Religulous

There is a new documentry called"Religulous" featuring Bill Maher, which is self described as being a description of religious ideas, beliefs, or claims that are patently absurd, comical, or ridiculous. I'm not entirely sure if I agree with what the movie has to say, but I haven't seen it yet.

A review was written about the movie on a site called "NowPublic" and they used one of my photos from Israel.


You can click here to read the review.
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/review-religulous-bill-mahers-intellectual-war-religion

Delirious?

Hi everyone. This past week was a crazy week. On Wednesday morning I received an email from Delirious's tour manager, asking if I was available as a photographer for their show on Thursday evening. I replied with a calm and professional "Heck yes!!!" Back in January I found out they were playing a show at the House of Blues in Anaheim and I thought it would be awesome to get in with my camera. I emailed the band tour manager and he said it was still too far off (the show would be in June) to plan that and to email them closer to the actual date. I made a prayer and left it up to God. So I emailed them again a couple weeks ago asking if they could still use a photographer. I didn't get a response and I just assumed it wouldn't happen. Then I got the email.

It was a lot of fun in a really unexpected way. I've photographed live bands before (and I love them dearly) but this night just felt special in some ways. For the most part, I only photograph bands I like. Delirious? is a band I really like. I figured photogaphing a band as popular as they, as a pie in the sky wish. Then, in sort of a blink of an eye, I was up front getting to photograph their show.

The evening itself was a little awkward. My friend Francisco came along with me to the show. We got there early and I wanted to find the tour manager. There was a problem with that because I didn't know what he looked like. We weren't allowed in until a little while later and so we decided to get something to eat. We were in Downtown Disney and we checked out a few restaurants there. We couldn't settle on one (they're a little expensive) and as we checked out about 4 of them, we started walking towards a mexican restaurant. Along the way we noticed a group of guys (bald guys) walking in the same direction. As we passed them by we could hear them speak with British accents. That was a clue that perhaps these are the guys in Delirious?. I wondered if one of them was the tour manager. Francisco told me to just ask but it felt quite awkward to just go up and ask. Suppose it wasn't them? We found our way the taco stand restaurant and while waiting in line, I saw the same guys go towards a restaurant. Then I noticed the singer (I already knew what he looks like) join their group. Francisco said I should go up and ask. I didn't want to look like some sort of groupie. Anyhoo, we went up to them and they were all facing the other way. The singer was closest to us and so I just tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around we started talking. I was really nervous but just introduced myself. He described the tour manager to us. We parted ways after a brief conversation. He seemed really nice and it was cool just getting to say hi.

After dinner, I got my photo pass and was allowed to go ahead of the huge line of people waiting to get inside (sorry Francisco). I felt like Waynes World as they got to go backstage and they kept flashing their backstage pass to everyone. I got my camera set up and started talking with the guy selling tshirts. After that I realized I was allowed to go inside. I made my way toward the front and was wondered if I would be allowed to enter the barrier between the stage and the crowd. Just as I approached the front one of the bouncers saw me with my photo pass and pointed the way into the barrier. All I could think was "this is way cool!" I snapped a quick picture of the barrier (see above). I got to talk with some cool folks up front "hi Josh, hi Amanda, hi Carissa".

The whole time I kept thinking "thank You God, this is so cool!!! How did I end up here?"

My neighborhood?

It's been a while since the last photo of the week. A coworker encouraged me to start going on nightly walks. This last Tuesday evening I went for a walk at the Orange Circle and stopped to take some pictures at the center fountain. From far away I could hear the sounds of a harmonica and it was coming from a lady playing at the fountain. As I approached I could see a small group of homeless people hanging out there. Turns out they were all friends. I started photographing the lady at the fountain. They all started jumping in front of the camera. They weren't exactly always friendly with eachother as they would often cuss eachother out and argue over a bottle of beer. One guy stopped to talk with me for a little while. He started showing me some card tricks and I was pretty impressed. After a little while it dawned on me that I was interacting with homeless people and it should have been a social no no. Lots of people go on walks through the Orange Circle and just pass by these guys. They're out there almost every night. They had some interesting stories to tell. Most of them served in Vietnam as sergeants and lieutenants. One guy served in the first Gulf War. It made me wonder what they were doing out there. Anyhoo, here's some of the pics. It's a little out of my style (as though I really have a style) to be hanging out with homeless folks, but they became friends as I just hung out.

Enjoy

Israel

Hi everyone. Back in April I got to go to Israel with my church. There's a lot I'd love to share and I'll try to write about it over the next few weeks.

Here is a picture obviously of a door. I like how it looks mysterious. What's inside? This door is in Jerusalem and it leads into a place called the Upper Room. It was here where Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples for the last time. It was here also where He instituted the New Covenent, which is the forgiveness of sins, in His blood and with His body. He offered Himself. It's a welcoming site to see the door open. It's still open.

Getting out

Hello everyone. Just wanted to share some photos from a recent (recent as of May 2007) roadtrip up the 101 highway in California.

(click here for gallery)

Work had been real crazy for a while and I was in real need for a vacation. Memorial Day weekend was near and I decided a roadtrip would be a lot of fun. No other friends could make it and I had to decide what to do. It became a time to spend with my Father. When I set out, I didn't really have any specific plans or reservations except maybe stop in Santa Barbara to spend a night in a hostel. I gave up the weekend in prayer to God and set out in the late morning. I headed for Santa Barbara and as I got near, I thought it might be fun to stop at Santa Barbara's Brooks Photography school, to see if they had any upcoming workshops. I had been to the school once before and tried to find it by memory. All I could remember was that the school is up on a hillside that overlooks the city. To my dismay many of the streets looked the same. After dead ends and wrong turns, I would give up and decide to move on from Santa Barbara. Each time I gave up I would find another street that looked familiar, and it would encourage me to keep looking. After a couple more dead ends, I finally found the correct street. I forgot the landmark that is an old hippie bus parked on the street nearby. I found the school and made my way inside to the office. Just as I entered the registrar's office, they asked how they could help me. Just after asking for information on the school, they invited me along for a tour of the whole school. I went in thinking I would be at the school 20 minutes and then break for lunch, but instead got a tour of the whole school. They had a bus ready and waiting to take us to their three buildings around Santa Barbara. The tour was really cool but in the back of my mind I was thinking how badly I also needed to use the restroom. Then after the tour, we met with the head registrar for an interview to see how interested we were to enroll. I was interested but really wanted to hurry the process in getting to a restroom and move on in my little vacation. After a 30 minute conversation of "here's my email address, please email me any information", I left Brooks (after a quick stop to the restroom of course)...

And thus was the start of the trip...

To be a kid again!

Recently, my friend Ryan and I decided to go on a little photography excursion. We headed to Carlsbad to see some flower fields but during the drive down we found out the flowers aren't there. It's not their season. Instead we headed down to San Diego's Balboa park as Ryan had never been there before. He's learning photography and it's a great place get lost in with a camera. It was a lot of fun watching Ryan discover the art of capturing candid photos of people just sitting on a bench and seeing him try all types of different angles. While he went off on his own to play with his camera I went to make some pictures of a huge birdcage they have down in the park. The weather on this particular day was gloomy as rain rain clouds were gathering. It reminded me of an episode of the Batman cartoon (uh oh! Nerd alert!) where the Penguin was hiding out in a bird sanctuary. So that's what I was trying to capture.



Another highlite came after photographing the cage. Far away I could see a fountain and some kids playing next to it. Dusk was looming and the sky was turning to a dark blue. The light from the fountain turned the kids into silhouettes. I hurried my way down there and Ryan joined with me. I saw the kids running back and forth between the water and a couple ladies. I assumed the younger lady was their mother and asked if it was ok take pictures of the kids. She then told the kids to let me take their picture. They turned and posed for me but I wanted to take pictures of them running around. They also looked really nervous and I thought I killed my chance at a cool photo opp. I tried telling them to just act natural but they kept looking at back to their mom and the expression on their face said "who is this guy and why do we have to stand like this?" I began to fret but found some quarters in my pocket and then gave them to the kids. They ran back to the water to make their wishes and they began running and playing again. Do you remember when you were happy with just a quarter?