posted by James on 03/31/10

Heidelberg

Photoshoot fun usually starts with a phone call. Well, this one ended a little different than normal.

“Well James! I’m so glad you are still in the office” I heard David say after picking up the phone at around 4:45 at the end of long day at work, “we’ve got a little project for you, if you are available.” Of course I was available; I would never turn down the opportunity to take a custom picture for Mr. Gothard’s next book! “All we need is a picture of the 5-color press.”

Five minutes later, I was suddenly finished my work for the day and was downstairs snapping pictures of the beautiful, Heidelberg, 10-Color Press. “I’ll take my time to get some sweet pictures; it’s not very often I get to express my expertise in this way!” I thought.

I excused the fact that I took a long time by reminding myself that I was doing a high quality job. “It’s always better to have a lot of different angles to choose from, right?” The problem is, it always takes more time. It was 6:00 before I had sent the pictures to David.

Five minutes later, I got a friendly call from David: “Hi James. I, um, would you mind? . . . you know James! the pictures of the 10-color press are great. But, you see . . . would you mind taking some pictures of the 5-color press?”

Avoid embarrassment: listen attentively, then work diligently.

3 Comments » | posted in Ministry Reports, Photography

posted by Michael on 03/29/10

If you love Appalachian wildlife, I can’t think of a better way to display it than on a Phellinus rimosus, fungus! The fungus grows like a shelf on Black Locust trees, and when broken off can make a beautiful upright surface to paint images on. It is as if it was made for this very purpose. Even the back of the fungus is a beautiful, natural, bark-like surface. From what I have seen, they most commonly grow about 5-7 inches by 7-9 inches, although they can grow much larger. I have been commissioned a couple times to paint pictures on these, and it’s been a pleasure every time. Since this artwork cannot be easily reproduced, each original is especially valuable. I’m hoping to be able to paint on some of these to put up for sale here on our website some time. We’ll see.

7 Comments » | posted in Art Work

posted by Donald on 03/27/10

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed. … No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

-Noah Webster, Father of American Education, 1836

1 Comment » | posted in Family News

posted by Mom on 03/25/10

Oh, no! I can’t get it zipped! I had just completed making a skirt. I had measured and I thought it would fit perfectly. But no, to be comfortable I would need to somehow make it two inches bigger or else tighten up the tummy!

Wll, I chose to loose the inches! It really wasn’t that difficult. I had to work harder and eat less! There was lots of snow to shovel so that took care of the work-harder part. The eat less idea was the easier part. Here are some things I did!

• No snacking between meals
• Lay down my spoon after every bite during meals
• Put less on my plate
• Pay attention to when I am full and then stop eating
• Do without food from about 5:00 on Saturday until about the same time on Sunday
• Go without breakfast on Thursday morning
• Drink water to the amount of half my body weight converted to ounces every day
• Drink water when I feel like I want a snack
• Busy myself, when I feel hungry, with an activity that was not in the kitchen, realizing that those hunger pains meant that my stomach was shrinking!

Anyone can win the “battle of the bulge”! The best thing about loosing weight this way is that you form lifetime habits without faddish diets. It worked for me also because I have already developed a diet that is healthy but still includes all of the food groups:

1. Fresh fruits & vegetables
2. Instead of pork: venison, salmon, all natural chicken and turkey, farm eggs
3. Only 100% whole wheat bread
4. Other foods high in fiber—granola, oats, nuts, beans, pasta, sesame sticks, prunes soaked in water overnight.
5. Small amounts of cheese
6. Skim milk

I still had dessert on the weekends, salad dressing on my salad (in moderation) and butter & jelly on my bread!

I also continued to eat Michael’s delicious pumpkin pancakes with our maple syrup (thanks to Jonathan!) every Friday morning.

With moderation & common sense my new skirt fit after only two weeks.

5 Comments » | posted in Family News

posted by James on 03/22/10

The other day, Robert called me up on the phone, “Hey, James, you available for a photoshoot tomorrow?” After seeing Robert and Clayton working so diligently on a special project, I was expecting, and looking forward to this call!

By the next day, I had all the equipment ready; camera, lenses, soft-box, light stand, transmitter, receiver, recharged batteries, cords . . . anything and everything I thought we might need. (Many thanks to IBLP for letting me use some of their equipment.) After lunch, Robert picked me up and we were off to the Steinway shop!

Yes, I was quite excited to be taking pictures for Robert and Clayton’s new piano duet CD/DVD jacket, but I was a little apprehensive. We were in a time crunch, supposed to be in and out within thirty minutes.

When we arrived, we encountered another problem. The room where we planned to shoot only had one piano! After hurriedly looking around, we found a small room with two grand pianos side by side. Hoping it would work, we quickly set up, rearranged a few things, and began shooting. And what a shootout it was!

We will definitely have to do some editing, merging, and detailed Photoshop work to make the pictures work, but there was a disguised blessing in the seemingly negative problems we encountered. The room we were planning on shooting in had big windows with lots of light streaming in. If we had shot in there, we would not have been able to produce the incredible affect we were able to create (and actually originally looking for) in the small, dark room where the two pianos were. God certainly knows how to redirect our steps in a way that we would never have chosen in our finite minds.

Look for the new CD/DVD to be available in the near future! And just so you know, I’ve reserved the best photos for the jacket design.

10 Comments » | posted in Family News, Photography