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My work schedule got switched up a little bit, and I no longer have time tomorrow to shoot, but since I left work earlier than expected today, I took the D40 out for its first photo shoot. I panicked for about 15 minutes trying to think where I could get to in time for the sunset, and quickly realized that I live in the middle of a very, very large urban jungle. I also tend to shy away from the monuments, mostly because a) everyone’s already seen a thousand pictures of them, and b) then you just look like a tourist when you take pictures there. So instead I went to Freedom Park in Rosslyn, right across the river from DC. Freedom Park is basically a bridge that was never used as a road, so instead they planted grass on it, put some artifacts on the bridge, and turned it into a ‘park’. It’s about 1000 feet long, and holds some interesting things including sections of the Berlin Wall, a headless statue of Lenin (that’s Vladimir, not John), and a memorial to journalists killed in action (the glass, almost iridescent structure you’ll see later). One great thing about this park is although it is directly in the middle of Arlington’s business district, it sees very few visitors and being up in the air as it is, it really feels like an escape from the busyness of the city, despite it moving all around you.

I only brought one memory card with me, meaning I only had room for about 950 pictures today. In the two hours I was there, I shot 902. Originally the camera said it would only hold about 450, so it was funny to keep taking pictures and watch the “pictures remaining” number continue to climb. Now, those 902 include a lot of shots where I just held the shutter and took two or three at the same time, just to ensure that I got at least one good shot. By the time I was done deleting the excess, I only saved about 200 pictures to my hard drive today. Of those, I’ve picked a handful to show off. These are raw, meaning no special photoshopping was done, although I expect you might see some of them return in the near future, all jazzed up.

As always, click to see the full image, but beware… the new camera means the full images are about 4MB each. In the future I’ll remember to save a medium size for easier enjoyment.

The Journalists’ Memorial

So you know where I am, there are the monuments.

Freedom Park’s upper portion connects to this building, home of many offices, some small boutique stores, and Channel 7 News.

The sunset reflected on this building was amazing… blue fading to orange, through red. I just couldn’t get the colors to saturate as much as I wanted to.

This just turned out awesome. I started playing with zooming the lens during long exposures, and got this. It just gives an unbelievable sense of motion.

Upper side of the park.

Lower side of the park.

Inside the building.

And for today’s bit of trivia… this is the 100th post since I switched over to WordPress a couple of years ago. That means I’m probably averaging about 3 posts a month over the 3 years or so I’ve been doing this. Prolific.

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You may remember a few weeks ago, when I listed some of the things I wanted to do in the near future. They’ve all been desires of mine for a long time, thought some (like ice hockey) have only more recently become of interest simply because, well, there’s just not that much ice hockey going on in Marion. But this week, after many months of reading photographer’s advice, reviews, specs, and looking at hundreds of photos; and having a few dollars in surplus thanks to birthday and tax money, I purchased this:

The Nikon D40, the newest model in their highly-regarded line of great cameras. Professionals the world over all shoot Nikon digitals, because they’re great cameras and they cost a lot less than the Ferrari’s and Porsche’s of cameras do. Believe it or not, I actually made great improvements in my purchasing discipline this time. Originally I had eyed the D80 or even the D200, which would be at least twice as expensive as the rig I got. But after reading lots of information very thoroughly, I came to the conclusion that this camera will do 99% of everything I want it to, and I didn’t really need the other 1% anyways. So when I finally decided this was the model to buy, that also freed me up to go ahead and buy it, because my specially designated photography savings was adequate.

So now I look forward to having a new outlet to express myself creatively and artistically. This camera is powerful enough to do a lot of things my old camera couldn’t, and it will provide the shot in the arm I need to spend more time pursuing my photography. I’m already planning on shooting Friday, and taking my next photo trip Tuesday, location TBD.

I’m excited.

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I ran tech for two showings of The Passion of the Christ tonight, and I think it may be impossible for anyone to come away from that movie without lots of theological thoughts and questions racing through their mind. Yes, Mel Gibson took some fair liberties in his movie, adding scenes which have no Biblical basis and adding many lines in the movie which have no scriptural reference. But you just can’t make a great movie using only the gospel accounts of the Crucifixion, not because it isn’t a story worth telling but because there just isn’t enough “script” to cover two hours worth of movie. And let’s give Mel a little bit of credit here for doing a great job at keeping the movie mostly scriptural, with a distinct lack of politics and personal beliefs that no one else in Hollywood could have done, or at least would have done. So with the understanding that movie is just that, a movie, and not a historically accurate film, let’s delve into some good, old-fashioned theological discourse.

It sounds funny to say, but it’s my opinion that in the ‘boyfriend Jesus’ era we currently live in, we have somehow managed to forget both the humanity and the divinity of Christ, and particularly have forgotten he was both at the same time. I’m not sure how to describe exactly what we view Jesus as, because human or divine seem to be the only two choices, but I honestly am going to go with somewhere in the middle. In recent years, Christians have decided to relate to Jesus more on the human level, thus the awful phrase “I’m dating Jesus” that was common for a few years, and is now more commonly made fun of. We talk about Jesus being our buddy, a friend who hangs out with us, and emphasize the personal relationship with him that a Christian enjoys. We also have our moments where we see him as the Son of God, particularly around the Easter season. These are the times when we talk about the miracles Jesus performed, how he raised himself to life on the third day, and how he sits at the right hand of the Father. We do the best we can, but in the end we fall far short of a true understanding of Christ.

Our human intellect lacks the ability to conceive a being as both fully man and fully God, and in our inability to understand how 100% and 100% don’t add up to 200%, we end up with a skewed view of our savior. We neglect his humanity when we consider his life on Earth nearly 2,000 years ago, and we also neglect his deity when we consider him as our personal savior today. Today, my aim is to focus on the humanity of Christ during his time on earth, to be followed later by a focus on his deity both then and now.

My favorite scene in The Passion is the one with absolutely no Biblical basis whatsoever. In it, a mid-20’s Jesus is busy working as a carpenter, building a “tall table” for a rich man in the city. Mary comes out to tell him lunch is ready, and the two have an exchange about why the table is so tall. Then Mary, like any good mother, makes Jesus take off his dirty apron and wash his hands before coming into the house to eat. The humanity of Jesus has never been more evident to me than it is whenever I watch this scene. We focus so much on his ministry years that we completely forget about his life from the ages of 12 to 30. But the truth is that these exchanges happened for most of his life, despite the fact we are not privy to any of them through scripture or specific historical documents. It’s imperative to remember that Christ was indeed fully human. He did the things that normal people did in their day. To draw the modern picture, Jesus came to church on Sundays with everyone else, he worked a 9-5 to support his family, he would have enjoyed going to Starbucks with friends or playing on the church softball team or going to the art museum. By most standards, he would be just like the rest of us. And it’s important to remember that, because the work that Christ accomplished is reliant on the fact that he was not only fully divine, but also fully human.

The more I dwell on his humanity, the more real he becomes to me in the present. Simple things that make perfect sense when you think about them, you’ve just never thought about them before. There was probably that one meal Mary made the Jesus didn’t like. He studied scriptures as a boy not because he was special, but because all good Jewish boys did–Jesus went to school. When he was a teenager, he probably went exploring in the hills with his brothers. You get my point. When we remember the full humanity of Christ, what he did for us on the cross is just that much more astounding. A man, a human just like you or me, willingly gave up his innocent life and paid the ultimate price for the sins of the entire world.

My challenge is to focus on the humanity of Christ over this Easter weekend and throughout the next few weeks. When you do your devotions and Bible studies, focus on the man Jesus when you do them. Think beyond just the words written and imagine the context of each verse. What was Jesus feeling? How did it make him feel that he was constantly called a liar and a blasphemer? When we read the gospels looking through the lens of Jesus’ humanity, it puts a whole new perspective on the scripture. A more accurate perspective. A perspective that makes Jesus more real to me than saying he’s my buddy ever will. 2,000 years ago, the man Jesus was put to death on a cross. 2 days later, the man Jesus was alive again. Fully divine. Fully human.

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Yes, it’s Thursday night and that means it’s time for me to write something. I haven’t forgotten how to do it, I just get busy working or tired after working, or possibly distracted by the last episode of Deadliest Catch (currently). So I will write and watch crab fishing at its best, and hopefully intelligible things will end up on the ol’ website.

For starters, it’s worth noting that I’m temporarily filling a new job at work. Still very much a lighting guy, I’ve recently been given the role of “graphics projection technician” or something along those lines. Shirley was our old lyrics/graphics person, and she officially had her last day last week. So while we search for someone to fill that role, I’m now the new graphics guy for the Edge and other services that happen in the Smith Center. Thankfully I don’t actually have to do it alone, I’m kind of splitting time with Robby, who does a lot of the same things I do (lighting, weekly maintenance, etc). We’re hoping that our new job is a temporary one, and that we don’t do it so well they decide we can do it permanently

Our house got some very welcome loving in the past couple weeks, with all new carpet and paint throughout the common areas of the house. Of course it’s really nice to have new paint and carpet, but it also gave us the inspiration needed to do some deep cleaning, and we’re all pretty happy with the nicer, cleaner living room and kitchen. The problem is now that we’ve taken so much junk down from the walls and thrown so much away, we’re not sure what to put back up, and sitting here looking at the walls, the answer appears to be nothing. I guess I can get over the missing fire helmets and the mountain goat head.

I’ve been golfing a couple of time in the last week, and remembered how much I still like doing it. It does help that I played fairly well both times, and although my scores didn’t reflect it, I feel like if I put some work into my game and get a lot of rounds in that I may be playing very well by the end of the season. Of course the hard thing is that golf is expensive, especially in a city with such a high cost of living, and I may have to choose between my goal of playing ice hockey and my newfound desire to play lots of golf. I think golf will probably win the battle, but I haven’t yet decided for sure.

Well, it’s past my bedtime now and I’m tired. Short and sweet, just the way I like it. Peace.

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