"Where Was God When"

Where Was God When?

This is a great book, written by Mike Calhoun and Ric Garland. They used the series for Snow Camp messages for 8 weeks. Mark Wallenwine and I had the opportunity in our first year of the Word of Life Bible Institute to help make videos for snow camp, which later became videos for the "Where Was God When?" book series.

Here is a beginning clip of one of the videos we made...

Martin Fobes in Slow-Mo

Check out... Martin Fobes in slow motion. He really illustrates the beauty of skateboarding by being able to see every motion to how tricks are done, but not just the basic stuff! The video was filmed/edited by Adam Shomsky. Follow the link to view the show.

"Lenz" a Japanese Skate video

If you don't remember I posted a blog a while back when I first started this thing about a Japanese skater named Gou Miyagi, for his very creative style in skateboarding. (If you haven't seen that video check it out). More recently Gou Miyagi and some friends have made a new video called "Lenz". All the music in the video is more of a techno style.  These skaters bring skateboarding back to the new creative taste that it is supposed to have.



Other Montage

Stats

Blogger has added a new feature that allows me to keep track of my blog traffic. I have only been able to guess to about how many people read my blog. I have 10 followers, and how ever many people from facebook click the link, or random friends that tell me they check out my blog. As I reviewed my stats I have over 400 people (more accurately 400 times it is read, I don't know how many time each person reads my blog a month) that read my blog every month (or at least just this past month). About 50 of them are friends from facebook clicking the link, about 20 by just typing in my blog address, and the rest find my blog from google or other bloggers on blogspot. Thank You for reading my post I enjoy posting photos and talking about them.

United States 369 Canada 14 Ukraine 12 Germany 4 Australia 3 Russia 3 Denmark 3 Argentina 2 Israel 1 Brazil 1

I can tell you who at least one guy I know who read my blog from the Ukraine. He was one of the skaters I told you about on my missions trip there.

BBB Ranch Week

This is the first week of BBB (Bikes Boards and Blades) week at the Ranch Camp. There are about 20ish kids that are attending this year. 3 of the kids have never stepped foot in a skatepark before. This has to be very exciting week for them. Chris Vickery (Word of Life Tech kinda guy), Joel (Professional rider for FBM bikes) and Koza (Bike mechanic), come out every summer to minister to the kids, sharing the love of Christ with them through tricks and bails. We have been having tons of fun with the kids. Chris got me to drop in on a 6ft with his bike, it was one of the scariest things to me. I am so used to have so little metal under me when doing tricks/falling. There are a couple kids here, that no doubt will get really really good if they don't quite.  

...Using skateboarding to reach the young...

Light Drawings

I was trying to take some shots last night with the very clear sky. However no landscaping or anything like that was catching my eye or the mood I wanted. I always wanted to try writing words with light. By leaving the Shutter open long enough to draw things, but not fast enough to catch light from my body.

Soccer Player kicking ball into goal.

This was drawn by my self (blue light) and my supervisor, Ben, (white light)

This is not my original idea, I don't know really whose it is, but I do know that Neil Wade does a cool job at this form of art. 

I actually stumbled upon Neil Wade's Blog in a google search for skate spots in Taiwan, for when I go there in January. After checking out his skateboard photos and other photos of Taiwan, I decided to try to contact him. I sent him an email basically saying, that I will be going to Taiwan and was searching for places/people to skate with. He replied to my saying that he would love to have another person to skate with. He will be about 2 hours away from where I am staying. I really hope to get some good tips from him about photography and to have sick places to skate with these guys when I arrive. You might say how can you have someone you are going to meet in taiwan when you have never met them and know nothing about them. It's all because of skateboarding, we have a community that is bonded together around the world.

How a Skateboard is Made

Ollie Fence Attempts

This is one time that I actually cleared the fence but didn't succeed in the landing.

This is the one I actually made, but sadly I tapped the fence...

Stale Fish Grab on the wall ride

New Album: Norma Jean - Meridional

I just bought the new Normal Jean album "Meridional" off of itunes for $10 using the itunes gift card I won in the beginning of the summer. Buying the Album off itunes includes 13 tracks with 1 Bonus Track and a digital booklet. Unlike a lot of my favorite bands, Norma Jean doesn't lack what I loved in their previous albums. They still have a very heavy style and the original sound you love, while keeping a unique sound and style from their other songs. The band is actually all involved in the writing of the lyrics, which is very uncommon thing. Instead of just the vocalist or a single writer, the whole band is involved in the care of the direction of the lyrics in every song. In the Song "High Point Low Output" it speaks of "Calling you Out" for you actions, staying accountable. The name of the album "Meridional" was a term that comes from historical astronomy. It used to be on celestial maps, where there are four zones of the earth and the meridional was the southern direction. The idea of the name of the name of the album is if you are going "Meridional" you'd be headed south, or you would be head the wrong direction. Probably one of my favorite tracks on the album would be "A Media Friendly Turn For the Worst" though my ear phones or a little choppy, and don't sound nice and clean anymore I may change my mind if I heard the music through something else.

Norma Jean Lyrics and Explanation

Meridional [+Digital Booklet]

It's Always Time To Skate

Tim Laidlaw made a skateboard sundial. I don't know how accurate it is. But I do know one thing that works perfectly on this clock, and that is the quote "It's Always Time To Skate" I found this article on Skate and Annoy. 

Night Shoot Experiment #2

So I took another run at trying to get some sweet pictures from taking pictures at night. I had previously looked at a shot that I wanted to get for the night, in the day. I took a couple pictures from a few different angles, waiting for a nice clear night to shoot with the stars in the background.

Day Shot

Night Shot

66mm, ISO 640, 8 second shutter, F/5.6, White Balance: Incandescent

I didn't realize my ISO was up at 640 the whole night, I almost always have it at 200, but I must have shot something earlier that I needed it so high. These are practice shoots to help me learn, and I am learning from my mistakes every time. One of the hardest things for me to do is to get the color that I want to turn out, with using white balance. Some of my other photos have a really red tint to them, but this seemed to work having the white balance set to Incandescent. Then I adjusted the contrast and brightness a tiny bit, while adding a little blur effect around the corners.

One of the other difficulties for this shot was that the boat wouldn't stay still. It keep slowly swinging with the boat sideways to the nose pointing at me. It was very hard to get any good shots with 30 second or 15 second shutters to help bring out the stars more, with out the boat being a little blurred. It was also just all around hard to get a clear focus in the dark. I can barely see the shape of the boat through my view finder. I would just guess if it was in focus take a picture, adjust it, take another picture, until it was in as proper of a focus as I could get. Next time I learned I should bring a flash light of some kind to shine on the object so I can get my camera all focused up.

If you click on the photo to the left you can see the mountains in the background and also a shooting start towards the top of the boat mass. I had to adjust the brightness a ton on the photo, which made it loose some of it's quality, but I enjoy looking at the scenery. I hope I can figure out how to make one turn out really good. I may have to retake some photos and overlay them some how.

Something I love about photography is that it makes you pay attention to detail. You want to get as close as you can to everything and see all it's features. It helps me to view and appreciate God's creation even more. The main purpose of me taking pictures of this sail boat, is because I want to see more then just a sail boat floating in the water. I'm trying to bring out the beauty of the stars at night, that make the sail boat look more interesting with them glittering in the background. It was hard for me to get some good photos of the sail boat with the stars, so I decided to just take a plain old picture shooting straight into the sky, to capture all the stars I could.

If you look at the picture above you can see millions of little white spots, representing stars. It amazes me how large our Universe was created. God could have stuck us in this small enclosed world, but he made it a massive world with not much excuse but to appreciate and to recognize His wonderful creation/power. If you look at the beauty of creation it is hard to say "there is no God". Now take a look at my next photo. I altered the brightness a little bit to bring out all the stars I could, that where captured into the photo.

Just look at the billions of stars in the Universe that my camera can capture in one photo with only 55mm zoom. If you zoom in closely on the bottom right corner, there is a big white spot, that seems to be a galaxy from the looks of it.

Psalm 33:6-8: By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord

Free Deck

I have a friend here at the Ranch with a specific STC'er (named Steve) who is friends with the owner of Enormity Skateboards. He wanted to learn how to skate, so I told him to come out to the park some time and we could skate a little bit. I told him how to ollie and how to drop in. He picked them both up pretty fast. Most nights I stop by his dorm (and others) to hang out with him, talk and get to know they guys, and how things are going in the rooms. He told his friend from Enormity Skateboards that he was starting to learn how to skate and how much fun he was having doing it. His friend sent him up like 3 or 4 boards, with a set of trucks, some wheels, and bearings. In doing so, he gave me one of his Enormity Boards. They are located in Parsipapny, NJ  (info@enormityskateboards.com) I haven't actually skated it yet, but it looks like it has a nice shape. I don't know why but God continues to provide not only for my needs but provides me with winning/being given shoes(2), trucks, decks(2+).

World's Largest Skateboard

This is the world's largest functioning skateboard. It is fully equipped with real grip tape, trucks, bushings, and wheels that actually roll. The children play on the skateboard from week #5 of Woodward camp.

Bandits and Cowboys

All Photos by Shion

Hami (Hand Gun-less Hami), Me (Dirty Dale), Kyle (Cap Gun Kyle), Don (Stinky Pete 2000)

You can't have a Ranch with Cowboys with out the Bandits to terrorize  the Town of Paradise. Our band of mischief desires one thing and one thing only, to completely ruin the lives of children at the Ranch Camp. We storm into meetings, break up weddings, steal gold and the Marshals horses, and train rob. 

Our life isn't always fun and games though. We are hated and chased by screaming little children who literally want to kill you (kids actually will try to throw rocks at you to hurt you), we are beat by the (program) Cowboys, dunked in freezing cold water. and insulted in every way. All for one thing, to bring happyness to the campers, we sacrifice for the furthering of the gospel.

All this is done, while carefully trying to keep our identity a secret or risk losing all respect and freedom to walk about the Ranch without being miss treated by little children.

New Lens: AF-S DX VR Zoom- NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED

I have just recently purchased a 55-200mm camera lens for $200 from B&H Photo online. (Amazon - Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR [Vibration Reduction] Zoom Nikkor Lens). The Normal retail price is $250. I would like to give good report of B&H, I ordered my lens the 7th and it arrived the 9th for the standard $8 shipping. They also seem to have a very good 1 year warranty they put on their products.

The Price for the lens at $250 is already a great deal. Nikon made a very good lens to be available at a very low cost. The only thing I don't like about the lens is you have to be at least 3 feet away, to focus on a object and the maximum f/stop is f/4-5.6.

I have been in many situations where I wished I had a lens that zoomed in more then 55mm. I figured it would be worth the pictures for my travels and for creativity. It is really nice because it leaves off where my 18-55mm stops, going from 55-200mm.

Maximum Zoom with my 18-55mm

Maximum zoom with my new 55-200mm.

Maximum Zoom at 55mm

Maximum Zoom at 200mm

The first day with my new lens I took only about 180 photos. All day it was super cloudly, with not very good weather or lighting for a picture day. Here are some photos that I took:

A Hot Day Off

It has been super hot and humid the past week. For my day off, all we wanted to do was to go swimming and cool off all day. We headed to some beach in the Lake George area, were the sand burned our feet to blisters before reaching the water. The park there had some big rock hill formations, that looked fairly smooth. Josh Linglebach and I thought that it would be a good idea to skate on them. Once rolling around on top we noticed how hard it is to skate on a rock, and how many little holes and divots it has. However despite the difficulty and the park employer telling us we aren't allowed to skate in the park, she gave me the permission to take one more try, to land my trick. Below Sequence: Me 50-50 the picnic table crammed in a a indented rock section.

After skating for a little bit we went into town to get some pop-sickles to cool off. First we bought a 12 pack of Orange, there was 4 of us, so we each got 3. We went back to buy a 24 pack, getting 6 pop-sickles each. Left: Me attempting to grind the rail then pop-over into the bank to grass.

All day was just about getting cool. When you would just feel good about your body temperature, you would begin to heat up again. After doing some shopping we stopped at the black hole for some more swimming. And then when we got back to campus we had a beach party with all the camp workers. I did a little tubing then lots of skating that seems to always counteracts with my attempts to cool off.