Sushma's Wedding

Lots o' stuff to talk about so I guess I'll start with this event.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who went to UIC. This girl was a pre-med Biology major who also played the flue. One day, girl meets boy and the so the story goes. Flash forward and the girl is now a student at Midwestern University and it close to finishing up her courses to become a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, but before that could happen, she gets married. She had decided to have a traditional Hindu wedding and tried to make it as authentic as possible this side of India. She hires a decorator that turned a simple conference room into a Hindu wedding shrine. She hires a couple of guys to play traditional Indian music to set the atmosphere. She hires caterers to cook up traditional (and vegetarian) Indian food. She hires Indian tailors to sew traditional Indian clothes and hires a couple of Hindu priests to make sure she does indeed get married that day. Everything was set. Everything was perfect. Everything was beautiful. Everything was ready. She was so excited and I was equally as excited to be able to attend and get as many pictures as I could of this truly unique wedding. So why can't I remember the groom's name?

Bride




Groom


Decor




One Second Before They Say "I do."


"I Do."


Bridesmaids


Guests






And they lived happily ever after. The End.


Full photo set here.

Sushma's Wedding
Stevenson Convention Center
April 25, 2009

Analogue Love

Presenting the Yashica Mat-124 G Medium Format Twin-Lens Reflex Camera!







Isn't it cute?

I found this baby at the Randolph Street Market Festival last Sunday. Well, truth be told, I can't take all the credit. I had previously visited the vendor where this camera was sitting and had totally passed it over. It wasn't until Meng went back with me to check out the vendor did I see this camera.

I couldn't believe I actually found one.

I had been wanting to experiment with medium format film for quite some time now, but I never mustered up the minerals to buy a medium format camera. Even when I was face to face with this camera, Meng had to be the one to convince me to buy it. She's so sweet and supportive that she had even offered to give me money to buy it if I didn't have enough on me =)

So, here goes nothing. My first three rolls are Black and White 120 film that I picked up from Urban Outfitters (Memorial Day so Calumet was closed). I'm thinking about doing my own processing later so I could hopefully cut costs, but that's another adventure for another time.

Specs:
Top Lens: Yashinon 80mm f/2.8
Bottom Lens: Yashinon 80mm f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/500 to Bulb
Focus 1m (3.3ft) to infinity
Can handle 120 and 220 medium format film

You Are The Sunshine Of My Life...

...That's why I'll always stay around.

Chris Tomlin- Hello Love Concert

Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sears Center
Chris Tomlin featuring Christy Nockels of Watermark
With Israel Houghton and New Breed as the Opening Act

New Breed














Chris Tomlin








Christy




Everyone








Thank you, good night!

What God Said To Me The Other Day

God has not called me to be successful; He has called me to be faithful
~Mother Teresa

I heard this quote two Saturdays ago during a time where 'success' was an estranged, foreign idea to me. It was during a time when the world had me in its grasp. Where I felt bound and blinded with nothing but whispers of pessimism and failure filling my ears. I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere with my job, my finances were pulling me apart, school was taking everything from me and I didn't feel like I was learning anything. To top it off, I felt very much alone because my friends, the ones who would join me at church and who would help create church services with me, were out drinking at a bar on a Friday night.

Going to a vespers where the next youngest person was five years younger than me and where the topic of the night was resisting alcohol didn't help either.

I don't know how else I can express it. I felt like nothing I was doing was going right. I felt like a failure; that my lifestyle and my devotions were not going to get me very far. I felt like an outcast and that there was no place in this world for someone like me.

I was praying to God; asking Him to talk to me and to tell me that I'm going to be alright. The next day, while I was sitting in church, the speaker quoted the words of Mother Teresa that are written above.

My success doesn't come from how high my GPA is, but that I gave it everything I got.
My success doesn't come from how fat my wallet is, but that I do my job with all the talents God gave me.
My success doesn't come from how much pleasure I can get out of life, but how much I please God.

Urban Outfitted

Yes, it's a corny name, but it was something to do on a Saturday afternoon. Big ups to my models: Kristine and Eric as well as to my assistant: Emillie.

Devon

It's amazing what can happen in your life if you just give it some time. Think about it. Take a moment and think about all the things you have done within the past week, the past month, the past few months, the past year. I started this blog with the intention of creating a memento for posterity's sake. I wanted something where I could record my thoughts and which I could use to track my growth as an individual. I have a pretty good idea as to why I stopped using this thing. Scratch that, there was no one singularity that had caused me to stop blogging. Be it lazyness, business, distraction, or the fact that I just plain lost interest, I had stopped. That much is true. But therein contains another truth. One that is more fact than conjecture.

So much has happened since my last post.

My last post was dated at October 3, 2008. Since then, I have aged to 25. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years have all come and gone. A semester of school had ended and another one has just begun. The country had elected Barack Obama as its 44th President, the first African-American President in the history of the country. My car's odometer has just rolled over to 60000 miles, and...

I now have a girlfiend.

A lot of things can happen very quickly and can often create a maelstrom of our lives if we are not careful. Growth and change can either be a wonderful or catastrophic inevitability, events that can really mold a person and form their character to show who they really are.

Last Sunday, I had a photoshoot with a baby of two of my friends. Now, babies can be tricky to shoot. Their personality alone works against the photographer; babies are easily the most selfish creatures to ever exist. You can't tell them what to do, you have to work around their schedule, you have to bend over backwards just to make them smile or look your way, and when they're done, they're done. However, if you can get past these pitfalls, babies can be very rewarding to shoot. With babies, every side is their good side. Their skin is absolutely flawless and everything about them is soft.

We all started that way. But as time wore on, life has ways of changing that. Things happen that takes our perfect complexion and creates scars and calluses. Our hands that were once so soft becomes cracked and weathered. Our feet that were once so cute and chubby become callused and rough. Overall, life takes our soft skin and makes it tough, sometimes going so far as to create a shell.

That fact makes me wonder what will happen to this baby as he grows. What will the world of tomorrow hold for someone like him? What kind of a world are we going to leave him when it's time for him to take control, and what kind of a legacy are we going to leave behind? Only time will tell, I guess, so for now, enjoy his soft skin.