Week 33: Abstract Art and A Special Service

 So this week I was finally able to get into the studio and create.  To be honest, my original plan was to shoot some shots of oil and water with some dish soap put in which gives smaller bubbles and defines the bigger ones.  And for my first couple of shots I did that and got some pretty good shots.

To get the shots I filled up a glass container with over 2 inches of water (this makes sure the texture of the glass at the bottom doesn't show through).  I put the container on two boxes so that underneath I could change out paper backgrounds for different colors and put an off camera flash shooting across the background.  And then I set my camera to shoot straight down with my 100mm lens.  On manual mode I had these settings:  1/200s f5.0 ISO 100.

So after the initial shots I thought, why not get some food coloring involved.  So I put a white background underneath and then started putting drops of coloring in. And the magic happened.  Now I realize this isn't everyone's cup of tea but when something "cool" happens like below, for me it's just the magic of creative photography.  After a few shots the water turned purple so I had to fill it again to get the other shots.  The last shot is a closeup of the second shot to show the tiny bubbles.

I love photography for many reasons, but one of them is being creative and discovering new things.  Quite honestly, I felt like a little kid with a chemistry kit.  And this will not be the last time I do this.  I have some tweaking to do, some better sharpness, etc.  But that is the fun of it, I have room for improvement which means more experimenting!

Water, Oil, Dawn, Blue and Purple Food Coloring

Water, Oil, Dawn, Blue and Purple Food Colring

Close up of Above

So since Easter, Ginger and I have been streaming our church's worship sermon at home.  Because of Ginger's anxiety attacks and then the seizures, we settled into a routine of worshiping at home on Sunday but still staying connected to our community group.  Last week Ginger mentioned the fact that she was ready to start going to church again.  So this morning we got up and went to church and what a service to come back to in person!  Thank goodness we had the streaming option while Ginger was able to get better and get strength up to go to church in person!

Where do I start.  So this Sunday our Grace Espanol and regular service combined.  And it was beautiful.  First the worship.  We had a guest worship leader, Cormac Parker Jr.  and he was phenomenal.  We sang the songs, one verse in English then one verse in Spanish.  The way that Cormac led you could hear the congregation sing for most of the song and it was beautiful.  And then we had service.  Doug (our main pastor) and Edgar (Grace Espanol Pastor) gave the message with an interpreter.  Here is the special part.  When Doug spoke it was in English and it was translated.  Then Edgar spoke, in Spanish, and it was interpreted.  It was a beautiful representation of everyone being equal.  And a good example of I Corinthians 12:10 with different kinds of tongues and the interpretation there of.  Both Ginger and I were in awe and it just solidifies why this is our home church.

So in 3 weeks Ginger and I are headed to Destin Florida.  Since we have a tradition of going to Iowa on our anniversary and Ginger wanted to go to the beach, we decided to celebrate our 10th anniversary at the beach!  I am actually looking forward to it!  I get to try and get some shots of lightning out on the ocean and Ginger gets to lay out as much as she wants!  Small shop shopping, good food, and most importantly, being with each other is going to be a lot of fun.  We will miss Sophie but we have some pretty special friends taking care of her and she loves them to death!

So thank you everyone for your love, prayers, and encouragement.  God continues to guide us and God has put a special friend back in my life from my days when I first got to Tyler and I could not be more overjoyed to be reconnected with him and his wife.  Sometimes I am amazed at how God works!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!  (And a special Happy Birthday to Steven!)

Baa