IPS Prizewinning Photography | Washington, DC

I spent last week hanging out with IPS again, this time in downtown Washington, DC. New friends, cool coffee shops, day shoots, night shoots, monuments, and time with Instructors/amazing friends, Rowan Gillson and Mandy Novotny.

I love spending time with IPS. I love the combination of photography and discipleship. The next set of workshops will be in September in Manitou Springs, CO at Summit Ministry's location, and it should be a total blast! If you love photography and want to refine your skills, IPS is the way to go. If you love photography and want to learn in a fantastic location right at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, you should come to workshops this fall. It just doesn't get much better.

To see some of my shots from the week, visit my photo blog.

Today I am home

After four weeks of crazy coming and going, I am finally home. Just for the weekend, but home nonetheless. In less than 36 hours, I enjoyed near-death hugs from siblings and heart-to-hearts with my parents, drank good coffee, danced around fireworks with my siblings like a crazy person, slept long and deep, and spent extended time alone with God.

These are things that make me smile, and draw my heart back home whenever I am away.

And since arriving home, I found a gun in the kitchen pantry, a miniature meat cleaver in the dish cupboard, and clean towels on dirty floors. I discovered mud and rocks in my bathroom sink, found myself playing the role of electrician because no one else knew how to fix a broken light fixture, and cleaned up chocolate pudding smears from too many places.

These things also make me smile, because I live in a family with six boys. And those things are just so.

I realized, once again, that my family needs me. They miss me when I am away, and not only because I can fix broken light fixtures and clean coffee pots. They need me because I'm the big sister. This is one of the reasons that I still live at home, and the reason that I choose to stay involved in my siblings' lives. I know they could get along without me— they have before. But right now, God has me here— in body and soul— and I wouldn't change a thing.

Where else do I get the chance to see change and be change, as I invest in six mighty men of valor and leadership? My influence is more visible in their lives than I— or they— would like to admit. Where else can I pour myself into two women as beautiful and precious, who will one day change time and history by their quiet confidence in God as they walk out His calling?

The oldest sister role is challenging, for sure. But here I am, and there they are, and these things don't change. So I fall on God's grace, and learn love and humility, and change the world from my home.

There is no place that I would rather be.

NCF Girl's Retreat | 2009 Slideshow

IPS Prizewinning Photography | Charlotte, NC

I spent last week teaching an IPS workshop called Prizewinning Photography in Charlotte, NC with my dear friend Mandy Novotny. To say that we had a blast would be an understatement. I can think of few things more gratifying than spending a week teaching about the things that I love— God and photography. Seriously... does it get any better than this??

To see some of my shots from the week, visit my photo blog.

Doodles

I made some new friends tonight.

It started with a few older friends. While waiting for the other half of a frisbee team, I pulled out my journal and crayons and all of the pens I could find in my bag. The rules were simple— draw whatever you want with whatever color you want, but as soon as you lift the pen/pencil/crayon off the paper, the journal passes to the next person. We doodled for awhile, but the arrival of new people (and a frisbee) distracted my fellow artists, and they went on to play other games.

I still sat in the middle of the basketball court, and soon new friends joined my game. They were younger friends— 11, 10, 7, and 6, to be precise— which made the doodles a lot more fun. And they were brand-new friends, so we changed the rules of the game. This time, we had to share something about ourselves before doodling.

It was simply grand to sit there and watch faces light up, and stories come out, to see trust given and earned and received, just in a short conversation over a page of odd doodles.

It made me think of conversations with God. He tells me about Himself and I share my heart with Him. The more I know of Him, the more I trust Him, and the more I give myself to Him in surrender, the more I see His trustworthiness. And He enjoys this relationship.

It reminds me of a quote by Jerry Bridges— "Has it yet gripped you that when God looks at you today He sees you clothed in the perfect, sinless obedience of His Son? And that when He says, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased,' He includes you in this embrace?" (The Gospel for Real Life)

And these crazy doodles on the slate of my life, these insanely crazy marks that don't make any sense to me, they are beautiful signs of God's love for me, and the fact that He delights over me.

Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing. —Zephaniah 3:16-17

Charlie & Tay

3 quad americanos + 1 Red Bull + 2 crazy teenage boys + 3 photographers + 2 wool trench coats + 1 bling necklace + [Quannahers together] + 2 hours of [lots and lots of] rain = an afternoon
photoshoot unlike any other.




Want to see more? You know where to go.

Going Home

I’ve been feeling kind of restless
I’ve been feeling out of place
I can hear a distant singing
A song that I can’t write
And it echoes of what I’m always trying to say

There’s a feeling I can’t capture
It’s always just a prayer away
I want to know the ending
Things hoped for but not seen
But I guess that’s the point of hoping anyway

Of going home, I’ll meet you at the table
Going home, I’ll meet you in the air
And you are never too young to think about it
Oh, I cannot wait to be home

I’m confined by my senses
To really know what you are like
You are more than I can fathom
And more than I can guess
And more than I can see with you in sight

But I have felt you with my spirit
I have felt you fill this room
And this is just an invitation
Just a sample of the whole
And I cannot wait to be going home

Going home, I’ll meet you at the table
Going home, I’ll meet you in the air
And you are never too young to think about it
Oh, I cannot wait to be going, to be going home

Face to face, how can it be
Face to face, how can it be
Face to face, how can it be

'Cuz this is just an invitation
Just a sample of the whole
And I cannot wait to be going home