Blog Header – April 6, 2008
This week’s photo is another of the photos I adjusted in Photoshop for use in our church’s lyric projection for the praise songs. This barn is located on a hill to the side of Route 29 in Nelson County, Virginia. Everytime I passed this barn I was struck with its beauty, especially against the mountains in the background.
Finally, one day I drove to the side of the road, pulled out my camera and took this photograph. I took the photo in black & white but placed our church’s logo on the side of the barn in Photoshop.
Blog Header – March 30, 2008
This week’s header photo is of my son watching the small training aircraft activity at Lynchburg Regional Airport. This one could actually be included in my Why-I-Love-Lynchburg series. In any large city, you can’t get anywhere near the airplanes. And if you look suspicious in any way, you’re likely to get a quick trip to the security center for investigation and questioning.
But the Lynchburg airport allows you to stand on the grass outside the border fence, just feet away from one of the runways. And quite a few families are there on pleasant days, having picnics and watching the planes take off and land.
My son has always loved all forms of travel. He became particularly interested in flight a little more than a year ago and he knows quite a bit about aircraft now. His interest in this caught the attention of the folks who work at the airport and they now let him go right out onto the field in front of the hangar. He is able to set on a bench, just about 25 yards from the landing strip. He can hear the chatter between the tower and the pilots as they prepare to land. He gets to talk to some of the pilots once they have landed and parked their planes. One of the men took David into the lobby of the airport and showed him a cutaway of an airplane engine, explaining to him how each part of the engine worked. David ate it all up.
We love Lynchburg!
Blog Header – March 23, 2008
Mark 16:6 – Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen!
This week’s blog header photo is from our backyard. I created these blog headers late last year except for a few that I added when we had a snow storm last month. I did not know which week Easter would fall on when I chose which header I would use for each week of the year. So as I prepared to change the blog header this week, I realized that I would likely need to create a new one for this week to address the fact that today is Resurrection Sunday.
But before I did so, I looked in my files to see what had originally been slated for this week. It was this photo, which I think perfectly suits this holiday—this celebration of Jesus Christ’s victory over sin and death. “O Death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?”
Praise the Lord! He is risen! Hallelujah!
Blog Header – March 16, 2008
This week’s photo is of our pastor’s son. My wife is an award-winning preschool age portrait photographer. One of her favorite tricks is to blow bubbles to distract the young children from the bright lights and the somewhat uncomfortable experience of sitting in front of a stranger with no one nearby to hang onto.
My wife took some family portraits for our pastor’s family and a few of those portraits were individual shots of their sons. When I saw this photo, I just had to adjust it for use with the worship lyric projection in our church. It just looks like this young man is praising God. I know he’s just interacting with the bubbles, but I still loved the look of it. I widened the photo and painted the background over further to the left to create a place for the lyrics and then painted in extra bubbles for effect. Altogether a pretty cool photo. My wife is the best! And cute kids to photograph doesn’t hurt the whole process either.
Blog Header – March 9, 2008
I guess I will, once again, comment on another one of the things that makes me love Lynchburg.
This week’s photo is of an abandoned factory building in downtown Lynchburg. A few decades ago, this was a booming and active shoe factory that employed many of the people of Lynchburg. It now sits empty, with weeds growing through the parking lot pavement, paint peeling from the walls, and windows missing many of their panes.
On one of our first explorative visits to downtown Lynchburg, my wife and I passed this building. We were both struck immediately with its forlorn beauty. I turned the car around and we spent the next hour or so walking around this building taking pictures from various angles.
Many of you probably do not understand our fascination with an abandoned factory building. By way of explanation—we were both raised in the suburbs of Washinton, D.C. Nothing is ever left abandoned in Washington. When a building is vacated it is either leased to new tenants as soon as the previous ones vacate or it is destroyed and a new building is built in the same spot.
It’s fun for Northern people to watch folks experience their first snow storm. It is much the same for my wife and me when it comes to seeing an abandoned building. We have not seen abandoned buildings very often, except in photos. And I doubt that either of us have ever seen a building that has been abandoned for an entire generation. It’s much the same as visiting ancient Greece to see the ruins—just not quite as old.
Blog Header – March 2, 2008
I was a day late on this blog header photo. It’s been a busy past week and weekend.
This week’s photo is of the beautiful Keswick winery in Keswick, Virginia. This vineyard is within a few miles of the church that was the subject of last week’s photo. The first few times I drove past the Keswick winery I was drawn to the simple beauty of the well-cared-for vines, the repetitive pattern of the vine stakes, and the diagonal road winding back through the vineyard toward the mansion that is seen just over the hilltop.
Wine is an interesting beverage and has been the subject of one of Evangelicalism’s hotspots of hypocritical actions on the part of fundamentalists and other conservative Evangelicals. God created the grape in such a way that when a grape is crushed the resulting liquid is wine. It is not grape juice, which was not even possible until 1862 when pasteurization was developed.
The skin of the grape contains yeast. The fruit of the grape contains sugar. When the grape is crushed and the yeast and the sugar mix with the oxygen in the air the liquid begins to ferment—producing wine. It seems that this is what God intended, perhaps, in a way, making this God’s beverage.
But, of course, we conservative Christians like to think that we know better than God, so some of us prohibit the drinking of wine. This total abstinence stance springs from Prohibition—not from the Bible. The Bible forbids over-indulgence in wine but actually commends the drinking of wine in many places. In fact, Jesus’ first miracle was the production of a world-class wine at the wedding in Cana.
Perhaps it would be better for us to accept gratefully the things God has given us rather than abstaining from them in a feeble and failure-sure effort to work our way into heaven.
Psalms 104:14-15 – You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man.
Photo of the week – February 24, 2008
This week’s photo is of a church in Keswick, Virginia. On one of my regular jaunts between Lynchburg and Washington, DC, I was driving past this church just as night was falling. The gorgeous architecture was made all the more beautiful by the spotlights and the dusk lighting in the sky. I had to stop to take a picture.
The slow shutter speed required to capture this photo would have made hand holding the camera impossible and I did not have any of my tripods in the car with me at the time. But, fortunately, my wife had her small calapsible video camera tripod in her purse. It’s not particularly steady for a single lens reflex camera with a large lens attached, but I managed to get quite a few good pictures taken before the priests in the rectory noticed I was there and lights began turning on to scare off the intruder.
Blog Header – February 24, 2008
This week’s photo is of a church in Keswick, Virginia. On one of my regular jaunts between Lynchburg and Washington, DC, I was driving past this church just as night was falling. The gorgeous architecture was made all the more beautiful by the spotlights and the dusk lighting in the sky. I had to stop to take a picture.
The slow shutter speed required to capture this photo would have made hand holding the camera impossible and I did not have any of my tripods in the car with me at the time. But, fortunately, my wife had her small calapsible video camera tripod in her purse. It’s not particularly steady for a single lens reflex camera with a large lens attached, but I managed to get quite a few good pictures taken before the priests in the rectory noticed I was there and lights began turning on to scare off the intruder.
Blog Header – February 17, 2008
It’s now mid-February and the days will be warming soon, so I don’t have much time left to post photos of the snow.
The photo above is from a snowstorm we had in Lynchburg in January. I just love the fresh brightness of it all.
Photo of the week – February 17, 2008
It’s now mid-February and the days will be warming soon, so I don’t have much time left to post photos of the snow.
The photo above is from a snowstorm we had in Lynchburg in January. I just love the fresh brightness of it all.
Blog Header – February 10, 2008
This week’s graphic is one of the the backgrounds I created for our church’s worship lyric projections. I did a series of photos of musical instruments with the church logo and slogan embedded (through Photoshop) on the instruments. On this set of bongo drums I put the slogan (“the Word – Worship – World Evangelism”) on the left drum and the logo on the right drum. I created the logo for the church when they decided to place a new sign in front of the church. The old sign was looking a bit haggard.
Blog Header – Valentines Week
Blog Header – Valentine’s Week
Blog Header – February 10, 2008
By His grace - For His glory 