Super excited to be announcing the launch of a photographic workshop that I have the privilege of co-leading with Esther Havens. If you are not familiar with her work, change that. Her work has inspired me and her heart as taught me a great deal as we’ve shared our experiences. Our workshop will be geared around using photography as a tool to enable organizations around the world to tell their stories and grow their impact, but will cover a broad spectrum of topics.
Esther and I do very similar work and live similar lives… we work on our laptops in-transt, hit the ground running in country and are always balancing budget and expenses to make it all work. We both often get inquiries about what we do, how we got started, how we make it work and everything else. We feel like what we do is more than a profession, but really a challenging calling, one that is ultimately incredibly rewarding. Thru many conversations and prayer, we now feel called to share our experiences and help others understand what it looks like to be on this path.
We are so pumped to be working on this together and can’t wait for our first workshop this September… if you’re at all interested, sign up for more information at Light the World Workshop.
- Austin
June’s desktop comes from my last night in New Zealand, staying in Rotorua on the North Island. Earlier in the trip, I learned how to locate the southern celestial pole… the point which all of the stars appear to rotate around when as the earth rotates (seen in the bottom of the image.) The different colors seen in the stars is caused by the different temperatures & intensities that each of the stars burn. This is a 4886 second exposure, about 81 minutes. Enjoy!
Enjoy!
- june 2010 Desktop – Click image to preview
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I’m in Dallas for about 36 hours, to move out of my apartment and the feel like the very last thing I should be doing right now is shooting more shots of the sky from the balcony… but today’s storm was just epic and made me so thankful to have had this apartment the time that I have. So thankful.
Earlier today:
A few minutes ago (rainbow on left!)
May’s desktop is here!
This one is from Mt. Cook National Park in south New Zealand. At 12,300 ft, Mt. Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand. I was driving out to the mount very early in the morning and shot this 4 second exposure handheld, a good half hour before the sun actually came up.
Enjoy!
- May 2010 Desktop – Click image to preview
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I’ve been putting together a trip to New Zealand for awhile… almost 3 years actually. When I was finally nailing down the plans and felt like it was the right time to go, I decided I would throw in a couple days in Fiji on my way there. I had some connections to a hospital project in Fiji that I was maybe going to hook up with that but that didn’t end up working out. I was in Africa for a month solid right before my trip and honestly, I had very little time for any planning whatsoever.
So the bottom line is… I showed up at the airport in with absolutely no plan. I talked to some people on the plane on the way there, but that’s about it. I arrived in the Nadi airport in Fiji morning at about 5:30AM… I then found the ‘local’ car rental place, where I was able to bargain a little bit and get a steal on a 4WD vehicle… as a fotog, I gladly put the $$ into transportation way before accommodation, as having the right vehicle can get you places for more unique shots.
I left the airport in my sweet Hyundai Tucson, more focusing on the driving cause its on the left side of the road, than where I was going. After awhile I got my bearing and realized I wanted to go the other way (even though I had no real destination.) I turned around, heading toward the bay that I heard on the plane was really pretty.
I drove and drove and finally got off the main road and started tearing through dirt trail along the ocean coast. It was beautiful and I was having a blast… I passed through a small village or two and then finally looked ahead and saw a big group of school kids standing around.
It turns out the water was crazier than usual and the tide had come in earlier than expected, creating a sort of water barrier… I pulled up, got out and took some pictures and then went back to my car and there was an older man there. He looked at me and said “Wow! You look strong!” I shook his hand and said back to him “Jesus makes me strong!” and he said “Praise the LORD!”
We were immediately friends. His name was Philemon…
He was carrying something in a plastic bag but I couldn’t really tell what it was… after awhile I realized it was Bible. It turns out God changed his life in 2007 and since then he has been walking from village to village (mostly idol worshippers or Hindus) sharing the love of Jesus Christ ever since. Philemon was also stuck on that side of water, but had hoped to make it across to visit a certain village that morning. The water was going in and out and I offered to take Philemon across.
I popped it into 4WD and got across no problem. We then went out to the village, where we visited huts and shared the Gospel. Philemon later told me that he felt he had faith in God’s power, and like Moses, God parted the Red Sea for him and got him across the water in my car. This was a very real statement. He had faith he was supposed to get to the village that morning… and through a completely lost, exploring American, God provided that passage.
Mid-morning it started down pouring rain… that’s when I figured out why he wraps the Bible in the plastic bag. Every morning he walks to villages, every morning it rains… and every morning he carries that Bible, protected inside a worn down plastic bag.
After our time in the other villages, he invited me into his home… we went back to his village where his wife and 4 kids were… he knocked down some coconuts from the tree and cut them open with a machete… next thing I knew we were sitting there in his bungalow, sipping on coconut milk together.
His wife Sarew made us a fantastic meal and we had a great time together. Interestingly, because of the large Indian settlement years back, our meal had was very similar to indigenous food I’ve eaten while in India, quite tasty.
We ended up hiking up and around Mt Kenya pretty spontaneously earlier this week… by that I mean, we basically woke up in the morning and said… let’s go to Mt Kenya today. We drove our van an hour into the middle of nowhere to a tiny (almost completely abandoned) lodge at about 10K elevation. We left it there and hiked a few hours, ascending another 3K feet or and spent the night at the first campsite… I had brought a tiny tent (intended for me when I camp solo) but we ended fitting three of us in there, which was very tight to say the least. I’m a gear head and even tho we hadn’t ever even planned for this trek, I felt a little ill-prepared not having the right gear… thus a little bummed… but not for long:
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