moleskinless

Because I don't feel like writing this in my moleskin, and you're going to wonder why I have random pictures up of people frequently.

Adv Photo this semester I have to choose some form of a series for my work. I'm incredibly indecisive and busy and mostly just indecisive. After not doing a million things I thought I was going to do, recent situations with friends and family have made me want to explore the idea of an individual's identity and how they carry themselves mainly represented by emotions and manurisms. What makes someone who they are, or do they even know who they are? What emotions and experiences effect how we carry ourselves?

A glance at the inward thoughts and happenings of individuals, and how these thoughts and emotions are represented outwardly to the public. A portrait study of the human figure, juxtaposed (FREAKING hate that word) with inner emotions.

Love the ABSTRACT idea, totally at a loss of how to tangibly represent it.

The next series of digital pictures are my visual exploration of this idea, using incredibly vulnerable subjects.

South Boulevard

Ode To Charleston (and other thoughts)

People say three months is just long enough for a place to feel like home.
Three months ago I never in a million years thought I would say this,
but when I left Charleston yesterday I cried.
I cried not only once, but four times.
I laughed so hard at myself for the pure fact that I was crying that I just cried harder.
I tripped on the same cobblestone every time I walked past the Francis Marion hotel on King.
Tripping on the uneven pavement and yelling "freaking charleston" became a simultaneous ordeal.
The overbearing smell of what I would like to think of as similar to whale poo became very normal,
And I didn't think twice about driving over the Cooper River Bridge.
I could Nascaar my way through giant orange construction cones in Mount Pleasant,
and sand in my teeth was nothing out of the ordinary.
I became addicted to sun screen after not wearing it for 21 years.
I could calculate the rising and falling of the tide everyday in my head before heading out.
I battled a stingray while standing up on a moving boat.
I finally realized that Meeting and East Bay run parallel to one another (I think),
and Warren is a pain to get to if you go one street to far.
Drunk people on the streets late at night is and will always be annoying,
unless you're all standing in line for hot dogs from the greasy man in the ally.
I went without washing my beach towel for over a month,
I ran once and thought I was going to have a heat stroke and choke on the water in the air.
I fell in love with a dog, his name is BB.
I rode my bike so fast through the Old Village when I got off work that I just laughed with pure joy.
I ate so much kale I think and drank so much almond milk that I think it's permanently in my bloodstream.
I touched a horseshoe crab,
and kissed a bumblebee.

I ignored God,
I faught with God,
I was disappointed in God,
and I cried with God.

Then Jesus provided.

Jesus provided me with people who love,
with people who opened their homes and their lives to me.
He provided beautiful things and places to go.
But most important he provided plently of himself.
He provided a way out,
a way out of my own selfish world and into his love.
He opened my eyes to see him and my ears to hear him.
He provided a way for me to not waste my life,
but to count it as nothing in comparision to His glory.
Jesus provided me with love and hope,
hope through faith that he will always provide.
He will provide through my loneliness,
He will provide through my frustrations,
He will provide in his timing,
and when he provides,
it will be good.

Without Jesus being so patient and so providing, I wouldn't have an ode to Charleston. I wouldn't have cried when I left. I loved the people I met, the family I stayed with, and the city. But most of all I loved the sweet moments I had when Jesus simple told me that he was enough and he would provide.

Thanks Jesus

Liz

Liz is my supervisor at my Internship. She's probably one of the sweetest and most patient people I have ever encountered, especially in a work place. This week all the photo interns have to take pictures of the entire CHM staff for a packet, so this morning I got to go outside and shoot Liz!

The Last Sin Eater

"I didn't realize I was entering a battle - one I could win only by trusting the Lord. And trust, for me, ain't easy to do. It's a learned thing, comin' one step at a time. I knew nothin' of the world and who'd been let loose upon it. but I had been so desperate for help, filled with sorrow, drowning in guilt. I never once figured on God using me the way he did."

-The Last Sin Eater, Francine Rivers

Good Things

Good things today have been such as these:

Sneezing.
Blue Raspberry Airheads.
Sticky notes with cartoons on them that my co-workers leave for me on my computer screen.
Group emails.

As lonely as you want it to be.

I haven't written in a long time. Mainly because I have felt like I have nothing to say, or nothing to offer.

Summer has been rough. The first month in Charleston was really hard, really lonely and not a good place for me to be in coming out of a weird semester. I've been seeking prayer and help from a few close friends, and some of you know more in depth the things that have gone on and what things have been so discouraging over the past 4 months. So thank you for loving well, and being the beautiful family I need.

This summer I have been very uncontent. I've never wanted a summer to go by faster, wanted to go home and be with my friends and family and go wild in Greenville. I miss Radius, I miss my family there, I hate sitting at a desk all day, the list could go on forever... God seemed terribly distant 95% of the time.

I was talking to a good/new friend this past week about this summer and how I have not allowed God to be enough, and that maybe this dry lonely time will be good for me to learn that God is wholly enough for me, and learn to love him and keep company with him as foolish as that might sound. Since so many things seemed to crash and burn all at once, God seemed distant and innactive so I had been seeking so many other things to fill my time and my heart. The next morning I was reading in my car before I stepped into work, and read Psalm 34:10.

"The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing."

As most things go when the Lord really brings his love to my attention, its small realizations over a period of a few days. I got really excited about it, it sounded good, I medidated on it throughout the day at my desk, and thought about it up until tonight. Tonight I was writing a letter to a new friend (lots of new people these days..) and was telling them about the verse and that it had been good to ponder on. And then as I was writing it all just slammed on my chest.

The first time I read this verse and the first 24 hours I thought about it I didn't even sort of relate it to my current situation in Charleston. It was basically a cool verse that I couldn't stop thinking about. But as I wrote I realized what a great thing I had just read. I can be here, in Charleston totally alone with nothing (not the case, btw.) but I can be absolutely wild about the fact that God is enough. Not even just this summer but with my entire life, I'm about to graduate college! It's cool, but in some weird way it just doesnt matter because God is going to be enough. Enough in all ways! He will love me, he will care for me, he will keep me company, he will give me gifts, he will talk to me, he will cry with me, he will provide other people to do all those things with me also, and then we all just go buck wild for eternity.

It's soo sooo good and refreshing and child-like and beautiful and wonderful and joyous that my God will teach me such simple things and how good I can be at ignoring him but he just keeps them on my mind and gently brings me back to the thought and he is so patient with me until I understand and then he rejoices so much when I grasp his concept! Unbelievablly fulfilling.


Thank you Daddy, for giving me breath and fingers. Yes..fingers.