365- Day Five

I didn't take any pictures earlier in the day because I thought, "Well hey, I'm going to be with people tonight, so I can actually have pictures of people on my blog for once!"

I'm not sure if I'm going to do that again. It's too risky. What if you forget to take pictures that night? What if the lighting is terrible and you don't get any good ones? What if all the pictures are boring? I don't like posting boring photos.

Thankfully, tonight I took a picture of Stephen that I approved of. The interesting lighting makes it, well, interesting. And his expression is somewhat interesting too.

And then I decided to throw in a picture of Parker for good measure because it amuses me.

365- Day Four

Today was a bright and sunny day. It was also a very windy day. And also, the snow is still here on the ground.Consequently, the snow was blowing about and sparkling in the sun. It was awesome.

365- Day Three

It's interesting forcing yourself to take pictures in a very familiar environment.You really have to look to find interesting things to photograph. 

This is in my room. I like the contrast in this picture, and the inconsistencies. The wall isn't perfect, and neither is the trim or the door. But I like it because of that. It has character.

I am not a huge fan of the colors, though. They seem greyish and flat. Oh well.

365-Day Two

This morning (or rather, yesterday morning), I peeked out my window into the backyard. The light of the rising sun was catching the snow and making it sparkle beautifully. One of my goals this year is to take every opportunity that God gives me...and so although I didn't exactly feel like it, I threw a coat on and took some pictures in the frigid air. I am so glad I did.

Taking opportunities is quite a good thing. You never know what God will do through them. In this case, it was simply showing me His glory through letting me take a few beautiful pictures of His creation.

365 Challenge- Day One

Probably most of you have seen the 365 challenges floating around, or you have already done it before. Basically, the idea is to take a photo every single day of the year. Every. single. day.

I really like this idea, because it forces you to get out your camera every day. It makes you actively look for photo opportunities throughout the day.

And so...I'm doing it this year.

We'll see how this thing goes. If you want to see all the 365 challenge photos without looking at my other posts, I believe that you can click on the 365 tag under this post.

Here's my first day's picture. This is at my grandma's house in Columbus.

Not extremely exciting, I know. Hopefully my other pictures will be better.

Starting Anew

One of the things I have struggled with over the years is starting a project, but never finishing it. I have quite a few journals that have only two or three entries in them. Usually those first entries express my desire to keep a journal, but after the initial excitement dies down, there are only blank pages. A year later, usually around New Years or my birthday, I decide again that I'd like to start a journal. However, instead of using the same journal that I used last year, I generally use a clean, new journal. It is so much easier to start a task when there is no record of failure the last time you tried to complete that task.

I started this blog in December of last year, inspired my my friend Jeannette's blog. I remember being very excited about the opportunity to show all of my pictures, and I was also excited to design my blog. However, when it came to the actual nitty-gritty work of writing posts, I was stumped. I didn't think having a blog would require so much work and effort. 

Fast forward 10 months. It is October, and the Christmas season is around the corner again. Since I started my blog, I have written 9 posts, which comes to .75 posts per month. Not very impressive, huh? My friends have practically forgotten about For What It's Worth, and I confess that I have too.

Until a couple Fridays ago. I was talking to my friend Olivia, and she asked me about my blog. I complained that I didn't have anything good to post, that I hadn't taken any good pictures lately.

Which brings us to another topic. I have not been very diligent at taking pictures this year. Yes, I do enjoy taking pictures, and I do realize God has given me a gift in using a camera. But I have not used this gift wisely. I have not cultivated my talents. I have not used what God has given me for His glory. Although I did take some good pictures at Ryan and Grace's wedding (if you want to see Jeannette's post about it, see here), and I did shoot my first official wedding over the summer, and I have taken senior pictures for a friend, and done a couple other things over the year, I haven't been dilligent. I look at Jeannette, who has taken pictures almost every day this year. I look at myself, who has seen perfect opportunities for pictures and passed them by.

I've been thinking about what I want to do for college, and I've been thinking about Visual Communication Technology. It's basically Photography, Videography, Web Design, and Graphic Design all rolled into one awesome major. (If you are bored, here's the link to it: http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/technology/undergraduate/vct/index.html) Right now I believe that it would be the best choice, based on my interests and the talents God has given me. But as I look at my brother Ben, who became an engineer, I see how through high school he was preparing for college by doing hard things like Calculus and other seemingly boring things like that (although I'm sure it was exciting for him...maybe). I've been thinking, how can I prepare myself for college? Well, if I'm going to school for photography and videography, the obvious answer would be to practice those. To spend time learning about them. To cultivate my gifts for photography by taking lots of pictures. To shoot videos, whether it be short silly things or long complex movies, since I've never done it before. 


Anyways, back to my story. After I complained to Olivia, she said that I should go out West so that I could blog about it.
And I was like, yeah.
And then I was like, oh wait.
I did go out West this summer. I went to Montana. And I took plenty of pictures out there. 

So I went home and organized all my Montana pictures. Then I came back to this blog. I looked around and cringed at the lack of posts, and the lack of continuity whatsoever. I wished that I could just erase all that I have posted in the past and start with a clean page. After all, that's what I've always done.

The end part of Philippians 3:13 says, "But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Paul, the author of Philippians, did not have a sinless background before Christ called him. He was a persecutor of Christians. In 1st Timothy 1:15, he calls himself the worst of sinners. Despite his past, do we ever see Paul mired in guilt and shame? Do we ever see him wailing and wishing he could erase his past? No. He repents, and moves on. He strains towards what is ahead. He runs the race with endurance. He fixes his eyes on Eternity.

That's what I should do. Instead of wishing to erase my past, or in this case, all my blog posts, I need to strain forward. Instead of simply pressing the "erase" button, I need to start posting other things that will make up for the failures of the past and prepare me for the future. I need to be diligent, and cultivate the gifts God has given me.

And so I am, sitting in my room, writing another blog post, taking this scolding I've given myself to heart. 

I'm starting up this blog again.

Sunday, April 22nd

First of all, I'm thankful for our first Sunday worshiping in our new building.

I regret to say that is the only picture I took. I wasn't really in a picture-taking mood that day.

Also that day we had a birthday party for Eric Beerbower. It was supposed to be a surprise birthday party, but the surprise part didn't go quite as planned owing to the stubbornness of Eric. He was still surprised, just not in the exact way as we planned. 

After our attempt to surprise Eric at the park, we headed back over to his house and had a Euchre tournament.

I'm sorry that 1) the only person in these following pictures is Parker, and 2) that there are rather few pictures. As I said before, I wasn't really in a picture-taking mood that day.

The bracket that my brother put together