I never thought...

I never thought this day could have gotten any better than the flights to Oakland. Like I said in my earlier post, the first flight was all worship. It was the most amazing flight I think I have ever had.

The second leg of the journey was a little less worshipful, but that was only because I fell asleep for about half an hour, but once I woke up I was right back into worship mode.

Things in my life over the past 2-weeks have been the most amazing, sometimes painful, but yet a time of great growth. I truly cannot wait to see what the Lord has in store for me.

When I arrived at the Oakland airport, I was picked up by one of the professional photographers, Steve Simon. It was just the two of us for the five hour drive to our hotel. There was no lag in conversation. No radio, just good conversation We talked about almost everything you could think of from religion to politics and of course a lot of photography. It was a great trip. We laughed a lot and the conversation flowed easily. The time flew by.

We arrived at the hotel 20-minutes late. Our orientation was supposed to start at 5:00pm and when we checked in, the front desk told us that Scott, the organizer of the workshop had called a couple of times to see if we had arrived yet.

Stee and I just laughed and I agreed to take the blame for us being late, since Steve was here as one of the professionals. Of course once we met up with Scott and the rest of the crew, that plan fell by the wayside.

When we arrived in the room where the orientation was being held, Scott's hotel room, we found out that we were not the last ones to arrive. The one who actually lived the closest, John, was the last one to arrive. We forgave him! :-)

What an amazing group of people I am teamed up with. I am totally at ease with them. I am trying take in all the conversation and learn and still remember to ask questions.

I found out one thing that still boggles my mind. On trip up here, one of the things that kept going through my mind was the fact that I actually won this competition. I'm here with only three other amateur photographers. I thought my photo had been selected out of 1,222 images. I WAS WRONG!!!

All of us went to dinner and that was where I found out that our images were not selected from 1,222 images. They were selected from over 10,000 images!!! TEN THOUSAND IMAGES!!!!! I cannot fathom that.

Scott told us that we are all here because we have talent.

Okay, this is where those of you who know me will NEVER let me live this down. It is here that I also need to apologize for what I'm going to say next. I know that I have heard that from all of you who know me. BUT, there is one thing when you hear it from people who are your friends and family and it is entirely another thing to hear it from a man who makes a very good living from doing this type of work.

There are so many other things that I still have to process from what happened tonight. Little things that are to numerous to mention here, but that mean a lot to me.

On the way to the hotel, Steve and I stopped to take some quick photos. The following is one of the better ones from that impromptu shoot.



Tomorrow I'm in the team that is heading out at 7:30. I will be with Nikki Frantz, one of the other winners, Scott Bourne and Steve Simon in the morning. We are heading off to shoot some waterfalls, among other interesting things.

Scott has issued us a challenge. He wants us to focus on one theme. It can be any theme, but he does not want us just shooting anything we see. We are to start to visualize our shots and know a little of what we want to capture. I think I going to go for small, delicate things. Of course, that could change between now and tomorrow morning, but that is what I'm starting to try to visualize.

Thank you for all your encouraging words. I appreciate all of them. Keep them coming!!

I do have a prayer request. When I was getting my luggage off the belt at the airport I twisted my knee. Of all times for this to happen, this was not the best time. Can you please lift this up in prayer that I'm able to move around to get the shots that I want and that I won't injure it any further?

Thanks.