workshop things.

after the rain.

yeah, I know. it's a leaf. 

but I'm just messing around with a new (borrowed) lens.

wedding shots, sans bride and groom.

promising light.

taken on a walk around Carbondale after dark.

there goes sundown again.

Watched the sunset today from the top of the Giant City water tower.

It was nice.

climb on, so ill.

Nate Kingery, my older sister's boyfriend, tackles a trad climbing route in Giant City.
Shot a while ago, but I like it.

oh dem blues.

sunsets and car crashes.

hey genna. stop shooting sunsets/rises.

...anyway. downloaded the trial version of lightroom. so far I like it.

the way we were.

With the exception of a few others (which I selfishly won't name here, preferring to keep them as much on the down-low as possible), Giant City is one of my favorite places in Jackson County. I love the quiet, the color, the smell of the trees, which is always wonderful, regardless of whether the air is dry or more along the lines of what would be expected in the Amazon. Often it's a good place to think as well as exercise, and I rarely come away without having at least one view or moment that stops me and makes me reflect on...well, lots of things.

This time, what stopped me wasn't anything of nature.

Climbing the water tower at Giant City can be an interesting social experience. Graffiti is updated there regularly, but doesn't usually catch my eye for more than a glance and maybe a laugh. I'm not looking to call anybody for a good time, after all, and I've always been pretty cynical about the initials joined by a sloppy heart.

But this was different. This, in its simplicity, caught me off-guard.

We've all been in the mood to link our initials with another's, in that giddy spot where we just know the relationship will last forever.

But haven't we also all been here? Whether it's an ex best friend or an ex boyfriend (probably making us glad we never grabbed a marker and scrawled on public property)? I know I have. Quite frankly, it sucks. You go to all the places you used to go together, either wallowing in memories or trying to rewrite them. Sometimes it hurts enough that you have to get it out somehow, away from your head and your heart. So maybe that's when you you grab a Sharpie and leave your mark among the others, circling it to stand out among the phone numbers and "I was here"'s. And whether you hope they see it or not, it feels good to get it out of your system.

While I don't necessarily encourage graffiti, I do encourage letting the things that hurt out, in whatever way that means. Write a song, or listen to one. Run until your feet hurt and your head is empty again. Paint, even if it looks like the handiwork of a kindergardener. It helps.

Bailey, whoever and wherever you are:  I hope you patched things up with your friend.

And if you haven't yet, if things haven't worked out right, I hope you realize it's never too late.

it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life.

I feel like I haven't updated recently, though I guess it was just this past weekend.

Anyway, here's one of my sunrise shots from last week. This is more for me than anyone else.

It's funny how sitting by a lake by yourself where the only voices are birds can make things feel alright again. Can make you feel alive and ready to show the world what you've got and be at peace all at once.

baa-ram-ewe.

This guy was totally biting the bullet. It's just shampoo, sheep, it's not that bad. 

I won't be around during the actual Clay County fair...this is about all that was going on.

can't stop the music.

From a story about the Performance Rights Act, a potential tax radio stations may have to pay to play music.

building with writer's blocks.

martial arts tourney.

Once upon a time, I did Taekwondo...

This little guy was not at all paying attention to the Star-Spangled Banner.

Then again, I guess I was focused on something else, too.

never let me go.

Summer Conference 2009: Unshakeable Faith.

viva la vida.

I shot this a few weeks ago at a cemetery near my home-home (as opposed to school-home). I was clicking through some of my images today, and when this one surfaced it stopped me, because death's a subject I've been thinking about recently -- not in a morbid sense, but more of a contemplative one.

My mom always went to this cemetery when she needed to "check perspective", to use her words. After accompanying her on a walk to it one day, I figured out what she meant.

You can't be in the presence of the dead without thinking about your own life. And, in thinking about mine... there's so many more things I want to do. I want to be so much more of a person than I am now. How much time do we spend thinking about ourselves? That's not the way to making anything better. Maybe societal improvement begins with self-improvement, but that doesn't begin with selfishness.

This is the only life we've got, and it's precious and terrifying and exhilarating and wonderful.

Like Stephen King said, "Get busy living or get busy dying." One day all that's left of any of us is going to be a headstone so old it has to be supported against a tree.

I plan to take the former of Mr. King's choices.

Viva la vida.

light show.

I used to be terrified of storms. 

I had a valid reason for it -- when I was seven, my house was hit by what was probably a tornado that hadn't fully descended. After that night, any cloud cover I saw swelled in my mind to something monstrous, and I spent a lot of rainy evenings following my dad around the house and quite a few nights dragging my blanket and pillow out in front of their bedroom door to sleep any time I heard thunder.

Now, I think storms are glorious, awesome examples of God's power. This is a good paradigm shift for me, because there's no shortage of rocky weather in southern Illinois. 

Tonight, my older sister called me while I was at small group, telling me to grab my camera because there was a gorgeous cloud being lit up by lightning from within. 

I was too late to catch that particular system -- at least as the late evening light illuminated it perfectly -- but I did run home, grab Audra, and then drive out to a reservoir near town, where we stayed for about ten minutes, me shooting and both of us enjoying the light show.

I don't have a tripod (it's on my list), so I used my shoes to steady the camera on a couple of the shots...and almost all of them have crooked horizons. They're not excellent examples of weather photography by any means, either.

But I can honestly say that I look forward to the storms coming this summer, and I already have a couple locations in mind to shoot from the next time I see a front rolling in.

And maybe next time I'll have a tripod.

Thanks to an excellent tip-off, I learned that June is national Adopt a Cat month.

burger joints and well-made points.

p.s. as soon as I figure out how do get my images to a size I like on here, I'll resize them all so they're uniform and this site isn't an eyesore.

the gov.

Governor Quinn.

Not the greatest shot, but a learning experience. I've had a lot of those recently.
Memo: crowded, back/sidelit press conferences suck.

headlights on dark roads.

I love the dock this photo was shot from.

It's not a spectacular image by any means. It was just a little bit of experimentation. But I still like it, because the place means something to me.

I know that in my next three years at SIU, I'm going to discover new places with new people, and I'll love those moments too.

But I think that, no matter what, this one will always be one of my favorites.

summer skin.

This is the kind of thing you do when you're underage at a wine tasting.

An angle of the Biltmore in Asheville, NC.

A man waiting patiently for his wife to explore the Biltmore gardens.

Now...hopefully I've got plants and architecture out of my system, and can focus on people.