Author: Shay

A little bit, a little bit more.

Published!

Post author By Shay
Post date July 23, 2008
2 Comments on Published!

Evacuate This Place Quick!, originally uploaded by shaycam.

The good people at UrbanTurf.com approached me this week about using one of my photos for an article they were doing on Washington D.C. As most young, aspiring photographers would, I gave them permission and they were kind enough to send a link back to me.

Here’s a link to the article if you want to check it out or are planning on moving to D.C. anytime soon. Apparently, it’s ranked 7th in the U.S. as one of the most “walkable” cities.

Here’s a link to the photoset of my trip to Washington D.C. last year.

Hear, See, and Do – #2

It’s that time again for another crack at Hear, See, and Do. It’s just another way to get inside my head…

Hear: John Piper’s Sermon “How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice”
John Piper recently preached this sermon at the Together For the Gospel Conference in Lousiville, Kentucky and I’ve listened to it a few times now and would like to pass it on. If this doesn’t go down as one of the defining sermons of his life I’ll be sad — trust me, it’s a good one.

See: This video and song by Phil Wickham.
It’s a song called “True Love” off his Cannons album. This acoustic version is ridiculously good:

Do: Visit evadethenoise.com and read reviews by my friends and me!
I love music and movies, there’s no denying that. That’s why my friend Abe and I created and founded evadethenoise.com. It started out as a way for us to push our love for music and is slowly evolving into more. This past week we added movie reviews (thanks to Jared), and we’re continually adding more news and reviews each week. Oh, and I did a review on Wall-E that’s a must read…robots are neat.

Some recent reviews from me: Wall-E, Coldplay, and Death Cab For Cutie.
Some from the rest of the evade team: Expelled and The Killing.

[To visit the first Hear, See, and Do click here]

Photography

Ventura: A Weekend Away [in photos]

Post author By Shay
Post date July 8, 2008
2 Comments on Ventura: A Weekend Away [in photos]

Bethany and I got away for the Fourth of July weekend. It was such a blessing to be out of the super hot valley we live in and get in to the cool ocean air. We dig Ventura, so here’s a few photos from our weekend away:

Just an old marquee sign that’s sitting in an empty lot. I thought it was neat.

Kayaks waiting to hit the ocean.

Bethany takes her photography even more serious than I do… hehe

aahh.. the Pacific Ocean — we love you.

“I never saw the sign officer.”

The water was hitting the rocks we were standing on — it was radical.

Just some plain ol’ driftwood.

Here’s Bethany cruising around on the bike we rented. She’s so nice.

I was cruising around on my new longboard. I definitely put the miles on that bad boy!

Finally, Bethany and me waiting for the fireworks. Our American flags were a good touch… “USA! USA! USA!”

Christianity

Digging Deeper

Post author By Shay
Post date July 2, 2008
1 Comment on Digging Deeper

Last night I had a great time with my friend Josh just hanging out and shooting (our cameras) under a nearby overpass. I’ve had this recent thought that photography can be a little like studying the Bible, and vice versa. In Bible study, we always want to dig deeper in to a passage until we can’t dig any further and we’ve pulled out all the nuggets we can find. The classic example is one of my teachers from high school said that when he was in seminary he was told to go study Ephesians 5:18 and write down 20 different observations. Unfortunately, it’s not a long passage, so getting 20 would be tough — though not impossible. When all the students returned to class with their observations the professor was satisfied, but then he assigned the same assignment again, only this time they would have to think of 20 more observations, all of which needed to be different than the first set they turned. This continued until they had something like 50-75 different observations on one passage. Each student was forced dig deep, then dig a little deeper, then even more. But in the end they were taught never to underestimate the power of observation and being able to study well.

I think the same goes for photography. Last night we spent almost 3 hours underneath the 5 freeway and we weren’t bored. We saw different angles and different objects to fill our camera frame. We tried different lighting and different poses in order to create something new and inventive. I laid in the ground and my friend Josh got inside of a concrete tube. Nothing was going to stop us from getting everything out of that place as we could, and now I feel like we’ve got some great images. All we have to do is take the time and effor to dig a little deeper and we’ll start to see change. For Josh and me, we started to see how to make a concrete tube look new and interesting and even how to use a porta potty for something other than going to the restroom.

My desire is always to dig deeper, but sometimes I just give up a little early. In Bible study, I probably short myself on time and don’t let the verses sink in long enough for me to dwell on them and think through them. In photography it’s similar — I give up too early and don’t pursue a subject or a place long enough to know what it’s all about. I think I’m going to continue to try this out in both my study of God’s Word and in my photography. I have this feeling that the results will be both a blessing and encouraging.

See more of my photos from the underpass in my “Titles and Images” group on Flickr.
Josh’s photos can be found here.

Christianity Hear, See, and Do Photography

Hear, See, and Do – #1

If there’s one thing I love, it’s everything. Seriously though, there are a ton of things that I think are amazing. For instance, TiVo. I think TiVo is ridiculously awesome. The fact that I can be at work and it can record the EuroCup 2008 soccer matches for me — unbelievable. By the way, if you didn’t catch the German vs. Turkey semi-final game — you missed out.

I thought I would try a sort of different blog post today — something for your senses. I’m calling it “Hear, See, Do” and I’m borrowing the concept from Newsweek. I’m a subscriber to the weekly publication Newsweek and every week they have this little side bar of things they think we should read, buy, see, etc., and I thought it would be fun to give you my picks for this week. I don’t know if I can pull this off every week, but we’ll see how it goes. Now on to the list!

Hear: Coldplay - Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
This fourth full length album from Coldplay is ridiculously good. Many longtime listeners of Coldplay aren’t impressed, but let me tell you I’m stoked on it. They describe themselves as “soft-hitting rock and roll” and that’s exactly what this album is. It’s just got a good vibe to it. I’d say it’s great for driving or running — not because it’s fast, but because it moves. It’s a little hard to explain, but just get yourself a copy (a legal copy).

See: Chicago - A ridiculously awesome photo gallery
Everyone that reads my blog knows I love photography. Whether it be still life, weddings, or whatever, I’m digging beautiful images. So when I came across this photo gallery of “outtake” images from the Chicago Tribune I wanted to book the flights and go see if Oprah wanted to do lunch with Bethany and me. Honestly, these 83 photos of Chicago during all seasons of the year are inspiring and definitely worth a look (and make sure and read all the lovely captions!).

Do: Buy a Long board (for the streets)
My wife bought me a long board for my birthday a few weeks ago and I’ve been cruising around town and lovin’ life. In fact, if you’re on Twitter you may have seen my update last week as I was skating from Starbucks back to our apartment. Let’s just say, I might get rid of my car.

That’s all for this week — enjoy.