First off, don't worry mom, I didn't get a tattoo of a blurry menorah on my wrist, it's a stamp.  I received the stamp upon entering the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle tonight for my first rock show in ages.  The stamp across my wrist, like so many I had received in years gone by made me just a little bit sad.

You see, I used to be cool.  I realize that being 26 would allow me plenty of time to redeem my former state of coolness.  EP listening music snobbery mixed with really excellent pins and patches that lined my backpack was the way I rolled.  I lived for rock shows, for the ringing in my ears, the opening acts I swore had potential, the closing acts that didn't and everything in between.  One thing was painfully obvious during all that time, the truth was, no matter how much I wanted to look the part I never did.  I was always a little too clean cut for the punk rockers and head bangers I surrounded myself with and despite our commonalities I kind stuck out like Vanilla Ice at the Hip Hop Hall of Fame.

Fast forward a few years. I realize I am not hipster enough for Seattle.  I don't own more than one flannel shirt, I look terrible in skinny jeans and I refuse to wear Ray Bans, particularly ones with the lenses punched out.  I am not the girl with the jeans over her boots or wearing a slouchy knit hat because that's not me and I realize my lack of hipster-appeal has probably precluded so far from a music scene that is seemingly second to none.  So walking in to the Crocodile tonight the stark reality of how perfectly I did not fit in was thick in the air.  Noah and I joked about our apparent fall from "cool enough" but secretly I was just sad.  And then, the music began...

We went to see We Are Augustines, check them out, they are phenomenal.  The harsh truth is, I heard about them for the first time this morning on Chase Jarvis' live blog.  I haven't been following them since their days in other bands or across their tour through Europe, I heard about them while I was eating steel cut oats and Nutella (thanks Jamie Rose).  I don't have history or memories with them but their lyrics combined with powerful but artfully restrained music made me feel like we were old friends, retelling the same stories we had laughed at and mourned over a hundred times before.  In those moments I felt like myself again, like maybe I belonged there.  In those moments, the hipsters faded away.

I got the opportunity to meet their drummer and he complimented me on my smile, I complimented him on a remarkable show and we shared a few laughs.  I also worked up the courage to introduce myself to photo great Chase Jarvis and found in him a humble man with a desire to see true and talented artists converge on the world's stage to prove that beauty is not lost on such a jaded generation.

I am still not cool enough for Seattle, but I'll do my best not to let that stop me.

Someday soon I'll post the story of how I got into photography and how it is truthfully not my most flattering story, which is probably why I'm waiting to tell it.  But this story is towards the beginning and was truthfully vital to my understanding of what it meant to have an "eye" for photography.

It often bugged me that my husband and I could take pictures of the exact same thing and his would look like they belonged in National Geographic and mine looked like the snapshots tacked to the wall of the down-trodden 16 year-old girl in any John Hughes movie.  As I learned the language of things like aperture and shutter speed I thought my photos would improve but the truth was I was trusting the technology more than I trusted myself to try anything out of the ordinary.

One day, the Art Institute in Chicago was having a free day and Noah and I with our extremely limited budget decided to spend the $2.50 each to ride the El downtown and commit to staying less than two hours so the ride back would only cost us $.25 each.  We walked in with our camera and immediately were bombarded with images that in my mind would have been photographic gold.  After 10 or 12 failed images on my part, Noah took the camera to capture two statues:


The photo is beautiful, and then I attempted the same one, failing yet again.  I was so frustrated I gave the camera back to him and said it was no use.  He, being amazingly patient with my fits and starts, handed me the camera again and said to stop trying to be him and just be myself.  I moved around the statues, got yelled at by the guard who reminded me that I could not touch anything, including the platforms under the pedestals that the statues were on.  I looked for what I saw, what looked interesting, what I felt might work and ended up with this picture:


I was amazed and confused.  Was that luck or was it really a decent picture?  Noah smiled, telling me I did a great job and that he was proud of me.  He later went on to show people the picture explaining how impressed he was with his wife's "eye."  I began to realize that maybe I saw things differently and maybe that wasn't bad.  My images still don't look like his, which is what makes us a great team.

I know this picture won't be published, praised or printed by art connoisseurs across the world, but this is an important photo to me.  I think it was the first time I had an eye that was worth using.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing,
to God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I AM,
while millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing,
while millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on, I'll sing on,
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on.
And when from death I'm free I'll sing and joyful be,
and through eternity I'll sing on, I'll sing on,
and through eternity I'll sing on.


Amen

John and Tanzi have had adventures together all around the world.  Since they met in Switzerland their life together has been a series of calls and journeys that have taken them from Switzerland to Nome to Nicaragua and seemingly everywhere in between.  Now, they are moving towards their next great adventure... Liam.

With ever present questions about the possibilities of moving to New Zealand before the year is up and the uncertainty of what to register for and if they can pack it half-was around the world, one certainty rings as clear as crystal: they love that they are having a baby!

Maternity photography is especially fun for me when I get the privilege of capturing a man's love and awe for the woman who is carrying his child.  Throughout the day John, Tanzi, and I spent in the park that awestruck wonder shone through John's eyes as if the definition of devotion was being actualized.  I cannot wait to see the look on his face when Liam arrives in May.




 

 

As many of you know, Noah and I live with an amazingly generous and kind family from our church.  Aaron and Beth have two boys, Nathan and Josh as well as corgie puppy named Wrigley.  Now Wrigley goes by many different nicknames, depending on the person and situation and frankly it's a little bit funny if you think about it.

Joshy - "Wigwy"

Nathan - "Wrigley or Wriglet"

Aaron - "Wrigs or puppy dog"

Beth - "Emulating whatever cute voice her children just called the dog in, because her kids are cute"

Ali - "Wiggles"

Noah - "Wriggles"

Now those are the names when the dog is being good or just being called.  In more stressful or tense situations his other aliases become blaringly apparent.  Like when he barks at the mere thought of something happening outside his one-foot tall viewing range, "Quiet" "Shh" and "Dog" become common monikers.  When he refuses to leave the driveway despite the impending 3000 pounds of metal about to run him over, "Moron" becomes a likely identifier.  As with all puppies the association with the word "No" becomes often as common as their own name making the two synonymous and undoubtedly confusing.  But no matter how ridiculous or frustrating he is, at the end of the day he looks up at you and smiles, and it's hard to stay made at this face.  (Especially when he's such a good model for me to try out my 50mm F1.2)

When I asked Matt what the first thing about Sarai was that made him think "wow," he immediately blushed.  It was their first date, before they ever met, he checked out the cute blonde who had just walked in, realizing only seconds later that it was actually his future wife.  He knew by the time the night was over that he had to marry her.  A whirlwind romance coupled with Sarai's impeccable organizational qualities means a May wedding.  But first we spent a few hours downtown Seattle capturing the casual side of their love.

These two have a magnetic energy about them that had me smiling behind the camera more than they were in front of the camera!  They laugh with each other like it's a secret language they've created to communicate their absolute joy of finding each other.

Today I had a great day with some phenomenal people.  I got to go on a photo shoot with my husband, who is continuously thinking two steps ahead of me and knows exactly what I am thinking.  Also, I met up with my friend Sarai and her fiancée Matt.  Their love story is the stuff of dreams, I promise to tell you more tomorrow.

Today is Palm Sunday, a day when Christians celebrate the triumphal entry Jesus made into the city of Jerusalem symbolizing the beginning of Holy Week.  As a child I remember a few very basic things about Palm Sunday; waiving palm branches while singing a song with the word "Hosanna" in it, the disappointment about never having a real donkey in church and the anticipation of Easter sugar highs only seven short days away.

One year, Palm Sunday held a very different memory for me, the ever-looming menu of next week's brunch at Myra Christensen's house and the fact I would have to eat.... quiche.  How could my new (read, hand-me-down but still pretty) Easter dress have been put to any worse use than to look cute while eating a food that wasn't even spelled like it sounded.  I mean if you're going to force me to down some crust encased egg-based conglomeration at least make it phonetically viable.

I wouldn't say I was a terribly picky eater as a child but the names of foods often precluded my willingness to eat them.  For example, if you said we were having focaccia bread I wouldn't touch it, if you said cheesy garlic bread, I'd be all over it.  My mom learned that quite quickly and it turns out I loved quiche, but she just called it "impossible pie."  I remember the nights my mom made spinach and cheese impossible pie, those were the best nights ever!

Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.  It turns out the same principle applies to weird French named foods given pseudonyms when fed to children.

On Monday June 14th I completed an eleven day road trip from Chicago to Yelm, WA where Noah was hired on as the camp pastor at Cascades Camp for the summer.  There's nothing better than a beautiful camp settled at the base of Mt. Rainier, or at least that's what they told me.

I arrived amid the cover of clouds and hail, it was probably 55 degrees outside and I had just left friends, family and sunshine.  I had been regaled with stories of how great Cascades was, how beautiful everything but most of all most of all the mountain was. {Side note, they told me the lake was beautiful too, but you don't tell a Minnesota girl about beautiful lakes, just saying.}  Yet here I was, miles from home, trusting that God was calling us to the fifth-wheel trailer we were living in with no money, no job for me, no guarantee of future employment and not even a mountain view to grow on.

I sat in my trailer for six days editing a wedding and the cold, loneliness and eerie reality of just how far from comfort I really was had begun to set in.  I started to doubt everything, where I was, what I was doing, why I was there and even if that mountain really existed, if it really was as beautiful as everyone had said, if it would ever come out of those clouds.

Then, one day, while the staff played ultimate frisbee up by staff housing and everything was completely ordinary the clouds began to move.  The hope of revelation was coming, the skies were beginning to clear just slightly and I watched in anticipation like a child waiting for Christmas morning.  Oh, how I needed to know it was really there, that the mountain was waiting.

As many of you know I am looking for a job.  I would love to do photography full time but right now that isn't in the cards.  Today, I found out that I didn't get my most promising and only outstanding job opportunity.  I have applied for more than a hundred jobs and frankly it is getting tiring.  The doubt has a way of creeping in like it was an idea I had originally, that hope is gone, that I'm a failure and that I'll never get a job.  People tell me all the time that God has a plan, that there is hope and that what He has for me is more than I will have ever expected.  Everything that I know about God proves them right but it seems to be a day where a sign would be nice.

Back to that day in June, the clouds moved and I begged the sky to prove that it did hold the majesty of Rainier. And as the blue-hued clouds dissipated the pinkish glow of sunset on snow became obvious and I could have leaped tall buildings in a single bound.  It was true!  There in the glory of the setting sun rose forth a mountain more beautiful and more perfect than I could have imagined.  The clarity that followed was entirely worth the obscurity that preceded it.

I'm not specifically a cat person.  I mean I grew up having cats my whole life and I love them but it has always been Noah and my dream to have a lab.  We look up dogs on petfinder whenever we can and we dream about going on hikes and hunts with a great chocolate lab.  We argue over names, he wants Bono and I want Walter Cronkite (we could call him Cronk, that's funny) and we realize if we get a girl dog we cannot think of what we'd name her, so suggestions are welcome.

All that dreaming is fun, but the truth is we actually own a cat.  When Noah and I got engaged I was looking for a dresser on the facebook marketplace and instead I found someone who was giving away kittens!  I convinced him to come "just look" and from then he was hooked.  Noah is not a cat person but as he will tell you, it's hard not to be a kitten person!  So, he picked out which kitten he wanted.  He picked the runt of the litter, the feisty one that was dominating all her brothers and sisters because he knew when we moved to Chicago there would most likely be a mouse issue and a cat would be a reasonable solution.

So we took this teacup sized ball of fuzz home and just marveled at how cute she was!  Now came the hard part, naming her.  As mentioned above, naming pets is not something we easily agree on, so our kitty went by a few names for a while.  At the time Noah was on a real Rob Bell kick, so he picked Nooma, if you know Rob Bell you understand that.  I just wasn't feeling it, so I suggested something literary or political or something silly.  Then it came to us when we were literally naming things we saw, lamp, book, carpet, tv, Grand Forks Herald.... aha!  Meet Novel...