Am I Still Alive?!?!

Well it seems I have neglected this blog..tisk tisk. But it's been a crazy summer. I was doing summer school, working, shooting camp stuff, shooting other stuff, living here and in Elaine's basement, on and on and on. But it's coming to an end. Fall semster is about to start, I will be at IvyTech again, Elaine in evansville, we are taking ben to Harding next week. Still Crazy.

But in the morning I am going down to Evansville. I will get to be with Elaine, and will get to meet the people she has been living with. Well, I've met them, but only got about as far as names. But also I am going to go look at an apartment, and then start the job search.

I plan on moving to Evansville after the fall semester. I will have one semester and one summer left at IvyTech, and then I will be done. Then at the end of next summer, I will be having quite an event going on....a WEDDING! We already have a photographer, officiant, location, Elaine's dress, and rings. We're doing pretty good!

But the point of this post is that I'm finnally getting kinda worried. I need to get a decent paying job that will allow me to still be in school. And the job market is bad. And I have to get that job while still living 2 hours away. So I'm worried. It would be easier to not go to school next spring and jsut get a job, but it would be really hard to go back right away after we get married, and I dont want to quit with a freaking semester left.

So really, if anyone looks at this anymore since I negleced it for so long... please pray for me. Pray that I will get a job that I can stand, and will allow me to afford living while going to school. I know God will provide, I just don;t yet know how it's going to work.


I wish I could just live here....

I've Been Very Busy

Once again, it's been a while since I've posted anything. And once again I have better things to be doing than blogging, but what can you do? So here I am blogging. But I've been ridiculously busy here lately. Between work, and church, and school, and photo stuff....I don't know what to do with myself. But I have had a lot of photo stuff lately, so I'm gonna post a bunch of pictures!

I did a shoot for my aunt a while back. She just got married about a year or 2 ago, when I first started photography. But her husband's grandkids were in town for like a week, so she wanted me to take some pictures of them with her kids.


This was definetely my favorite shot of the day. This is my cousin Kasey, who I shot using natural light and a diffuser held over her head.

This one was much harder. The two youngest kids were never looking at the camera together in one shot. Plus it was very ugly overhead sun. I ended up compositing two images to get this one...which to me turned out well. But I don't want to do that again...I learned my lesson. Stay Away From The Hard Light of Daytime Overhead Sun!!!

Then I had a senior shoot with Ruth. I'm friends with her older brother and will be taking his wedding portraits in a couple weeks. Would probably be shooting the whole thing if I wasn't in it. But my sister helped out on this shoot, and did a great job. I may be bringing her along more often!

I shot this while standing on a picnic table! Lighting was a Nikon SB-26 triggered with my PovertyWizards and a Lumiquest Softbox 2 used as diffusion. I like it a lot.

This one was difficult. I had to expose for the sky and still light the front of Ruth. I ended up doing a sort of primitive HDR to get the exposure I wanted, but it finally worked.

And last but not least...I shot my first wedding! It was HOT!!! The wedding was an old friend from church at the 4-H camp she goes to in Kentucky. I rented a 70-200 2.8 and had a blast. Went pretty well I would say. The dreaded sun made it difficult, but I would say I survived. Here are a couple of shots from the portraits. I wanted to use the Lumiquest I used in Ruth's shoot, but my good ole PovertyWizards were giving me problems. So diffused sunlight it is!


So there you have it. This is part of what I've been up to lately. You can see the whole set from all of these shoots (well part of the wedding. still working!) on my website, which has been updated! I actuall have stuff on it now! www.davidarthurphotography.com

So now I have to go actually do work. Adios!

Van Down By the River

I saw this little boogger in the road on the way home from work the other day. He was just walkin cross the road as I slammed my brakes, frantically digging for my camera then having to changed lenses as fast as I could. There was just enough light for me to get this shot...

I have lived out in the middle of no where since the 8th grade, when we moved out next to my grandparents. So seeing a deer has kinda not become so exciting. It was fun to see one in the day-time, close to the road, when I had my camera. But anyway, it's gotten to where I almost take for granted living where I do.

In many ways, I am a city boy. I love the big city. I love being there, in the hustle and bustle, watching people, running around like I belong there...I just enjoy it. I would love to live in the city when I get done with school. Not just town, a big city.

I think, though, that I would eventually miss living in the country. Being able to burn a campfire in my backyard without getting the Police and the Fire Department called is pretty nice. And since I'm so used to living out in the boondocks has kind of second nature anymore, and I often miss out on the hustle and bustle out there. Last thursday was one of the days I actually saw it.

After class, I had to run to Bedford to pick up some stuff I left on Wednesday. According to Google Maps following the route I drove... is a total of 63.6 miles and about 2 hours and 11 minutes, almost all in the country. In all that driving time I saw...
Dogs
Cats
big horses
little horses
squirrels
a very large turkey
buzzards
big deer
little deer
little cows
big cows
stampeding cows
sheep with bushy wool and big horns
and some llama/alpaca things.

I guess I am a hick at heart.....thank God I'm a country boy.
(this is a shot I took of Ben a while back. Strobist: vivitar 285hv with a blue gel as bkgd light, nikon sb-24 in a shoot through camera right. forget setttings)

I have found that I enjoy writing blogs in obscure places. Ahhh the glory of a laptop. This time I am sitting at steak and shake. I was going to be here with a friend, but it ended up she had to work and I still; wanted steak and shake. So here I am.

I don't know about you, but it's been kind of cool to experience this week. Only kinda because I had to watch the inauguration on YouTube because I was in class when it was live. But I think it is amazing that there is a black president. We have gone from such a strong prejudice against African Americans that we couldn’t even eat in the same building or drink from the same water fountain...to Barack Hussein Obama being the president of the United States. That in itself is quite a change. It’s something that even the most prominent leaders in the black community didn’t expect to see it. But it happened. By a long shot too! Sorry John McCain, but you got stomped. It was a good effort, but you really did get creamed. It was quite a landslide.

How do I really feel about this? I really have mixed emotions about it. On the one hand above, it is pretty amazing. I think it’s a step forward in America. And Barack Obama is all about change, which is also good for the country. In my opinion, we desperately need someone who can lead confidently, and present information to the citizens with power. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a George Bush hater. I think he did a lot of things very well (read a lot: not all but a significant amount). But the country was no longer confident or supportive of him. He did get blamed for everything that went wrong in this country for the last 8 years, whether it was his fault or not. A big thing that may have pushed that is that George w. is a terrible public speaker. Probably the worst I have ever seen. Well, expect for that time I saw a kid pee down his leg in front of the school. But still, he's terrible. And I think the fact that Obama is an amazing public speaker is something we need. That will make the country more confident in the president and the status of the country.

On the other hand......I can say that I didn't even vote for Obama. It had nothing to do with his race, but I found that on many issues I disagreed with him. Not that I agreed with john McCain on everything either, but I found myself taking McCain’s side more than Obama’s. I do still hear about a lot of things that Obama wants to do that I do not agree with at all. I won’t get into them here, though. That’s for another time.

But the biggest problem I have with Obama isn’t really about Obama at all. It’s with the supporters and opponents of Obama. Everyone seems to think the guy is either the savior of the country or the downfall. Half of the people I hear say he is going to turn the country and bury it in the ground, taking away all our civil liberties ruining everything we stand for. The other half has the attitude that Barack Obama will fix every problem we have in our country. no more poverty, no more economic fallout, no more terrorism, no more war, no more this no more that, everything will be perfect. I do not in any way think that either one of those things will happen. There is no way he can fix everything in this country, and there is no way he can ruin what we stand for. It’s just not possible. But people still freak out about it.


But there is one thing I do know, we have nothing to worry about. There is still something influencing what goes on in our lives. There is still a way the country can be rid of all our problems. We still have hope...regardless of president Obama. And that hope lies in our lord Jesus Christ. If we can put our trust in him, he can lead us out of this war, this economic disaster, and everything else the devil may throw at us. I still have faith that god is leading our government as much as he is leading me. I am reminded of that every time I hold a piece of American currency in my hand. In god we trust. It is still emblazoned on every dollar bill and every coin we have. If we can just remember that we have someone more powerful than George Bush, more powerful than john McCain, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and every US senator alive. We have god. And I will never trust anyone more. I will never be more confident than I am in god. And as long as we let god lead our lives everyday...nothing can bring us down. So bring it on bad economy, bring it on high gas prices, bring it on racists, and bring it on terrorists! I am not afraid of you or anything else. I have God on my side.

Master Engineer

so it's 6 in the morning and i'm still awake. there are about 7 kids asleep and i just got roped into playing truth or dare. how ridiculous. i am waiting for him to ask a question. he is slow. but otherwise this whole lock-in hasnt gone too bad. only one kid got hurt and they have been on pretty good behavior. although i am hearing yelling. oh well, i hear an adult. and now a vacuum. but on with the point of my blog...

so for elaine's christmas, i took her to get a massage, go out to eat at old spaghetti factory, and to the Bodies Exhibition in Indianapolis. But the Bodies exhibit is really what i want to talk about. It was pretty cool. it's a show about the human body. there were cadavers and body parts and all kinds of things i thought i would be creeped out by. most of the body parts were in glass cases with each part marked. but then the full bodies were just out in the open. you could have touched them (but you werent suppose to!). It was really amazing. organs, bodies parts, legs, arms, muscles, veins. it was crazy. but then we got to an area that had a sign telling you that you didnt have to go, because some people thought it was gross, bad, or just odd.

i didnt know if i wanted to go or not, but elaine looked at me with puppy dog eyes so we went. (shut up guys) but it was the gallery of fetal development. what does that mean? it showed how babies were formed. it was the kind of thing mrs vandeventer would passed out at the sight of. they had an example of about every two weeks. i thought i would have hated it, but it was probably one of the most amazing things there. that little speck, small enough to fit on my fingernail, shaped sorta like a moon. slowly getting bigger, then you see a head, then arms, then fingers. to imagine that i was once one of those things. i was once a speck that could fit on my fingernail. and all i could think of is how god is amazing. to build such a thing that looks like a blob to form a life. to make all the muscles of the body do precise actions to do just what they need to do. to take every human being and build them from a blob to be an individual human being.

God really ia s the master engineer. the master builder. the ultimate artist. he is better than the builders of the tallest structures, the painters of the mot beautiful masterpieces, smarter than the smartest scholars. How is he greater than all of these? Because he created each of them. HE created the builders of the biggest structures, HE creates the the best artists, HE created the smartest. He is the best of the best. And I left that place in awe. Isnt God amazing?



ps: i had to take a break in writing this blog to go watch the VOLUNTARY swirlies in the bathroom!

It's Been A While

It's been a while since I actually wrote a blog, so it's about time I actually got one done. And now I think I'm gonna write 2. It's new years eve and I'm at church for the lock-in. It's only 11:30 and I can already tell I'm in for it. There are the about 40 kids here. From 1st grade to high schoolers and for some reason someone, I won't mention who because I want to strangle them, opened the all-nighter to ALL OF THEM! Who in their right mind would do that?! Well, we got her. So I am currently in the other building with some adults who are still around while she deals with the kids for a while. Don't worry, I'll head over there after I finish this one.

So on with it. It really has been a long time since I've written anything. I think then I hadn't even sold my Jeep yet. Well I did, then I drove Elaine's car for a few weeks. And I was glad to get out of it cause it's tiny. And then I got my new car. It's a 2001 Volkswagen Passat, and I love it. It's got a 1.8 turbo engine, heated seats and mirrors, a 6 disc changer, and it's big enough I can sit in the front and Ben can sit in the back. It's great.


And I got some more equipment for my photography stuff. I've got a wireless flash with an umbrella and I'm about to get get another flash i have wireless. It's cool. With it I can do stuff like this.


and then I'm still just out taking pictures when I can. It's hard since I'm runnin around everywhere. Between work at the gas station, school at Ivy Tech (ugh), church stuff at Southland, and trying to take pictures. But it all gets packed in there. Somehow. I got a facebook page for my photography, and with two days of having it I've already had a couple people show some interest in my taking pictures for them. And I'm still trying to get a website up soon, so we'll see. Heres a shot I took in Salem, Indiana on christmas day.

Lost

It's very difficult to watch someone struggle, knowing you should do something, yet do nothing because you are at a lose as to what to do. So you just sit back and watch......waiting to see how far away rock bottom really is. You try and guess, assuming it's close, but it just doesn't seem to come. It just gets worse. And I still don't know what to do, except regret not doing anything.

I am absolutely and entirely at this point in my life. I am watching someone plummet, and I have no idea how to stop it. Someone I know (no name mentioned because anyone who reads this blog most likely knows this person, too) is headed for rock bottom. She is in college, with a room mate who is a terrible influence, and giving in to pretty much every temptation you stereotypically face in college. Partying, drinking, possibly drugs, possibly sex.... and I don't know what to do. I saw it coming, it began in high school, and I tried to do something this summer....but to no avail. I guess I could have tried harder, but I just don't know what to do.

I have never seen the thrill in alcohol. I do not understand why people feel it is necessarry to drink so much that you lose control of what you are doing, just for kicks. So many things are at risk when you drink. Let's make a list...
1. Accidents while drunk due to bad decisions. These range from...probably shouldnt have stood on that chair, to probably shouldn't have tried to drive home. This is itself can be deadly, both to you and others. And just because you think you are sober enough....probably means that you aren't. I don't care if you think you're a heavyweight. Alcohol effects decision making.
2. Addiction. It's easier than you think to become a drunk. Even easier to look like a drunk to other people. It's not a good look, or a good attitude towards you. All you're good for is alcohol and what you will do when you consume it. That can range so those accidents listed above...to freaking rape. You lose control when you are drunk. You can be taken advantage of when you lose control. It happens.... a lot.
3. IT'S ILLEGAL if you are under 21. and this person is COMPLETELY under 21. jail, permanent record, license taken away. it pretty much sucks.


I don;t know what to do for her. I feel like rock bottom is going to hurt, and I don't want any of those things i talked about to happen, but if it continues I would put money on something happening. injury, alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, rape, arrests.... and i dont know how she can pass classes when she parties as much as i have heard. not to mention dressing up like a whore for halloween. not doing a good job for the whole image here. she looked like she was heading out the the strip club for work. i was disgusted. i hoped she would hit rock bottom sooner, which means heading back up sooner. but no. its bad, really bad. and i have no idea what to do about it. and i know others feel the same way. i get messages from another friend all the time asking about it. im worried sick.

so please guys, anyone who actually reads this. just pray for me. and pray for the others who have to deal with this. pray for the people who are experiencing this. cause it sucks. and i have no idea what to do. and i really dont want to see her hit the bottom.