Bahamas Wedding!

Michelle and Bob
November 3, 2007
The Bahamas

My job is hard sometimes, but I just persevere! Mid-80s. Abundant sunshine all weekend. The original date for this wedding was November 2, but there was a last-minute schedule change because of a hurricane. Michelle and Bob joked that they would name their first child “Noel” after the storm. I think I spent about four days on the phone with Travelocity trying to get everything straightened out. And it was a nightmare for Michelle’s mom and friend Ashley to coordinate with the change. But it was worth it! The hurricane actually veered east before it hit this island. So everything at the Sheraton Grand Bahama Island Our Lucaya Resort was in perfect condition.

The first few slides are from the rehearsal. The ceremony was at 10:30 a.m. After lunch everyone changed clothes and jumped in this amazing pool. Luckily for me, when I took my shirt off and jumped in with my camera, my chest served as a built-in light refletor.

Michelle, Bob, and their families treated me so well for the entire weekend. Thank you so much! I had an amazing time!

Slideshow music by Switchfoot.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“When I told you I was yours, I was yours.” – Switchfoot.

Learning to Give

Learning to Give (click to see it bigger)
Originally uploaded by Eric McCarty

The Mamas (Laressa, Nicole, and Meredith) worked hard this Christmas to make it a time of not only getting, but giving for our kids. Instead of exchanging gifts between the cousins, they decided to sponsor two orphans and send boxes of goodies across the world. During our Christmas celebration Christmas Eve morning, the kids showed each other what they bought and packed the boxes together and even prayed over the boxes and the children who would receive them. Madelyn prayed that the boxes would arrive safely, for the girl who would get it, and that she was thankful that we had an opportunity to give! We put her on the spot, praying in front of the entire family and it was beautiful and heartfelt. She’s a gem!

Great job, Mamas!

We did this through WorldHelp. Check em out!

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.” – Albert Einstein

There and Back Again – Jackson to Produce The Hobbit

I promise more photography-related stuff soon. But, I just ran across what I’d been hoping to run across for a couple of years now–Peter Jackson has signed on to produce The Hobbit. Looks like Jackson has sued New Line for not handing over his fair share of royalties from the Lord of the Rings flicks and that may have played into why he’s producing and not directing on this one. Anyway, I’m looking forward to going to the theater sometime in 2010.

I got two more George MacDonald novels for Christmas! C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying “. . . I’ve never concealed the fact that I consider him [MacDonald] as my master.” His 19th century novels have gone out-of-style because of their frequent use of heavy Scottish dialect, which I’ve been able to decipher after reading “Malcolm”. The tie-in to this post about The Hobbit is that Tolkien regarded MacDonald highly as well. One of MacDonald’s books is titled There and Back which is the same subtitle as The Hobbit – or There and Back Again.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It was one of those exquisite days that come in every winter, in which it seems no longer the dead body, but the lovely ghost of summer. Such a day bears to its sister of the happier time something of the relation the marble statue bears to the living form; the sense it awakes of beauty is more abstract, more ethereal; it lifts the soul into a higher region than will summer day of lordliest splendour. It is like the love that loss has purified.” – George MacDonald, opening passage of The Marquis of Lossie

Christmas Tree Shopping

Watch this one til the end (one minute). This was December 1. We live 40 minutes from some of the most picturesque Christmas Tree Farms in the country. This is Madelyn with her cousins, Arwyn, McKibben, and Kennedy.

Shot all of this with my cell phone. Here’s another vid of just our girls . . .

Happy 39th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” – Charles Dickens

Good Read

ArtStart
Originally uploaded by Eric McCarty

Kawasaki and Kiyosaki are two very good authors. Not necessarily fantastic writers, but what they write can change your life.

How to Shoot Christmas Lights

OK, I already know all this stuff, so don’t think I was on this site trying to figure out how to shoot at night. Truth is, I have LifeHacker‘s blog in my blog RSS reader on my Google homepage. If you haven’t tried an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed reader, you have to do it. Now! It has made my blog reading so much easier and more efficient. It basically puts headlines of blogs in the reader when they are updated. So you don’t have to go to the blog to see if it has new stuff. The blog posts come to you. Google Reader let’s you actually see the post inside the reader without having to go to the blog. Want to know more about it? This is a great explanation of RSS and readers from John Piper’s website.
Anyway, this was on the LifeHacker blog today. I know there are aspiring photographers who read this and most everybody has a digital camera and lights on their houses so this will really help. All of it is good advice.

Their number one is the real number one–timing is everything. Hate to give out too many trade secrets, but this is what we call “sweet light”. It’s actually a little later than what you would normally think, but when the sky light matches the light hitting the front of the subject, then you’re in business. A few minutes makes a huge difference on these shots. Start early before the sky has darkened enough and take a shot about every minute or so until the sky has completely darkened. You’ll be amazed at what you get. The really awesome cobalt electric blue dusk shots are when the camera is facing somewhat to the west, in the direction that the sun has just set. Not necessarily due west, but definitely not due east. Not that you’ll have much control over this if you’re shooting the front of your house, but you might be able to position yourself for a more westerly direction.

Oh, and speaking of blogs, I’ll be moving this blog over to ericmccarty.com very soon. I’m going to revamp it and make it look a lot better and functional. Just a little warning for you.

Merry Christmas,
Eric

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.” – Taylor Caldwell

Macy – "All I Want For Christmas"

2frontteeth
Originally uploaded by Eric McCarty

That’s right. Her first two teeth this week!

The deadline to order prints from PICtage with a guaranteed delivery by Christmas was yesterday. Fear Not! You can order reprints through us directly and have them in four business days. Email me quick!

Here’s the historical probability map for one inch of snow on Christmas. The map will change to an actual forecast map on the 18th. Here’s the link to the map. It won’t change here on the blog. Not looking good for Johnson City, TN yet, but I’m feelin’ it this year!

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Judy Haynes: We’re booked for the holidays.
Phil Davis: Vermont, huh?
Judy Haynes: Oh, Vermont should be beautiful this time of year, with all that snow.” – from White Christmas, 1954

Many of my blog readers are looking for new software tools to help them organize their digital images. I just came across a good article on some of the new options out there. In addition to those listed in this article, we highly recommend ACDSee. It’s $50 but well worth it.

For online photo sharing and editing you’ll want to check out flickr. Just this past week they added photo editing on site which is an amazingly easy feature to use.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.” – John A. Wheeler

Go Dawgs!
Our Christmas present last year from Mom and Dad was tickets to the Kentucky game in Athens. The girls had a blast. Everybody was so jacked up for this game, it was amazing. 35-yard-line, 4 rows from the field. Beautiful day. These videos were taken at the very end of the game with my cell phone. We walked down for the girls to see the cheerleaders and everything went nuts.

The players jumped up on this box right in front of us and the student section . . .

QB Matt Stafford’s got his game face on during The Dawg Walk.
Touchdown Bedlam featuring my bro, Jason. (Aunt Kim has the best seat in the house–in the pits, shall we say, if you take my meaning.)
Madelyn gets into it.
Red is beautiful.
Laressa and Madelyn. How did I do so well?!
Kicker Brandon Coutu and RB Thomas Brown.
Macy likes it.
Some guy in the stands took this for us. I really like my sister-in-law. Just didn’t realize I was standing that far away!
A nice and somewhat inebriated individual got Hairy to pose with the girls and is actually holding Macy in this. I cropped him out.

Myah has a perch.

Myah has enough.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We just stepped on their face with a hob-nail boot and crushed their nose!” – Dawgs Announcer Larry Munson calling the last second victory over the Vols in Knoxville in 2002.