X-Tending Hands

Pulling weeds

Trimming hedges

Cutting down trees

Pulling out tree stumps

Moving buckets and buckets and buckets of sand

Planting a flower garden

Using 12 bags of mulch

And after five hours of manual labor

We were able to minister to some people in Orlando 

With the little talents we are blessed with.

     At Harvest, our Student Leadership Team has been thriving and looking for MULTIPLE ways to get connected into our community. Whether it be Winter Garden, Windermere, Ocoee, Pine Hills, or even Orlando as a whole, one of our visions has a team is to minister in what little ways we can.

     One major thing that we're trying to do these days is to somehow find some kind of ministry or outreach to do, twice a month. Whether that be feeding the homeless, volunteering at a shelter, painting an apartment, etc., our main objective is to show the people of Orlando the love that God has for His children. So for our first project, we partnered with an organization called X-Tending Hands.

     Today's project was to go to a house over in Pine Hills and to do perform simple acts of kindness by cleaning up their yard. The house shelters women who are homeless, sick, etc. The house serves as a place of refuge and hopefully, hope for the residents there. Today's project included all that was stated above, along with many, many more. 

So these are SOME of the tasks that we did.

I honestly can say that I am so proud to be a part of this team. 

It was hot, it was hard, it was difficult,

And yet, not one complaint came from anybody.

Although it can't be seen too clearly, 

we planted a small flower bed type thing to sort of, beautify the entrance. 

Although it also cannot be seen too clearly here either, 

overall, the whole land itself was much more clean and much more... 'presentable.'

AWESOME JOB SLT!

So here are two pictures of the whole crew that helped out (top row)

Along with a picture of our SLT (bottom row)

This is P. Chung and Jin from OCBC (left & middle),

Along with Carl who is Luis's wing man.

Luis is a member of the men's facility located about 5 min from this facility (women's)

Luis could have done everything on his own,

better than us in fact, but I think he enjoyed the help.

Carl was Luis's wing man for everything.

Carl is also like a mini-P.Chung (right)

     Overall, the day was DEFINITELY a success. Lots of people showed up, a lot was done, and God definitely used us to minister to the people of this shelter. I cannot praise/recognize the SLT enough for ALL that they did. I am SOOOO proud to be a fellow SLT member with them. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me.

*** Many props to Pastor Albert Young for taking a majority of the photos***

Commissioning and Happy Birthday to Manny Kim!

So within Harvest, our adults are made up of cell churches. One of our cell churches, the Clara Kim Cell Church (college), grew to be too big so they had to be split up. With a new cell church comes the need for a new cell shepherd and by unanimous decision, Paul Kim was selected. Today, after the sermon and worship time, we took some time to commission Paul as a cell church leader by washing his feet.

Some pictures of the leaders praying for Paul

After church, many of us moved over to the Stoneybrooke West Country Club to celebrate our very own head pastor's daughter's first birthday, Emmanuelle Kim. It was an awesome time of thanksgiving to God, fellowship, and celebration for a very beloved baby within Harvest.

Some detail shots

More detail shots

A Korean tradition when a baby turns 1

Some pictures of the guests [I have no idea why Yeari is in all of them]

And now, around 6 in the evening, my uncle and my cousin came down to Florida to visit and of course, my little cousin Audrey, being the model that she is, wanted to take some pictures. Here's two of my favorite.

Just A Small Update...

So I'm in my junior year of the IB program and supposedly this is supposed to be the hardest year. While I haven't experienced massive amounts of work, school definitely has not changed one bit. I'm still trying to get back into the routine of getting 5 hours of sleep, doing homework for many hours, struggling over chemistry, etc. This has however taken away any time for photography....

I was cleaning my room yesterday and found these rocks that I had taken from Ecuador. For those who are now tuning in, I went on a mission trip to Ecuador back in late July. I had found the rocks that I had taken for memories, one from each city we ministered in (minus Quito). There are so many things that remind me of Ecuador...

• The song "Worthy is the Lamb"
• The Salvation bracelet I have in my backpack
• Every pick-up truck I see
• Anything with cilantro
• Fresh juices
• Hair cuts
• Many, many more...

Despite all the stress that school causes (IB, SATs, etc), these memories are what keep me sane. 

I definitely hope to get some photography in my schedule within the next couple months so be sure to stay tuned. ;-)

100th Post/Homecoming Dance 2010

So about this time two years ago, I had created this blog with hopes to show some of my work. receive some constructive criticism, and to somewhat get myself out there. I honestly admit that I have indeed gotten somewhat better since I first started, but i'm still not nearly close to where I want to be, so hopefully that will happen soon. Thank you so much to those of you who have kept up with me and looked at my work on a consistent basis. Apparently I've gotten approximately 300 views over the past two years (is that good or bad???) but yea again, thank you guys so much for you support!

So my close friend, Joseph Kim goes to school with me and we tend to tell everybody that we're cousins. So, this being my "cousins" senior year, he and his friends went to the CCHS Homecoming Dance 2010. If you remember, I went last year with my sister and her friends and took some pictures for them. This year again, I was given the awesome opportunity to take pictures for my "cousin" and his friends.

For some reason, I tried to pay special attention to Nisha just because she was the homecoming princess AND because she took the liberty of setting up the whole night for many of her friends so...

MAD PROPS TO NISHA DESEI!

They definitely knew how to pose well too!

More so than the boys, I paid special attention to the girls. At events like these, (e.g. Homecoming, prom, Winter ball, etc.) I believe that the girls are still the most important and the main priority so, I made sure to make that a point even when it came time to pictures.

The Homecoming Princess and her boys

The boys....

The whole group, 33 people....

The whole group again.

So overall, it was definitely awesome that they would a trust an amateur like me to take their homecoming pictures. I am EXTREMELY thankful to them for letting me photograph their homecoming day. I was REALLY nervous because I didn't want to ruin their homecoming day; hopefully I didn't. Very beautiful ladies, and handsome men. I could not have asked for better people to take pictures of. Thank you guys for letting me capture your SENIOR homecoming day!!!

A Bittersweet Night

So I wanted to start off with a small update. Since I've come back from the Ecuador Trip that I went on back in late July, I can honestly admit that my life isn't RADICALLY different, but I am constantly reminded of what I learned while I was down there. There are so many things around Orlando that remind of Ecuador... weird isn't it?!?! I haven't gotten the chance to do as much photography as I had hoped for and I can honestly say that I do miss it a lot.

- Do I miss all of the post-production? Not so much.
- Do I miss lugging around all of the equipment? Not so much.
- Do I miss standing on my feet all day, walking back and forth on a football field? Not so much.
- Then what do I miss?

I miss snapping away shots. The one thing that I love about photography is that I am in control. I don't have to listen to a teacher, do it a certain way, or even take CERTAIN pictures. I'm given a general subject,   and I am my own instructor. The best is getting that PERFECT candid shot. You know, the shot of the dad giving his little girl a kiss, the photograph of the girl with "that look" in her eye as she watches her boyfriend play football (ha-ha), it's those perfect "kodak moments" that make it all worth it. Cliche??? YES!!! But the truth is, you will never understand it until YOU are behind the lense.

Yesterday, Friday, September 17, 2010 was Cypress Creek's homecoming football game where the homecoming parade would take place, and where the homecoming queen and king would be announced. How is this bittersweet? Unfortunately, our football team did not exactly play to the best of their ability and ended the night with another loss, however, last night was the night where the homecoming queen and king would be announced along with homecoming floats and other fun stuff. While I don't have much more to say, here are some of the pictures that I got.

The CCHS stadium has horrible lighting and due to the fact that I, as a teenage, amateur photographer with no steady income, NO income for that matter, I do not exactly have the correct equipment for low lighting situations such as a football game at night. That would explain the blurriness.

Some of the CCHS bear pride. More so senior pride than bear pride. ha ha

More pride.

Katarina Rodriguez and Stephany Duenas were two homecoming queen runner-ups (top right)

And without further or due, THE CCHS HOMECOMING QUEEN AND KING, AMANDA HORNE AND STEPHEN ROCHET LOPEZ! Two friends, very good friends if I am able to add (at least from my perspective.... ha ha) that I am very proud of. Congratulations you guys!

Afterwards, we had a small photo shoot. Both Amanda and Stephen are two very photogenic people = AWESOME models, haha. Congratulations again you guys.

In case some of you are wondering, I took most of these photographs with the Canon 15mm fish eye. It was the widest lense that I had. The next in line would have been my 28-135 which is a tad bit too close. I do however LOVE the fish eye so in regards to my personal preference, it all worked about... but honestly speaking at the same time, I think the photos came out great even with the fish eye.

**** PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!****

If you see a photograph that you like/appreciate, not to sound like a grinch (if that makes sense), but PLEASE do not copy the photograph straight from my blog (right-click, save image as) and claim it your own. I do own copyrights to my photographs so if you want them, just talk to me. This isn't a way for me to get all the credit or to make others know that I took it, not you, but it's a reminder that out of respect for any artist, whether they be a painter, photographer, videographer, poet, author, music artist, etc. this is THEIR work! So again, if you see something that you like, just talk to me about it. To find out contact information, click here.