Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Soul of Devotion

Devotion has a lot of different meanings.  This was my topic, and I know that when I put this topic in the hat I was thinking of a Biblical type of devotion.  Someone reading a devotional, hands in a Bible, hands lifted up in devotion...all the possibilities to show devotion.  Devotion to God is vital in our time here on earth.  Devotion to God means surrendering your everything, every day to God's will.  Devotion is knowing that God will never leave you nor forsake you and walking forward in faith.  Devotion is coming to Christ every day in prayer and in word.  Tonight after praise team practice I recruited my friend Kelvin to be my model.  We tried a few different poses and this ended up being my favorite.  I think it shows devotion to God by the way he is standing, head bowed over the Bible.  And I love the smile :)
Soul of Devotion

Devotion


This weeks Topic is Devotion-that's why I took a photo of a toilet.  Let me take a moment to tell you why.  This past Monday on my lunch break I pulled a topic, it was Devotion, moments later I got the phone call I dreaded since I moved north to Mt. Pleasant, It was from my older brother, I answered and his voice cracked-"Dad had a stroke".  The next few moments are a bit fuzzy, I hung up with him, paced back and forth, called Erica, then I prayed.
I went back to work that afternoon, I did busy work and waiting for updates on his condition.  I know the news was he had a stroke, but the Miedema's have been here before and we know anything can happen. As my day wrapped up I got in my car and that stupid song about a sparrow came on the radio.
"Let not your heart be troubled,"
his tender word I hear,
and resting on his goodness,
I lose my doubts and fears;
though by the path he leadeth
but one step I may see:
His eye is on the sparrow,
and I know he watches me.

I have no idea what that song means, and a sparrow, just seems kinda weird, my plans was to stop and get orange juice on the ride home, but those words really got to me.  I got home, fought tears and paced again-I figured I did about a mile or so.  At this point I wasn't really praying, but talking to Jesus.  I wanted to know why this happened to my dad?  He is a good man, I know I am not suppose to question the great physician, my brother told me about a nurse who said that to him, but I had question.  I thought about how the weekend before I slept at my parents house and when I got up I found my dad sitting in a chair reading his Bible and his devotional.  (trust me I will tie devotion to a toilet)
I haven't seen my dad since this past weekend, I haven't been able to drive back to Grand Rapids, but I plan to see him this weekend and give him a big hug.  But I find myself thinking about him all the time now.  Thinking about the man that he is and he has been thru out my life, the role model, the hero, the guy that when other kids would say "my dad can beat up your dad" I just laughed and said a proud NO.  We tease a lot, and poke fun now, but I want to grow up and be just like him.  He loves his family and he loves the Lord.  As long as I can remember, he has followed a morning routine-(sorry dad I may be teasing here).  He has spent time every morning using his morning time on the toilet reading his Bible.  The book is so well used it is falling apart.  He is devoted to reading the good book, and this is why I photographed my toilet, I have the good book on the back of my toilet.  I don't read it every morning like he does, but I am going to work on that, I do want to be like him.
Since Monday I have been updated that my dads condition has been slowly improving, the    doctors say he is going to make a full recovery, I hope they are right, He has to walk down the aisle at our wedding.


Saturday, November 26, 2011

Fountain of water

This weeks assignment was to photograph a fountain according to the hat.   It took some time to try to find a fountain that was still being a fountain, so when an opportunity arose, I grabbed it.   This past week I had been working on  a project at work that kinda fit with this topic so when I found myself shooting video of a water fountain I shot a photo of what I was shooting.  Some times I  feel like I have the coolest job ever, I was wondering around campus shooting video of water fountains.    I think these water fountains are the neatest things, you can take a water bottle and easily fill it up right there,  there was a little LED on the top of this guy that said that this fountain had replaced over 9000 water bottles, I think that is pretty cool.  Gotta think green and help save the planet one little bit at a time.

Not So...

A baptismal fountain?  A drinking fountain?  A soda fountain?  All great ideas, but why not Fountain Street?  That was the subject of my photo this week, thanks to some brainstorming after my first wedding shower (which was such a blast! I am extremely blessed by such an awesome family), Adam and I took a drive downtown and found Fountain Street.  I jumped out of the car with my camera, snapped some photos of Fountain Street and this is what we've got.  "A Fountain".

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Growing Up

For as long as I can remember, every Sunday, from summer to fall, the sound of cars going around in a circle has filled my families house.  And ever since cable has been available, and a channel called "Speed" has started broadcasting this sound can be expected to be heard every evening.  What I have found humorous for a while now is how someone SO into a "sporting event" can be lulled to sleep within minutes of the race starting.  But I digress, this weeks topic was "A Car".  There are some topics that inspire creativity within me, this topic was not one of those.  So, while I would like to take credit for this idea, it was alas Adam's.  So I grabbed Davey Allison's model car down from our computer desk and took some photos.  It's nothing special, but it is a car that represents my upbringing.  Davey was by far my dad's favorite driver, so one Christmas myself or my brother bought him this car, soon after Davey was killed in a very serious accident...which if I remember correctly was not while he was racing, but don't quote me.  So, while this picture isn't anything special, the car itself holds a lot of memories.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Lego Car

The hat plays with your MIND!  I pulled a topic earlier this week and it revealed the topic of CAR.  Now I am going thru a fun car situation right now, I am driving a sweet Toyota rental right now because my car is getting fixed as we speak, check the blog post from a few topics back about the accident.  So it seemed a bit to easy to photograph my car for this post.

I love Legos and when I have a reason to buy more I don't hesitate.  There is a certain joy of opening the box and dumping them on the table and going to work.  After the assembly, and driving the car around the coffee table while making car noises I got my camera and snapped this photo of the little race car flying thru the air infront of my laptop.  I plan to bring my new race car to work to add to my collection of legos I have there, so ask me next time you see me to see more photos of my legos.  I play with toys at work and take photos of them, please don't tell my boss I play with toys at work.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Bitter Sweet

Today I took a very big step and decided it was worth posting it to our blog, even though it is not a topic.  Today, I cleaned out my closet and dresser and started getting stuff ready to move to Mount Pleasant.  There were a lot of things that weren't so hard to say goodbye to, and some things that were very difficult to say goodbye to.  One of those very tough things to say adios to were my infamous green pants.  Now, some of you may be very confused as to why it would be so hard to say goodbye to something like green pants, and others of you are probably staring at this screen in dis-belief.  But it is true, I have thrown out the green pants. (Close your mouths and stop cheering!)

Here is the back story for those of you who do not know about the green pants.  I would say probably 4 or 5 years ago I bought this awesome very bright pair of green "lounge" pants from American Eagle.  I was so excited to actually be able to buy something from AE, let alone these super awesome pants.  I wore them a lot.  But they were most famously known as my softball pants.  The joke was that you knew when I had shown up at the Christian Reformed Rec Center because you could see me walking from the parking lot.  It didn't matter, I loved them.  I've never understood why I got made fun of so much for wearing them, but I didn't let it stop me.  I wore them until they were all stretched out, ragged at the bottoms and nearly falling off.

It's a very bitter sweet day.  I have lost a lot of weight since I bought those, so being able to throw them out because they don't fit anymore is a great thing.  But I really did love them.  So to see them go is closing a door on my memories of softball at the rec center.  But I have faith that some day I will find another pair of awesome pants that will create a reaction and carry many memories with them. :)

So, fair-well my green pants.  You were a dear friend.  You assisted me in my softball days, you comforted me on my lounge days and helped me make a statement for many years.  But today I am forced to say goodbye.  It is with heavy heart that I put you in this trash bag and send you on to wherever it is you will end up.  Know that I will carry you with me in my heart for a long time.  Thank you for everything.  Fair-well green pants, fair-well.


Now, to get back on track: our topic this week is  CAR.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Contrast

Black and White photos are one of my favorite style of photos to do.  I wish I would have had more time and daylight during the week to be able to do something a little more creative.  But alas, it was a busy week, and it gets dark so early!  So, I decided to take some of our dried hydrangea flowers for the wedding and photograph those and turn it black and white.  Classic yet pretty.  Until next week.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Black and White

This weeks topic was a black and white photo.

With a broad topic such as this the sky was the limit.  I did some thinking and when I remembered that Friday was Veterans Days I wanted to tie that in to my photo.  I recalled from this past summer that Mt. Pleasant had a nice park with a veterans memorial in it.

Now my thoughts - I refuse to support any fighting, any war or really any type of violence that is not in a movie.  But I will support the soldier and respect the veterans.  I have nothing but the upmost respect for the men and women that have proudly served for our country.  Growing up there was that moment on special days in church when the pastor asked the veterans to stand up, you looked around and saw all the men and women who had served - that was always a special day.  I looked around and saw the people who were the real stars of the war movies that I love to watch.  We owe all the men and women who severed  more then just a round of applause or a random day that you don't get mail.  So I am saying thank you to the veterans with this photo.

    

Saturday, November 5, 2011

20 Second Shot

One of my favorite things I learned when taking my photography class at Kendall was the "Long Exposure" subject.  This basically means your shutter is open for an extended amount of time, in this case 20 seconds, and if there is any movement it is blurred or if you wanted to take a true picture of a sunset you would us this method to accomplish all the colors.  So last night, after dinner with Adam, we went to my back yard, I set up my camera and proceeded to take some long exposure shots of me spelling out "Black" with a pen light.  It took several tries, but finally I focused my lens (kind of important), sped up the shutter speed and wrote a little faster, and this is what I came up with.  Kind of fun :)

Black Beauty

Driving thru the parking lot earlier this week, minding my business when all of a sudden I see and feel the impact of a Printing Service van.  I knew once I started to work at the University and work on the campus I was going to at some point get hit or hit a student.  Luckily I was hit, and it wasn't the other way around.

My Car is black, so I found it fitting to photograph the car.  I will just tell you that this photo was harder then it looked, I tried one night to take a photo, but I waited to long and ran into so difficulty and lost the light.  Other days and nights,  weather got in my way.  So I am just glad that this photo got posted, and said at the same time that I had the oppurtunity to post a dented car.