Posted in June 2011 …

Jun 30 2011
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Journal

The Fillmer Birthday Party from October 1953 :: Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday today is from October 1955 and would be Larry Fillmer’s 7th birthday party. I just love these old black and whites. Apparently back in the mid-50′s you dressed up for a birthday party since one of them is wearing a suit and bow-tie and I love the card table, which was probably literally used as a card table. I’m not too sure about any of the history behind this photo, and the only reason I am saying the date is 1953 is because there are 7 candles on the cake, otherwise, there was no date or anything else on the photo. I’m sure someone in the family will tell me a little more about the image, but I’m almost 100% sure that’s my dad as the birthday boy from the way he is dressed, watch and all… always a snappy dresser. Pretty sure that is his brother Les Fillmer standing to the right of Larry.

So it seems, I’ve now been told, the photo was taken in Birmingham in an area called Oak Hills in Central Park, the puppets were Howdy Doody Puppets, and yes, they apparently played cards on that card table.

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Jun 29 2011
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Photography

Testing the Old Oil and Water Theory Close Up :: Photos

Something totally different for today. I thought I would try a little abstract photography last weekend. No special post-processing or photoshop on these images, just a simple mix of oil and water on a red and green flag. I always wanted to try some super closeup shots like this and I could have gotten in even closer but was limited to my one extension tube where normally you would stack them. All it takes is some water, a little cooking oil, put it in a bread pan and wait. The shot was done was with a 100mm macro lens and a 27.5mm extension tube (something that just puts space between your lens and the sensor for closer focus), sitting on a tripod of course. I love the colors but I could have shot with just about any color, I just tried to find two highly contrasting colors to make the oil moving through the water stand out. I have seen this done with a tidied shirt or something like that, and that works well too, I just didn’t have one. The exact shot metadata is over on Flickr if you are interested.

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Jun 27 2011
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Journal, Photography

Patience Results in a Magnificent Sunset :: Saturday Summary

Above is how my day ended yesterday, but what was in between was almost a blur. I know today is Sunday, but I’m doing my photo Saturday Summary today. Sunday’s in the summer are usually a little more laid back but they haven’t been so far, and yesterday was pretty incredible, and exhausting. Within two services we had more baptisms than I could count (pics here), a Uganda team trip meeting (for the October trip), four video sessions shot for our small groups (see April’s blog), a quick trip to Starbucks in severe lightning storms (see photo below), then another Uganda trip meeting (July trip), which was semi-rained out but still took place.

Uganda 2011 July trip update: So our Uganda team is leaving at the end of July (details here), just four short weeks away now, and is commissioned to (among other things) put together a soccer camp of sorts for the kids. The team is all guys this time, and for the most part, skilled in coaching soccer, except for me who will be behind the camera. We follow a full mission team that leaves the U.S. mid-July and we arrive in Uganda about the same time they leave to come back home. We have been meeting together as a team to get to know each other and plan the trip, and yesterday was one of those this-is-what-we-planned but this-is-what-happened-meeting. We were going to meet at a local soccer field and everyone was going to get some practice in, including me with my camera. As lightning bolts rained down we all ran for cover, stood around for an hour getting to know each other better, got out on the field, kicked the ball approximately two times each and scattered when the next lightning bolt came down in close proximity. I did manage to get one shot of Jason kicking a soccer ball to prove that we both got our practice in, sorta.

Driving home about 8pm last night I was so tired I couldn’t really think straight at that point and then all of a sudden the sun burst out of the storm bank just above the horizon line and I pulled over to the side of the road where I could see the horizon (not an easy thing to do in Alabama where you can’t see more than 20 feet because of all the trees) and got the shot at the top. The beauty that only God can produce in the sky with a mix of clouds, rain, lightning, and sun was a truly magnificent end to the day (it didn’t matter that the storm had fried my gate and I couldn’t get into my own property when I got home… but that’s another story).

As some of you may know I am still trying to raise money for these two mission trips, and every single donation helps no matter the amount, even $10 will go a long way when combined with everyone else’s donation. If you would like to help visit the info page or make an online donation here. Thanks!

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Jun 25 2011
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Journal, Photography

A Nasty Tomato Hornworm Caterpillar Closeup

This is just about as perfect a photo of the day as I can get for summer in the south. These nasty things attack our tomato plants every year and they look so much like the plant leaves they are almost impossible to see. The only part you see is the evidence they were there (an eaten plant) and until you find them they will continue to devour everything in sight. They can get enormous in size if you don’t kill them quickly. Luckily this one was small, smaller than my little finger. The EXIF metadata is over here if you are interested in the macro shot.

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Jun 24 2011
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Journal

The Late-Late Edition of Friday Feet

So this is still Friday for another 5 minutes, meaning I just did get this post in before it would be totally irrelevant… well maybe that’s already the case anyway, but after reading my rss feeds tonight I realized I hadn’t finished this post. This week has been so busy, or maybe just off kilter a bit, and this coming week seems to be shaping up to be about the same. I never did seem to get any time to get out and shoot at all. I felt like I spent most of the week in my car driving back and forth between the house, Auburn, Columbus, work, etc, and any photos ended up being either in the car or in the house. It was a draining week to say the least. Finally today around 4pm the troubles of the week felt like they faded into the past after reading 2 Corinthians 12:7 when Jesus said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” That was an amazing statement to me. Paul was praying that God would take away the thorn in his side and He basically tells Paul no, but, my power resides in you, and is perfect just the way it is. Not sure why that stuck with me today but it did, and I’m thankful.

One cool thing I accomplished this week was to get some prints ordered (photo #3 in line above) and they arrived today. So what you say. Well this is probably the first time in 20 years I have had 4-6 prints made just to put on my own wall. As a photographer one of the great joys of photography is getting to see the finished product, I just wish I had been getting prints made for the last 20 years, a little at a time, but I just never had the time or the money. This year I was determined not to put off stuff like that and it only took me until July to get them ordered. The frames I bought in June 2009 and have been sitting on my floor, literally collecting dust, since I brought them home. Now all I have to do is get them up on the wall. Hopefully I can get that done before the holidays show up.

Planning for my July Uganda trip is in full swing, we will be leaving one month from tomorrow. I can’t believe it’s only 4 weeks before our team leaves for Africa and there seems to be so much left to do before we leave. I am still trying to raise money for both this trip and the October trip so if you are willing to help fund our mission team please check out the details here or you can just make an online donation here. I really really appreciate all those who have given so far, it really does means a lot to me and to our whole team. Trying to prepare all my photography gear to be hauled halfway across the world is a little overwhelming but it’s coming along. I just about have everything put together at this point minus two lenses. One, a used 20mm prime I should have in the next week or two, hopefully, the other (an older classic from Nikon, their 80-200mm) seems to be a total long shot at this point, but who knows. I am really looking forward to the trip, can’t wait to see God at work through so many people.

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Jun 23 2011
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Photography

Rolling Summer Thunderstorms and Dramatic Clouds in the South

It seems like these storms have been way to far and few between the past few years, but at least we are getting a small amount of rain. This thunderhead rolled by yesterday afternoon about 2pm and today it’s the photo of the day. Down here you see these nice little points developing in the clouds and you start to take notice. This one never picked up any rotation to it, but it made for some nice dramatic cloud shots. This image was taken just a few miles from my house when I was on my way to work, I literally stopped on the side of the road and rolled down the window to get the shot. My favorite part is how this tiny little truck way off in the lower right corner looks like it’s trying to outrun the storm like it’s the movie Twisters or something. It would be nice if we could get these every afternoon for the rest of the year.

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Jun 21 2011
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Photography

Creation Proclaims the Milky Way Galaxy on the Summer Solstice

As I mentioned in my blog post last night we were going to try to get some shots of the Milky Way Galaxy, and these above are what I ended up with last night. There are so many different aspects of creation but this one always blows my mind. I love how Paul puts it in Romans 8:20-25

…ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The lights at night out where we live are always interesting. Some nights it’s so dark you really can’t see your hand in front of your face, but most of the time we have a good bit of “glow” from Auburn-Opelika on one side and several other cities on the other side, but they are farther away. The shots of the Milky Way above (the first three) were taken when it was very low in the night sky facing south east. Turn around and you see the difference between the glow facing south and the glow facing Auburn. That last image still shows a good bit of stars, but nothing like the shots from the other side of the sky, and that shot was an entire f-stop longer (in other words the shot in the direction of Auburn let in twice as much light as the shots facing the Milky Way and showed less stars). Still, either way, the number of stars visible is always just amazing to me. Thanks goes to my nephew Jake who stood in and modeled for the first shot and explained to me what I was looking at in the night sky.

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Jun 20 2011
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Journal, Photography

A Midnight Summer’s Dream in the Night Sky

Ok, well it’s not Shakespeare but it is just about that time of year when the days are really long and the nights are clear and hot. Sometimes it’s hard to find new and fresh images when your routine seems to stay the same, but there is always a lot more to creation than meets the eye. Out here we actually still have a dark sky at night, most of the time. We can still see the lights from the Auburn-Opelika metro area and on the other side we can just see the glow from Columbus, GA, but it isn’t anything like what the sky looked when we lived in the big cities like Dallas. Those big cities like Atlanta and Birmingham have almost no night sky left. Luckily out here we still do… so… I’m off to try to get some shots of the Milky Way or whatever else my nephew finds while stargazing. Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to show for it tomorrow night.

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Jun 18 2011
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Journal

This Was Kid Weekend on the Farm with the Camera

We had so many different families out on the farm collectively this weekend it was hard to keep track of who was who and what everyone was doing. I know what I was doing, taking the photos. Pictured above is William Fillmer (my grandson), Martha and Abby Marchio (two of my nieces), and Maddie Metteer (my grandcousin?). It was great fun getting to take their photos all weekend since I don’t really ever get a chance to practice my photography on the little ones.

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Jun 17 2011
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Faith

I’m Going to Uganda Africa and I Would Love Your Help

It’s finally set. I’m now scheduled for two trips to Buloba Uganda in 2011, one on July 25th and the other (tentatively) on October 1st, with two great teams from Cornerstone Church. Going on a trip like this has been on my heart for many many years, but up until this point, everything I tried just didn’t seem to work. My heart wasn’t prepared to actually “go”, and consequently, the opportunities never materialized. Right now scriptures abound in my head as to why now is the “right” time but Proverbs 3:5-6 stands out. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

One of the aspects of a trip like this of course is the costs associated with travel to Uganda, and both our teams are committed to raising the funds needed to make these trips happen. For each team that means collectively raising over $30,000, and individually, it means raising more money than I have ever attempted to raise by myself in my life to date. For me, that means $6,500 for two trips plus another $1,000 minimum for expenses directly related to photography while in Uganda. This seems like an overwhelming and impossible task to me, but I know God will provide for everyone on these two trips.

I have organized the information associated with these two trips as best I can on my blog so my readers and supporters can find what they are looking for as easy as possible. This is the first official Uganda 2011 blog post, and the blow by blow will come here on my blog, but below are the two main areas where you can find information about Uganda 2011.

The July trip is already well advanced in the planning process since we leave in a little over a month so I will start posting for that trip very soon. The October trip is just getting started so information about that trip will be posted as the planning develops.

The Cost Rundown…

We are traveling as a team of 10. That said, we are responsible to one another to collectively raise approximately $35,000 per trip – our teams total needs. At a bare minimum, I am personally trying to raise $6,500 for my part for both trips ($3,250 per trip), but the added expense of photographing the trip is noted. Below is a look at the per trip costs involved:

  • $2,500 – Flight from Atlanta, GA to Kampala, Uganda, Africa
  • $500 – in country travel, housing, food, and on the ground ministry costs
  • $250 – medical costs (vaccinations)
  • $500 – costs specifically related to photography on the trip ** Please see my Uganda 2011 page for more info

I looked at the traffic on my blog over the last few years and, on average, it receives 350 unique views per day, every day. That means if every visitor gave the very minimum of $10 the entire cost would be covered in less than 2 days. Or, if you look at one single month, if just 6% of my monthly visitors gave $10 over the course of one month, the cost would be covered as well.

I ask that your support of our team starts and centers on your prayers for our time there and the advancing the Kingdom of God on a continent that desperately needs healing and restoration. That being said, I ask that you would not only pray for our travels and ministry but also consider supporting Cornerstone’s work in Uganda financially. As a staff member of Cornerstone Church please know that your gift will go toward our team needs and our Church’s mission in Buloba of “Leading People to Know and Serve Jesus”.

What Can You Do?

I believe this is the first time I have ever made a solicitation on my own blog. I do not use paid advertising, I offer my photography for free to my readers for their personal use, and I have never asked for a financial commitment from my readers… until now. I am trying to raise money for these trips between now and October, so I will be periodically posting support updates and asking for your support. Beyond that everything on my blog will remain commercial free and advertising free. Below is what I prayerfully ask you to consider.

Make an Online Donation

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