that click of a shutter

i just love photography so much
life is a beautiful thing to behold
to see life...real life splayed out like tiny dots of color mess on a page.....
i have to sigh.
i get tingles in my knees and tingles in my toes.
stay said it right "there's just too much beauty to quit"

it kind of hurts inside when someone calls themself a photographer and i look at what they've got and i can tell they don't know what their doing.
i feel cheap and mean for saying something like that.
i guess what makes a difference is when the passion is there.
if the passion is there, there can be a willingness to grow.
i've grown.
my! how i've grown.
because i discovered a passion. and after timeless words from sam auger of "it doesn't matter if you like the angle, it's just not sharp"
it finally hit me, that if i love anything in life enough to do it, i should do it right.

so i ask you...if you love photography enough, learn it well. let it teach you.
let it surprise you.
let photos happen to you.
discover the world, and indeed be discovered!
let nature discover you.
like a good refrain of a moving song on a summer's eve in the mist and the fog

the dance of mirrors

it's funny how you set out to do something, and it turns itself around, takes on a mind of it's own and it become what you really needed it to be, yet nothing what you wanted it to be.

since i started this blog, it seems as though i've had absolutely nothing to tell you about my coffee shop.

but i do have so much to say about myself. now is that selfish?
e.b. white says it like this "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks abot, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy their. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new attempt, differs from the last and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays."

maybe my life is the most interesting thing you could spend your mid-summer afternoons reading about.
maybe i'd like to believe so.
maybe i can convince you so.
maybe if no one ever believes it, i will keep believing it and keep spilling my guts over your computer screen, and e.b. white and i will listen to bon iver together and rejoice in the beauty and stillness of writing about ones-self.


have you noticed that man is keenly selfish?
we've learned a dance called "selfishness" and we've learned it well.
we have no dancing partner,
it's a solo dance.
we dance about a room, spotted with beautiful white lights and beautifully decorated females and beautifully smelling males, but we never smell the male's aftershave and we never touch the female's pearls because we are focused on our own: smell, yet a distasteful one; apperance, yet a mere bramble in the bush.
we don't know how to be beautiful.

and we don't know how to see each other's beauty.

we just keep looking down at the floor, a mirrored reflection looking up, like one in a poorly lit room, pointing out all the flaws.

O! if only we'd look up and see the loves floating about the room around us!
O! then, only then, can we begin to understand the beautiful floating about in our scrubbish clothes.

O!and how it takes me aback! how can we possibly move our wilted, exasperated eyes from our mirrors when this is all that encompasses us?

O! it has a Name, The Name, and it's a Beautiful Name at that.
The Name has a much bigger mirror, which completely swallows our puny mirrors, and coats them with a fresh shaving of Yeast and Grape, which reflects to us only The Name, and our face grows dim.

"So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full in­to His face and you will find that the things of earth will ac­quire a strange new dim­ness."

the sky

today was an exquisite day. did you look outside at all?
i woke up in a sweat-it was so humid outside.
around 9 am the humidity in the air got so dense, that it turned into water droplets,
and it rained all day.
then outcame one of those beautiful north carolina sunsets, after the storm.
pouring over the trees.
spinning above your face.
the kind that you don't believe you are actually watching.
until it's gone, and you wonder, was it ever really there?

when it was 7 oclock grey?
10 oclock gloom?
2 oclock drab?
6 oclock lull?
8:37 VIBRANCE
9 olock dense, dull, dismal.

it's like the entire day was setting itself up. the trees woke up this morning, knowing that at 8:37 they would get to frame the luster of light.
the birds had been holding back their songs all day, aware of their one task today, this week.
the clouds got heavier and heavier, recognizing the importance of their role at 8:37.

because it's at 8:37 that the perfectly full clouds would stain the sky
INDIGO
FUCHSIA
GOLDENROD

at 8:37 the birds would at burst out with an exasperated breath singing
"i've been holding it in all day and i can hold it no longer! i love to sing!"

at 8:37 the trees held the birds in their song, and framed the clouds in their sky

and He said it was very good.




i have 3 things to say:
-i am pleased that at least a couple of the people who are most decidated and commited to joyce and her coffeeshop, are Christ-followers, even if she doesn't know it. i know it, and i appreciate it.
-now as much as i desire for all people to treat each other decently, i kind of like the fact that i can brighten someone's day with Love. if it were commun, i don't think it would mean as much.
(this doesn't let you off the hook- your barista still wants to know that you care about her!)
-i wonder what would happen if gordon ramsay visited my coffee shop: what would that look like if he went head to head with zev?
hahahahahaha


thank you world for letting me watch you as i serve you coffee. don't forget that i am noting what you do. and i do it because i love you