doing a photoshoot with another photographer. I love how abandoned feeling it is though it’s downtown. The fence is actually part of a building that is still in use. Right as we were leaving someone came out in that little area to grab something.

My favorite areas were the graffiti wall and the vine wall. The vine with the archway really caught my eye. To help get my view of them across I took a lot of color out of the photographs that were there in order to convey the old antique look.