3 Queens

This Beautiful Short Film Shows Exactly What It Is That A Stay-At-Home Mom Does All Day
“My mom teaches me about the world, my mom is a cleaner, my mom is a doctor, my mom is an angel.”

As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."    - Isaiah 66:13 

While surfing the web this morning, I came across this simple, short, 2 minute film showing just a  fraction of what it means to be a "stay at home mom". The film itself is a bit crudely put together, however it is all heart and very accurately shows the sacrifice, love and nurturing that goes on in the home, to those who are called upon the Lord to do the most important of all jobs, raising and nurturing their children.

The actual video can be found here. http://vimeo.com/76834417

Playful Abandon On a Southern California Beach

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” - Psalm 127:3-5 

The more I do family portraiture, the more I feel the Lord reminding me that this is where He has called me to put forth my efforts, photographically. It is the joyous celebration of the family and the honor of getting to spend an hour or two with young people and their families, simply hanging out for a late afternoon and documenting a day at the beach, or at the local park.... Just watching and enjoying the joy of children at play and parents loving on their kids.




I first met Kenlyn as a complete stranger when she had her oldest daughter baptized at Leadbetter beach here in Santa Barbara couple of months ago. I was taking portraits of all of the people being baptized and the picture (above) of her and her daughter were among my favorites for that day.

Fast forward another month or two and it turns out that we ended up in the same small group that meets on Friday nights.  After a couple of weeks, I got a call from her asking if I would be willing to do a shoot with her and her three daughters. Absolutely! We decided to meet at Butterfly beach near the Biltmore hotel last Saturday, about an hour before Sundown.

One of things I love about doing shoots like this, is to just let the kids run around and do their thing and then just candidly "snipe" shots and just go with the flow of what the children want to do.  If they want to run, let them run! If they want to run TOWARDS you, even better!

We turned the kids loose on the beach and let them do their thing. As it turns out, the oldest daughter was a bit shy and kept a bit distant, while the middle girl was a bit more of a social butterfly and a bit of a flirty ham. She kept asking me to take her picture (How could I resist? ;0) She was an absolute joy to photograph as she was always smiling and even willing and able to take direction and pose. It was pretty much impossible not to get a perfect shot of her. ;0)

As I was shooting the girls, a song lyric kept popping into my head as I was reminded of the song "Soliloquy" from the musical Carousel. The song is about the hero "Bill" just learning the amazing news that he is going to be a dad. As he goes on and on about how he is going to raise his son to be a tough, no-nonsense kind of a guy, reality smacks him in the face and he says "Wait a minute, what if he, is a she?" He then instantly starts thinking about the beautiful precious little girl and thinks of her growing up to be "A neat and petite little tin-type of her mother..." A "tin-type" being a old photograph, ie an exact copy.

Watching the girls do their thing, I marveled at how much they looked like their mom. Genetics are funny like that....

"Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to Him and said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” Luke 18:15-17

Lastly, this is the third family I have photographed in two weeks. Coincidentally, each family has had small children. In my Bible reading the other day, I was reading the book of Luke and read the verse above. Seeing these families and their small children, this verse really hit home to me what child-like innocence and trust in The Lord is all about in our relationship with Jesus. We are all called to receive and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ just as little children.

It's funny... I am reminded that sometimes we have earthly models of God's love and grace in the seemingly ordinary and mundane things in life. Sometimes we can see the Lord and his various attributes at work, simply by watching child-like joy, laughter and all-out playful abandon on a Southern California beach, on a late Saturday afternoon.

What a beautiful sight to behold.

=BM=

The Lashua Family

One major benefit of doing newborn photography is getting the chance to see these beautiful, tiny infants grow up right before my eyes.  The Lashua's are good, dear friends of mine, so I called them up to see if they would like to update their family photos and the agreed!

We got to hang out at Leadbetter beach in Santa Barbara and enjoy a gorgeous late afternoon "kicking it" on the beach

Two Year Reunion

 

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from the McAvoy family wanting to do an update to their family portraits I did two years ago.

Before I go on, I need to give a little background on this particular shoot.

Two years ago, My good friend and fellow photographer Kenji Fukudome had auctioned off a family portrait session for a local charity, which the McAvoy's won.  Unfortunately, Kenji was out of the country when baby Sia came into this world, so he asked if I would fill in. I agreed.


Having never shot a family portrait session before, I went in just a tad nervous as I had never met the clients before the shoot, and as a single, unmarried bachelor, with no children of my own, I did not know what to expect.

Long story short, I had an absolutely amazing experience!. The McAvoys were an absolute joy to work with on every level. In fact, I had such a positive experience, I decided that family portraiture is an are that I would lie to specialize in!

Here we are, two years later, baby Sia has grown into a precocious two year old and older sister Keira was just a bundle of joyful energy.

I wanted to thank the McAvoy family for allowing me to spend an afternoon with them enjoying some quality time with them at the beach. Better yet, thank you for the beautiful honor and the opportunity to document the growth of your children.

=BM= 

Headshots!

Last Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of photographing head shots of the students at Santa Barbara Junior High School.

My good friend Rich Lashua just happens to be the drama teacher over there and he thought it would be a great idea to get the kids some head shots to post int he lobby before the show. What a great idea!

The setup is pretty simple. Two Nikon SB-600 speedlights blasting into a neutral grey background, blow out the background to white.  The main light is a Nikon SB-900 Speedlight in a Westcott Apollo 50" softbox, camera right.

The lights were triggered with PocketWizard Flex TT5 and controlled with the awesome PocketWizard AC3 Zone controller. (For the record, I absolutely LOVE this thing!)

After that, it was just a matter of getting Jr. High School students to come out of their shell, in front of a middle-aged stranger pointing a massive camera lens in their face. Why would they ever feel self-conscious?. (That would be sarcasm)

Luckily Mr. Lashua was there to help, as he is a bit of a nut (Which is probably why we get along so well) together, we were able to get some great looks from the kids! Be sure to check out the show "Rules of Comedy" Friday and Saturday March 15-16 at the  Marjorie Luke Theater at Santa Barbara Jr. High School.

It's going to be a great show!

So, God Made a Framer

I just got home from watching the Super Bowl at my good friends' house, and after what looked to a bit of a snoozer after the first half, the 49ers just about pulled out an exciting win at the very end.

Alas, it wasn't to be...

Regardless, there were many fun and creative television adds this year, but the Dodge RAM Truck/Paul Harvey "So God Made a Farmer" commercial blew me away!

According to TheBlaze.com, the speech was given at the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention.  (A full audio version of the speech can be found HERE) The full text of the speech is listed below. Items in bold blue were sections omitted from the commercial.

    And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said I need a caretaker- So God made a Farmer

    God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board – So God made a Farmer

    [I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs,tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to await lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it - So God made a Farmer]

    God said I need somebody willing to sit up all night with and newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say maybe next year. I need somebody who can shape an axe handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe straps, who at planting time and harvest season will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, will put in another 72 hours – So God made a Farmer

    [God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain, and yet stop in midfield and race to help when he sees first smoke from a neighbor's place - So God made a Farmer]

    God said I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to wean lambs and pigs and tend to pink combed pullets; who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark.

    It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and rake and disk and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

    Somebody who would bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing; who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says he want to spend his life doing what dad does – So God made a Farmer

Wow...

First of all, the photography was absolutely stunning, but coupled with Paul Harvey's flawless narrative, this was the best two minutes of television I might have seen in a VERY long time. It was absolutely brilliant!

Paul Harvey was known to be a man of great faith and what struck me most about the poem in the commercial, is how the generic "farmer" so eloquently reflected the attributes of a Goldy man and how we should walk with the Lord.

We are to be caretakers of the land, hard-working, tending to our children and our family's needs, be grateful and loving husbands, strong, yet gentle, a good neighbor, creative resourceful, not ones to cheat or take shortcuts, nurturing, I could go on and on... The narrative really touched a sympathetic nerve with me.

I guess the point that was driven home, is that the farmer is a metaphor for us as men and women in Christ. No matter what our occupation, whether it be in the fields of the mid-west, or in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara, we all need to think of ourselves as lowly, humble, farmers, doing our work humbly and faithfully for the Lord while caring for our family and the neighbors in our community.

After all, isn't that what he created us to do?

Carl Sagan on Books

 

A good, dear friend of mine, who just happens to be a teacher, posted this wonderful quote from Carl Sagan regarding the gift of books.  My friend mused that he though it might be a good idea to blow this picture up and post it as a large poster inside his classroom (A mighty fine idea, if you ask me)

I too, thought it was a wonderful quote, however, I was struck with something perhaps unintended by the author, a well-known agnostic.

Let's break it down, shall we?

 “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. 

Indeed! Especially the ones in Arabic. (A little linguistics humor)

One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. 

Whoa! This got my attention. I immediately thought of the Bible and God's word and how it has been handed down and endured over hundreds of years. This thought then brilliantly teed up the next sentence of his which drove the message home to me.

Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. 

AMEN! The author (Jesus Christ) is indeed speaking, clearly and silently inside my head (but not so quietly in my heart) and it is indeed DIRECTLY to me (and hopefully to you too!) When we read the Word of God, we draw closer to his love and grace. We are enriched by his Holy Spirit and moved to live in a way that pleases Him.

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” 

Keeping things framed in terms of the Bible and the word of God, it is through His written word that He has reached "citizens of distant epochs", "binding them together" and although we "who never knew one another" perhaps personally, we do know one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are the Church, brought together divinely by an "assemblage of flat, flexible parts, imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles, brought to us by people who are dead, thousands of years ago" with a whole bunch of the Holy Spirit thrown in for good measure. ;0)

Sagan ends with the thought "Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” 

 

I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Sagan and say that it is Jesus Christ who is working the magic. The humans are just instruments in which He does His will.  

The real magic is that He can use a self-proclaimed agnostic such as Carl Sagan to illustrate just how wondrous and precious his Holy Word is to all of us.

 =BM=