Life on the edge

Over the past few weeks I have met a number of like minded individuals when it comes to 'extra curricular activities' Most of them involve some kind of danger, be it fire breathing, shooting or knife throwing there is always the adrenaline rush of having survived the latest feat.

For as long as I can remember I have always enjoyed the idea (and also usually the practice) of living dangerously. The base instinct to leap before looking (or to look, see that it's unsafe and then leap anyway) has been with me from childhood and I had the joy of sharing that with two older brothers who to put it bluntly would make me seem rather tame at times.

It may surprise you to discover that this tendency has at times put me in rather tricky situations... As a fearless (or simply misguided) young teenager I was suspended from my school for breaking out of my boarding house in the middle of the night (yes I went to boarding school) in order to climb around on the roofs and see if I could make the infamous 'ML1-ML2 gap!' 

Our Modern languages lessons were taught in prefab temporary huts that were situated a few meters apart from one another and it was qudos to you if you could scale to the roof of ML1 and make the jump to ML2. 

This kind of attitude might sound reckless, fool hardy or even outright insane but I think it's important to make a distinction here.

The desire to live life on the edge is not simply to try and do the most dangerous thing that can be found, such a lifestyle would result in death very quickly. For example skydiving without a parachute is 110% more dangerous that skydiving with a parachute but no one in their right mind would do that.

There is indeed a fine line between outright idiocy and a calculated, well rewarded risk. Now this line is of course down to perspective, something that is key in photography. For example from the perspective given in these pictures it might be inferred that we were essentially being a bunch of idiots, however what the pictures don't show you are the two foam fire extinguishers, the fire blanket, the bucket of water, the nurse and the first aider standing by just in case something went wrong (which it didn't).

When things are in perspective the question changes from 'are you sure that's a good idea?' to 'are you sure that you can't do it bigger?' Just to be clear here I am not advocating senseless risk taking, what I am saying is that if the risk has been removed why oh why are we not pushing this life to it's limits?

How do I remove risk? You get in line with Gods will. Never has there been a more reliable safety net, never has their been a stronger rope or fool proof protection than standing squarely in the will of God. Through the ages there have been some people who have understood this, there perspective has been shaped by God and they can see clearly. To the world looking on they look like fools. When Jesus hung on the cross bleeding out he was openly mocked by the people who passed him by because it looked like he had been a fool. He had played with fire and been burned. What he saw however was something quite different. He saw God's perfect and pleasing will and he understood it to the point of going beyond the grave to stand in it. He trusted that his father would be his ultimate safety, even from beyond the grave and the world stood in awe 3 days later when God did the impossible and rose Jesus back to life. Where were the mocking passers by now? Jesus lived a far more radical life than any of us and he is the one who quite rightly gets the glory. 

As Christians this same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. This is such a small well known biblical principal but oh the magnitude of it! How quickly we skim over and how much of life we miss. We are called to live on the edge, to go far beyond the boundaries of the pattern of this world, to live dangerously for Christ, knowing that he has got our back. 

NB. The pictures in this post were not taken by me but two friends from college. Thank you Tim and Andy

Title font used: 'FightThis'

Ash & Heather

My brother was recently asked to take photos for a friends wedding as the official photographer at the same time that I had a free weekend so he invited me along as a second shooter for my first wedding as an official photographer. Very exciting here are just a few of the pictures:

There are so many more but to be concise I will leave it there, if you do want to see some more, and some of the same but edited differently (and probably better) then swing by Eds' blog an amazing spot that you should follow anyway.

Exhibition

So the last time I posted before the relaunch I believe I was on the cusp of my Photography exhibition, well it went very well and was a lot of fun, rather ironically I didn't take my camera with me my friend who I exhibited with did. So here goes:

Canopes and a keg from bath ales combined with an eclectic mix of family and friends led to a brilliant evening and to all those who attended, thank you very much - wouldn't have been the same without you.

Blue Bell Woods

Something I have been planning to do with these two for some time is to visit a woods previously completely unknown to me yet is very close to my home considering it's size and the fact that I live in the middle of a city. I was a little nervous that we would miss the blue bell season in my absence in Texas but we certainly did not - there were blue bells galore!

Thankyou John and Hannah for making this trip possible!

Barry Lewis Art Exhibition

All credit must go to this man for all of the following works of art that I simply took pictures of.

Today was a wanderful day in weather and company. So the addition of an art exhibition only made things more enjoyable. Further, the exhibition was free and my step mum happened to know the artist which bought all the peices to life that little bit more as he talked us though some of the more spectacular and perculiar pieces.

Thankfully he was not only happy for me to take pictures of the gallery but also allowed my dad to place my baby brother on some of the larger sculptures!

So see if you can spot:  Lion(metal) : Corcosaurus : Dragonfly : Cheeky Monkey : Pegasus : Lobster : Girraffe : Crane Fly : Scorpion : Tarantula : Grass hopper : Boxing Rabbits : Saxaphone Bot : Seahorse : Dragon : Centipede : Jughead : Bird : Fishamajig : Hermit Crab : Aslan (stone): Owl


These are just a select few, there were several more that I dont have the memory or the time to name, but on the plus side, if you happen to be in bristol between now and the 27th of Feb 2010 then you can go see it yourself at the Grant Bradley gallery in Bedminster (very near ASDA) 


Things I liked the most about this exhibit:
 - The eco friendly ethos behind it all
 - The intricacy of all of the peices (especially the fish knives)

- The friendly chap who made them all
- The ingineuity and self restraint to make all of the peices from recycled scap.

Thats all for now. Enjoy !

Craft and Presents

I have always enjoyed making things, partly for the satisfaction of beggining a project and seeing it through to completion and actaully having something tangeable that I have bought into existance. But also partly because I love to give away things that I have actually put effort into(which for me means having made it myself) to the people I love. I think for this reason the gifts that I treasure most are ones that have been made by the person giving them.

here are some examples:

 

These beauties were given to me on my 18th bithday, the one on the left from an avid recycler and her man friend, hence the '18' has been cut out of an aptly named book 'The book of choclate'  which, I'm assured, would otherwise have gone to waste.

The one on the right was given to me by this lady who happens to have a bit of an artistic flare of her own ... as you can see from the card!

so as I was saying I appreciate gifts like these alot, which is why I still have these cards, which is why I was able to whip out my camera and take the above picture mid blogging sesh!

One problem I have found with craft and generally hand made things is that they are somewhat perishable, I guess this is one more reason that I like photography; by uploading these pictures I have effectively immortalised these amazing gifts.

which moves me smoothly onto another present I reviced, this time for christmas 2009:

 

This was a combintation of making and buying pre-made in a present, the picture in the centre I took and sent to that recycling lady - mentioned above, who in true recycling style took my picture, printed it, framed it and gave it back to me for christmas - Brilliant! The frame is from IKEA, the only reason I know that is because they put a little lable on the inside, the only reason I was inside, was to stick on the extra 6 pictures ( 3 above and 3 below)

This has made me think of yet another good quality of presents, though one that is possibly much harder to achive. The ability to add to or build upon or even create from scratch using the initial present.

Here are some examples of things I have made instead of just reciving, unfortunatley I only got my camera recently and so was not able to document many of the things that in heindsight I would like to have had a record of.

 

 

So... reading the collage like a book, starting in top left:

1: This was my DT project in year 10 for my GCSEs, it is an oak box, made with dovetail joints. The purple stuff inside is plastic, heat moulded to the shape of the cross and covered in a layer of (fake) felt. The cross itself was made by pouring molten pewter into a wooden mould.

2: This is a kawasaki-style origami rose made with origami paper that my mother got me for christmas.

3: This is the box with the lid on, the cross on the lid is protruding by about 1cm and is used as a handle, it is made of mahogany.

4, 5 & 6  : These are various stages in the construction of a christmas card that I made for some of my friends. The pattern on the front is a celtic knot, definied by being 1 continuous line that follows the pattern of '1 over 1 under' which you might not be able to pick up in these small pictures.

7: Another christmas card, again with celtic knots, the '1 over 1 under' rule might be a little clearer in this picture.

8: Some preliminary celtic knots, drawn with graphite sticks. I designed the top one myself and used It in the making of another card ( birthday this time ) but I didnt have a camera at the time of making the card so no picture of the finished product... just imagine the design in silver ink on purple paper. The one below it I copied, it is a variation of a celtic love knot.

9: Last but by no means least, this is one of the first celtic knots that I drew, it took me several hours to design and a few more to draw, this was my initial vision of what my pewter cross would look like, although I actually only drew it  3 years after having made the pewter cross.

Finally, I recently recived a belated 18th birthday present which I happen to think is fantastic, not everything in the picture is from the same person but the majority are gifts:

 

List of all things in picture:

Belated 18th present items:

several sheets of coloured card, several black envelopes, pritt-stick, super fine gold and silver pens, wax for sealing letters. (not in picture-  sticky back foam numbers and stars)

Gift from mother: 

asorted coloured pens

Other random stuff I have aquired:

scissors, selotape, graphite sticks of varying softness, ruler.

wow, this was long, I could keep going but I will spare you.