28 December 2007

Sounds Good to Me

that first one is downtown. not sure if it's still lit like that or not. the security guards from the treasury across the street were quite suspicious of us taking pictures... of another building. the one below is the international plaza on briley just down the road from us. great sky for it.

International Plaza

27 December 2007

Baaaaa...



let it not be said that i NEVER conformed. (there was so much hesitation even when i was unwrapping and opening it!)

as many of you know, i don't like conforming. i've always preferred Casio over Texas Instruments, Lowe Alpine (or anything) over (the) North Face, and Rice Milk over Soy Milk; i've just always enjoyed spending more time and choosing the best product over the popular product. i didn't WANT to get an ipod (you have to know this by now), but after all the research i could stand, it's what stood out as what i was looking for; massive storage, efficient controls, best battery life possible. this isn't to say there aren't better mp3 players out there. i'm not saying that. a lot of others have some really neat features (bluetooth, wi-fi, fm receiver, bigger screens, etc) that the ipod doesn't, unfortunately, those are features i did not see as useful as those i mentioned before, so i went for.

and actually, this was a christmas present from my mom. bless her heart, she originally got this and called me to see if was still "interested" in getting one and i said, "well, i'm not sure. i should look into it" (not knowing, of course, that she'd already purchased it). so she took it back and did her own research and got me a Samsung P2 (which is sort of the first "touch" mp3 player before the ipod touch). it was really cool and had a beautiful 3" screen on it, but only went up to 8gb, so her and jordan went out yesterday and returned the samsungs (he got one too) and got the ipods.

having said all that, i'm more and more amazed every year at how much my parents absolutely spoil me (us). they are really something else.

Nashville's Acropolis

(tiny pictures so you HAVE to click on it! haHA!)

It's Not Quite the Acropolis...

The Parthenon at Christmas

20 December 2007



had jesse's work party last night. i didnt think it was going to be fun because we had to dress up, but it was. they had awesome food and drinks. i was the unofficial photographer piano man.




these are just some HDR shots from this past week. i like them because they recreate the scene exactly how it looked. no better. no worse. the first 2 are made from 1 RAW and the second 2 are made from 5 separate exposures.



18 December 2007

Josh Hunter, Spur-of-the-Moment Romantic Photographer... Guy



i took this friday over at opryland hotel. that's Holst and his fiance, Ella. considering we had about 10min to get it before it got dark or my car got towed, i think it turned out well. i could do without Holst in the shot, but, whatever.

17 December 2007



i had a flat tire this morning. gonna go deal with that now.
this is from my office party last friday. jess took these while i opened my dirty santa gift... made especially for me.



that's my boss, ryan. i think he got a kick out of the whole thing.

11 December 2007

Tuesday Bluesday

i wont bother recounting our Dewey Cox weekend since billy more than covered it.



(needless to say, there was an abundance of "cox" jokes. all night.)


jess and i came up on this yesterday. it was an extremely busy pole. even for that part of town.



no wide angle lens is without it's distortions...



this was playing around with the new external flash the other day. my favorite part is how i managed to get nothing in focus.



hope everyone got our christmas card (who was supposed to ;) ). i'll post it soon.


okay this just in. iPod vs. Zune. what do you think? the new Zune seems considerably better than the first. i was going to get an iPod before next July and mom was just asking me about one and i was like "well, actually, i need to look into that." so i did. (seems like the Zune is less of a jerk about restricting the sharing of music. is that right?)

Comparison

Zune (video)

i even customized one...



so far i'm leaning towards Zune. your thoughts?

05 December 2007

My 100th Photo on Flickr!

100: I Need More Sleep

(i wrote a little about it on it's page.)


ALSO: i just got an email telling me someone has bought a photo of mine on ImageKind! how awesome is that?? they bought this one...

Downtown from Shelby St.

man, that's cool.

04 December 2007

Saturday's Sunset



...was awesome. we got to my office just as it was going down, so i grabbed my new lens and took a few. (all of these are 5 exposures combined (that's why the clouds are a little blurry (cause they move))).



i showed these to one of my bosses who always give me crap about using the fisheye (i have no idea why) and his reponse? "nice 'air-brush' technique." i think i'm never going to show him a picture again. i'd rather him pretend he never got the picture than give sarcasm as a response (that's what he's always done with the fisheye shots). yeah, that pissed me off.

i've decided there's not much to do with the Gateway Bridge after dark. it's not very well lit, so i'm think it might be constrained to sunRISE shots.

02 December 2007

Friday, November 30, 2007

It’s been a busy week. I’ve been working a lot and we’ve been trying to finish this present for my family everyday. However, Friday night was not normal for me. It started out normal, but God had some other plans.

I went out after work to try out my new Sigma 10-20mm lens that I got for Christmas. I was pretty excited to give it a test run and after all was said and done, I’m pretty excited about the possibilities it holds. So I had finished what I set out for and decided to try looking at one more spot I’d been thinking about for a while now. I had just gotten up to the Gay St Bridge downtown and was setting up for a shot I saw, when a Mexican guy (like 18 yrs old or so) came up to me asked (in not so perfect English), “Could you tell me which road will take me to Murfreesboro?” I was a bit confused by the question because the guy was on foot. I said I thought Murfreesboro Rd would probably take him there. I said, “Are you trying to walk to Murfreesboro??” He said he was and asked how far I thought it was. I said, “Man that’s like 30mi away. It’ll take like 5hrs to walk there from here.” To be honest, he didn’t seem too discouraged by what I had to say. He really just seemed interested in which direction to start walking.

So I stood there and talked to him for about the next 20min or so while he told me his situation. Apparently, he’s from Shelbyville and he had only really been around there and Murfreesboro so he didn’t know anything about Nashville. He was in Nashville because of some messed up situation with his girlfriend and her sister and them not letting him stay with them. He had $7, there were no more buses going that way till Monday morning, and he’d already spent the last 2 nights somewhere on the streets (and while I was talking to him, Steven (a homeless guy), who I’d met thanksgiving weekend, walked by (I mistakenly said “hey” to him and got his attention) and I ended up giving him my last $3). So I was a little concerned about this guy, but give him a ride to Murfreesboro? That seemed a bit much to me (not so much due to the drive out there, but the fact that I’d just met him and this sounds crazy even to me). On top of that, Jess was already a little mad and worried about me because I was taking longer than I’d said and hadn’t answered my phone (which was on vibrate) in the last few minutes.

Now, at first during our conversation I was just kind of listening to what he had to say waiting to see if he came up with a solution on his own, but then I started asking God just what in the world he wanted me to do here because the only thing I can think of seems not so smart. So after a few more minutes I called Jess and told her what I was thinking and made sure she was “okay” with it. Then I gave him a ride to Shelbyville.

His name is Julio and I mostly let him talk to me on the way there. I thought I was going to drop him off in Murfreesboro, but when I found out that he was going to walk from there to Shelbyville, I went ahead and kept driving. We got there and I got us sandwiches at Subway, where we sat and talked for a little bit longer. He’s been here for about 5 years (and no, he doesn’t have any “papers”). He came here to live with his dad and go to school, but when he got here his uncle had spent the money for that (he couldn’t go back to Mexico because of some technicality with the schools there), so he’s just been working here ever since.

We finished eating, he thanked me, and we went our separate ways.

The whole thing still sounds bizarre to me.



We live in world where so many people are looking for handouts, that it’s generally downright impossible to decipher who genuinely needs your help. Not that homeless people asking for money don’t need your help, but I’m talking about a real favor. You come across someone that really and truly needs your help and you give them your time and energy. And I’ll be honest, I almost let this one fly right by. I was in my own world taking pictures and I wasn’t looking to be bothered by someone needing a ride an hour down the road.

Now, I’m always (ALWAYS) wishing for opportunities to help people; I love the thought of just randomly having the chance to improve someone’s life. But this? This wasn’t even close to what I would’ve imagined. And really, how could it have been? Is it very likely that a nice looking family of four is going to approach me for a ride across town after their car had been stolen? No. It’s not. It’s probably going to be someone not like you who you wish would just leave you alone.

On my ride home I was bit overwhelmed with joy and humility. It was as if I had just passed the test given to me. I don’t know why he or I was there. I don’t know what either of us may or may not have avoided by me driving him there. In all honesty, it may have just been as simple as one of God’s children needed His help and I was the closest person in proximity. Whatever it was, I just felt so… thankful, so… honored, so privileged to have been given that opportunity and to have let God completely work through me (even if I had been a little slow on the get-go) for whatever His purpose(s) may have been.

It scares me to think how many times in the past I’ve said, “Please, just leave me alone” and failed the test.



River of Lights