Oh memories

I’ve been looking through my old xanga site for the past 20ish minutes, and have been feeling a bit nostalgic. Those days were so great. Everything was pure and less complicated.

It doesn’t seem like this, just since I’ve had many breaks from blogging, but I started that xanga (link–darkshadowfor, doesn’t work at harding) in the beginning of 2005.  Since then I have been quite the photo-taking, web designing nerd.  I have been taking lots of pictures, and have been growing in life, slowly but surely.  I always laugh at some of the stuff I did back then, how I was even more naive then than I am now, how I said ridiculous things sometimes (quite often, even) without having a clue, and so on.  Some things have changed in my life, but a lot has stayed the same.

took this from the archive

This is what one of the walls in my room back home used to look like.  I like this picture especially because it indicates how my life has changed so much in terms of relationships.  Most of these people I never see or keep in contact with anymore.  Life just moved on, and I didn’t take the time to bring them with me.

Nostalgia is some weird stuff.  I plan on bringing back some of those old pictures and talking about what I miss about those days on xanga in later entries, but for now, I’ll just leave you with this video.  It means a lot to me, but probably won’t mean much to you.

• Abe (my cousin), me, and some others on a roadtrip to the beach.  I probably just remember the good–but this to me brings back the purity, the joy, the simplicity, and the newness of life.  That was probably one of the first times I heard Stacy’s Mom, and I remember liking it back then… 

~ Jon

P.S. I’m leaving for Indiana tomorrow on a mission trip, so won’t be updating the blog for a week.  Don’t freak out too much.    If you’re looking for something to do–check out this awesome sermon: The Outrageous Love of God, which I’ll probably write about later.  It’s great.

Self portraits, yay or nay?

I’ve always had a little bit of reservation and discomfort about self-portraits. It’s probably something I have to put aside in the name of photography, but it’s just something that I’m never 100% comfortable about. It’s kinda like my fear of “street photography” aka taking people’s pictures without their consent. I feel completely comfortable doing it in a sly manner, but it’s hard for me to just straight up take pictures of people close up.

Another thing that makes me a little nervous is setting up lights and everything in public for a photo shoot. This is something I know I just have to get over, and it won’t really stop me, but it still makes me nervous.

A few influences that have encouraged me to just be a fool in the name of photography (per se), and just forget all this emotional nonesense are the very popular photographers Aaron Nace (some pics), who started off mainly doing self portraits before landing some jobs, and Dustin Diaz, who took a picture a day for a year (aka 365 project), with a good portion of those pictures being self-portraits.

I don’t really have a problem with self portraits, I’ll never have a majority of my pictures be self portraits, and I don’t plan on removing self portraits from my photo arsenal, it will always be somewhere in between.  Exactly where, I don’t know, but I don’t plan on caring about it very much.  I do, however, hope to give up on over analyzing everything and just going to work. 

Just me being a weirdo. No big. (click for large / uncropped)

~ Jon

Music, songs and some favorites

I’ve been scavenging for songs to download, and then got sidetracked all over the place–

Before I get into that, here is a quote that I found / like, that happens to do with nothing else in this post.

found via: Bethany Kay

Edit: Once upon a time (yesterday), there was this deal where you could get 60 free songs from napster.  This deal became known to the likes of slickdeals.net (a deal site), and the hoards and masses began to sign up and download like crazy.  The napster staff soon caught on and ended the deal.  Sadly I didn’t move very fast, and only got 3 songs.  Oh well.

Here are some of my favorite bands / current favorite songs: (click to listen)

• Flame (christian rap)  -  See More Him.  I also made a picture centered around this song about two years ago here.  I forgot that I had this blog for almost two years…hmm.
• Lecrae (christian rap–has been pretty influential to me, this song especially)  – Praying for You.  This song is super powerful.
• Fernando Ortega (christian adult contemporary)  -  Give Me Jesus.  There are many other great songs that he does, but I like this one especially.
• Sufjan Stevens (adult contemporary) has a sad song that I like  -  Sister -  also Chicago is a classic, along with Lord God Bird (mentions Arkansas…whee) and Concerning the UFO Landing… (which I know I’ve probably listened to like 50 times in a row before, still like it too).

Those are the songs that are on the top of my head now.  I listen to a lot of music, and some of my other favorites are Tree 63, Leeland, Seven Places, LaRue, Glassbyrd, Switchfoot, Chris Rice, Chris Tomlin, Copeland, Owl City, Jars of Clay, Justin Unger(!), Newsboys, dc Talk, Nickel Creek, oh and Christian Yoder , all in no particular order, plus many many others.

These are some of my favorites, what are some of yours?

~ Jon

One day, old spice, sugarloaf

It’s Tuesday.  It’s been a pretty chill day for me.  I’m still a tad sick (mainly congested), but it isn’t too miserable.  I had the last class of racquetball before tennis starts up after spring break (it’s just a 2-hour a week activity class).  I like racquetball a lot, and hopefully I’ll get around to playing it some more.  It’s fun.

I could go to the nurse and get excused for my other class, but I kinda don’t feel like it.    I don’t have anything too specific to write about this time, but here are a few random things that are on my mind:

One Day, by Matisyahu, great song.

I’m kinda thinking of making a video to this song.  I have a few ideas.  I also never really make videos, so we’ll see where that goes.

Here’s another video that I discovered today.  It’s from the superbowl, and I think it’s pretty great.  It was also done in one take, which is amazing (take 57 on day 3).  The bathroom was a built container that was raised with a crane, the boat was also a set (it was actually just half a boat), then the ex-NFL player actor sad onto some sliding/roller type thing which slid him onto the horse.  Very few digital elements.  It’s pretty mind-boggling to me. 

Details on how it was made, where I found this, and an interview with the minds behind this commercial can be seen here (making of Old Spice commercial).

Finally, here are some pictures from our late mountain climb up Sugarloaf.  Just some snapshots.

This is a 20 second exposure. It was pretty dark out.

I like how this turned out. =)

Much love to all,

~ Jon

How to build a God; Prayer room

Isaiah 44:24:

“This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:
I am the LORD,
who has made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,

On an unrelated note, I took some pictures of the prayer room the other day.  I’ll put it together into something better later, but for now here’s just a little panoramic.

The prayer wall of the prayer room.

Walk worthy of the calling. Eph 4.

~ Jon

Just some more pictures

I have all these ideas about stuff I should write about–an idea of the logic of Jonah, what I thought of Peace by Piece, an art project I did, more pictures, etc., but I just haven’t been too inspired to write much.  One of these day…

For now, here are some more pictures:

Just messing around with lights. Didn't turn out how I hoped, but I like lens flares and stuff.

Picked up some talent on the go--alright, alright.

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. ~ 2 Thessalonians 3:5

~ Jon

waddup BOX

Wrestling function was ballin’. Here’s the peoples that were there: (the light kinda blew up the people toward the back…oh well)

~ Jon

Vote for Pedro

Here are a few pictures from yesterday at the PTP function.

Napoleon and Deb (she's great. )

I'm Jon and I approve this message and Randy, but not Waddell.

~ Jon

p.s. I watched Napoleon Dynamite for the first time in a while before the function (you know…to attempt to get in character).  Hilarious.  I forgot how great that movie is. 

Something something

This week has been pretty crazy.  I have so much that I could write about, but I’m not very often inspired to write much, so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

Hanging out at Murf's house, taking a few pics.

Beans has been wanting to pick people up a lot lately. Hmm.

Just being weird.

~ Jon

We are the world

New version of We Are The World. (originally done by Michael Jackson)  [via]

Love it.

~ Jon