Day 178 (26 June 2012) Silence, or The End

At the end
There is silence
Silence in place of all that was
What does the silence say?
It echoes the voice of the past
Forever lost to Earth
Forever singing in Eternity

Ok, so I’m not a poet, at least not when I’m trying to put thoughts down at a quarter to eleven at night 🙂  The inspiration for today was the photo challenge hosed by Shannon and Nick.  When I read the list provided for this photo scavenger hunt and saw silence, my first thought was of death and the earthly resting place of our bodies, and how it contrasts with the eternal resting place for our souls.  As a Christian, I believe in both Heaven and Hell; and in neither of those places will one’s soul be quiet.

30 mm, 30 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100 (Silence)

This photo has some good color in the sky, but I felt that it distracted from the image and the story it’s supposed to tell.  For me this shows that while our bodies may be buried under the Earth, out souls exist in the Heavens 🙂

Here is the list I’m shooting from for the photo scavenger hunt.  I’m supposed to “find” 15 of these, 10 down, 5 to go!

• Chuck Norris Was Here
• “Big Foot Footprint”
• Reflected Love
• Abstract Self Portrait
• Framed Moon
• “Whats your sign”
• Anti-gravity
• Unusual Perspective
• Abandoned
• Silence
• Pride and Joy
• Emerging Star
• Buried Treasure
• Sparkler fun
• Clownin Around Upside-down
• Lyric Quotograph
• Summer
• Patriotism
• Night

Day 99 (8 April 2012) Happy Easter!

Yesterday I was astonished when I realized that I had reached 100 followers!  Wow, that is so humbling and encouraging 🙂  When I started this project I was surprised that anyone would follow me (except for maybe some family and close friends).  You support and encouragement over these past 99 days has been amazing and has encouraged me to keep from missing any days, even when I just didn’t feel up to it.  This is such a great community here; I’m very glad that I’ve been able to interact with all of you in this way!  It has helped me to learn more about photography and has helped me gain confidence in this skill/art!  Thank you all so much!!

Also to day is day 99, the day before my 100th post.  I want to try and do something special for tomorrow, but an drawing a blank as what to shoot for tomorrow.  If you have any suggestions, ideas, thoughts, etc, please let me know 🙂  Also, at any time you have a suggestion for something to try, I’ll take it as a challenge and do my best, esp. if it’s something I’ve not done before.

The first shot shows the reason for this holiday; as a Christian, Easter is the celebration of the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after taking the penally for my sins and wrongs.  It is because of this day that I will have a place with Him in heaven.  It is the most important event in Christian history; it’s why there are Christians!  I’m not going to preach at you, here, but if you have questions or what-not, please feel free to ask!

The second shot is from my way home tonight after spending a wonderful day amongst friends; the remaining glow on the horizon looked amazing!  I’m afraid I didn’t take the time to fully devote to this shot to get it perfect; it looked better in person. But I did stop, set up the tripod, and pointed east, capturing Venus (the brightest dot).

18 mm, 1/13 sec, f/8.0, ISO 1600, 18-55mm kit lens (The Empty Cross!)

21 mm, 25 sec, f/4.5, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (Venus)

Day 93 (2 April 2012) Montville Center Congregational Church

If you’ve ever visited New England, you probably noticed that the roads here are planned as carefully as spaghetti is arranged on your plate. As such, there are numerous ways to get from A to B. A couple days ago I took a new way home and discovered a lot of cool, old buildings along the way. A lot of old brick factories (from the fabric mill days) and this church. Most of the brick buildings have no trespassing signs, and not feeling up to any jail time tonight, I decided to shoot this church.

I shot this with about a 2.5 min exposure at ISO 200. This is the first long exposure I’ve intentionally shot at an ISO greater than 100. I think the noise level is hardly noticeable, so I may try some higher ISOs to reduce my exposure time on future shots.

18 MM, 147 sec, f/8.0, ISO 200, 18-55mm kit lens (Montville Center Congregational Church)

Day 72.5 (12.5 March 2012) The photos I wanted to post yesterday

I figured out my problem (my hard drive was full!  go figure!), so here are two photos I wanted to share last night:

Chain Link Fence

Red Door

Day 72 (12 March 2012) Church

Tonight as I was driving home I passed this Episcopal church and saw its stained glass window in my rear view mirror.  I had to stop and do some shooting 🙂

For some reason Lightroom couldn’t read the files on my memory cards to upload them.  I had to use the Canon software to convert them from RAW to JPG, so I didn’t have an oppertunity to do any correction/editing.  So, if they don’t look  as good as they could, I’ll fix them once I get LR to work.  I’m not too thrilled with any of them, thought I think I can fix some of them.  I wasn’t paying attention to the lights and didn’t notice different lighting types/colors.  I’ll post an update after I fix them.

Day 50 (19 Feb 2012) Church

Today marks Day 50 of my Project 366!  I have not missed a day so far!  Though at least a few photos posted were just to have one up, but hey, at least I’m still on track!  I’m kinda surprised that I’ve made it this far, and it’s encouragment that I will finish this project 🙂

I was trying to think of somthing I could shoot that would be in line with a theme of “50”; either the number somewhere or 50 of something or whatever.  But I didn’t give it enough thought and on my way home tonight I realized that it was too late to be super creative.  So I chose another subject.

This old Congregational church in Norwich is quite beautiful to look at.  It was built in the 1850s and is in great condition.    During the day you can see it in its redish color and really appreciate its architecture.  I thought I would be great to shoot at night, since it looks cool all lit up at night.  But with the mix of lighting on the building itself, along with all the street lights that are in that area causes this to be very challenging to shoot.  There are much better sides to this building than what you see below, but between the lighting and interfering objects (power lines, poles, etc), in addition to my own lack of experience in shooting something like this, most shots came out w/ areas over exposed and others under exposed.  So I settled on the shot below which is the most evenly lit (or un-lit) side so I would not have to spend hours in Lightroom adjusting exposure on each area.

If you have any tips on how to shoot a building like this at night, please share them!  I would like to try this building again 🙂

21 mm, 61 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100, 18-55mm kit lens (Church)

 

Day 25 (25 Jan 2012) Book of Jeremiah

25 days!  I’ve had a few close calls, but I’ve managed to keep this up for 25 days straight!  Not necessarily a huge accomplishment, but its a good milestone to have under my belt

So to celebrate, today’s photo is of something that is of great importance to my life.  The basis for who I am is my faith in my Saviour, Jesus Christ.  If not for Him, I would not be who I am.  I won’t preach at you, but I do want you to know that fact about myself.  I’m not into “religion” but a relationship with Jesus.  Feel free to ask me anything about that, and I’ll give you candid, honest answers.

I chose the book below, as it is written by the person I was named for, and because my life verse (11:29) is found in this book, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

55mm, 1/20 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800, EF-S 18-55mm IS kit lens (Book of Jeremiah)