Beautiful Day

Week 20

Beautiful Day
May 21, 2011
 

Yep. That's a big dumpster. With just the beginnings of what eventually would jam-pack this giant trash can many times over throughout the day. This, a result of hundreds of volunteers spending their weekend serving a challenged neighborhood in our proverbial backyard, was part of a greater effort called Beautiful Day.

I sat down with Jon Talbert, Executive Director of Beautiful Day, and wanted to share some of what he believes makes Beautiful Day unique and important, and how it impacts lives in the Bay Area and across the country. A new approach for 52Photos, I've included excerpts from our conversation about this thing called Beautiful Day. Enjoy.

dg
 "How would you describe Beautiful Day?"

jt 

 "Beautiful Day started as an idea to immerse people in the concepts of compassion and justice, serving humanity with the resources that we have. It's turned into an enormous collaborative that is led by the faith-based community, and engaged through other entities in business, government, education, heath-care, media,  and entertainment to respond to the needs of the surrounding community. It's a concept to immerse people into the idea of compassion. The strength of it is collaboration, and the beauty of it is the creativity and innovation. We want to tailor make ideas, in response to specific needs and often times you need to collaborate to make that happen."

dg
Clearly, collaboration is a big part of BD. How did you move into that scenario instead of just a faith based service project.


jt
 "I think historically the faith based community has attempted to be the answer to everything, and we're recognizing that they are one channel of culture within the community of many different channels. Ironically, though, the faith community has this very influential role, because it interweaves into all the other sectors if its done correctly. We can do everything we do now, and just do it within the faith based community, and make it very exclusive. But that falls back into the stereotypes of a church that has isolated itself from community and says 'come and see and we'll give you the answers' vs. 'we're gonna go and work together to provide a solution.' The church becomes more validated for it's existence to the general populace when it stands alongside the issues of the city with people that aren't of faith and says 'this is our city too, and these are our problems, and we stand alongside you'.  When you stand off to the side and don't engage people, you confirm the stereotypes that already exist out there."

dg

Which are?

jt

"Ignorant. Biased. Prejudiced. Money Hungry. Better than Everyone. The truth is we are just one piece of culture. We feel like we have some spiritual guidance and influence and teachings that are valuable to peoples lives and we embrace that, based on our holy texts, our scriptures that we teach and hold to be true. The teachings of Jesus that center on compassion and justice and love and service... to teach those things and not actually live them, confirms hypocrisy in the church. The church is notorious as hypoctrites in the community because we've said and haven't done. We'd like to reverse that."

We went on to discuss some of Jon's favorite memories from Beautiful Day this year, including a young parapalegic boy getting a chance to dance, a PR-producing homeless man, and an unexpected reunion of long-lost neighbors, all through a gigantic combination of many small steps of service by hundreds of people who care about their city, and the people in it.

image taken with Canon 5DMII, 24-70 2.8L lens, 1/2000 sec @ f2.8 , ISO 100

Moments

Week 47

Moments

November 23, 2010

One of the many things I love about taking pictures for a living is the cool moments I get to capture. I know, I know... it probably sounds a little trite, but seriously - I get to be part of some of the most amazing moments in people's lives. I get to create images that help show businesses in their best light, and I get to bear witness to the beauty of creation. I get to make a part of history what in the past was relegated to memory.

The image above is a great example of what an honor and privilege I've been blessed with. A dear friend's fiance called me and asked if I'd be willing to capture his proposal to my friend. OF COURSE! was my answer :). One of many images from this incredible event, these two amazing people will now have a record of this moment that they can pair with their memories as they look back on their journey together. I dig it. 

Happy December everyone!

image taken with Canon 5DMII, 70-200 2.8L lens,  1/60sec @f2.8, ISO 1600

New Beginnings

Week 45

New Beginnings

November 13, 2010

A guest at the wedding I shot last weekend commented to me "you'll never get the chance to witness a wedding like this again".  She was probably right. You see, the bride and groom were 78 and 80 years old respectively. Each of their spouses had passed away in recent years, and these two were moving to another stage in life with one another. They wanted to live out the remainder of their lives together.

Now don't get the wrong impression. This was no frumpy duo resigned to some second-choice partnership. This bride and groom were as happy and giddy as any couple I've had the privelege to photograph. There was no less excitement, no fewer signs of their obvious and deep, youthful love for each other than if they were 22 and starting off on their first journey together.

An incredible thing to witness and document, I was happy to be a part of it. It got me thinking about how we all have opportunities to make new beginnings. Joyful times, tragedies and change will inevitably come our way. These things shape us, influence our lives and fill our memories. They make us who we are. They don't however, have to determine who we become. We have the opportunity in this life to take advantage of each day as a new day. We are afforded a brand new opportunity to make decisions based on who and what we value. Our paths in the past don't determine our paths for the future. A new beginning can be tomorrow. Or today. Or right now. It's up to you.

image taken with Canon 5D MII, 24-70 2.8L lens, 1/40 sec @ f2.8, ISO 400

Comfort Zones

Week 34

Comfort Zones
August 26, 2010

Every once in a while I think it's important to go outside of our comfort zones.  Maybe that means taking a risk that we don't know for sure will work out that way we want it to. Maybe that means participating in something in which we don't have confidence in our own abilities. Maybe it means remaining open-minded to an idea that we don't understand. 

The image above was taken as part of an unconventional media project conceptualized by artist Trina Merry. Trina does body painting (among other visual arts) and wanted to explore the Hispanic celebration of Dia de Los Muertos in this piece. Most of the set was shot against a gray studio backdrop with slave strobes and a couple soft boxes on hot lights. A tripod and slow shutter allowed for the motion in this image. 

Now I've done work with Trina before, but the work is a bit outside of the norm for me, and something I like to do to force a different perspective on my work. This photo along with the other images I captured during the session got me thinking about the idea of comfort zones, what they mean to us, and how they impact us as people.

Comfort zones can allow us to have a "safe" place to be, where we know and are accustomed to our surroundings, confident in our ability to navigate in an environment that is predictable. It doesn't sound too bad until you consider that along with these positive things can come a stifling of ingenuity and creativity, suspicion and fear of those people or ideas outside of our comfort zone, and an intellectual isolation that can repress learning. 

I believe that stepping outside of our comfort zones can lead to a number of things: Professionally, we can develop broader skillsets and understanding of our business or industry.  Personally, we have chance to overcome assumptions and fears and even learn a bit about ourselves. Spiritually we can grow to have a deeper understanding of our faith or beliefs, and greater appreciation for others'. The downside is that it can be... well, uncomfortable.

I've heard or read a number of quotes I like regarding comfort zones (and similar ideas). Each of these speaks to entirely different aspects of us and our comfort zones, and my purpose here isn't to exhaustively explore the idea. Rather, it's to share a few thoughts and maybe get you to consider what your comfort zones are, why they are what they are, and what you can do to step outside of them.:




"Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort."
Peter McWilliams




"We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are."
Max DePree

"We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."  Romans 5:3-4

image taken with Canon 5D, MII, 24-70 2.8L lens, 1/10 @ f10, ISO 800