We Meet Once Again

I'm finding it extremely difficult keeping up with my blog, yet alone photography. School has definitely been tough, not giving me the chance to get out there and practice my photography. However, I do plan on getting back into my photography the second I get the chance.

Just a small recap, this past Sunday, we had a bunch of our youth participate in a "dodgeball" tournament with hopes to get more involved with the other churches around Winter Garden. Harvest has definitely been prospering and I have never been more proud to call Harvest my home church. Over the past couple months, our youth group meetings have grown, the relationships between each and every youth student has only strengthened, the praise team has found its "spunk" again, and even our Sunday worship services have become more, intimate with Christ.

Overall, everything is going quite swell for me. I'm slowly learning to fully trust in God, more than I ever have, and I cannot wait to see all of the blessings that God is planning to shower down upon Harvest, my friends, my family, and my life, throughout 2011. Take care!

A Recap of 2010 and New Look on 2011!

What a stressful year it has been already. I'm rather ashamed to say that my first blog post of 2011 is not until January 8, 2011. It's been tough for me, trying to take pictures and enjoy photography as much as I used to. From a photography class both freshman and sophomore year that turned photography into an assignment, to the stress that junior year of IB has brought on, let's just say I haven't been as fervent about photography as I used to.

It occurred to me that my "fun" life is relatively over for the nest 6-10 years of my life. I realized that I now have to grow up and "evolve" from a boy, to a man of God. SATs, ACTs, Informal Assessments for IB, etc. etc. etc... It's time for me to be responsible. As I realized that I'm at that point where I have to start sacrificing fun for the things necessary, I find myself in this bitter place, yet a place where I am slowly learning to lean on Christ for the strength and responsibility necessary. God has been faithful throughout the past 16 years of my life and I know that as I grow older, He will continue to do so; I just hope I can do the same.

Many times already have I been asked, "What are your New Year's resolutions?"

I cannot honestly answer that question because truth be told, I didn't exactly come into the new year with new expectations and a chance to "start over." As I look at it now though, here are, I do not want to say "resolutions," but things I'm hoping to work at throughout 2011.

1. Love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I know this year is going to be tough and I know at times I will get mad with God, but the important thing that God is calling me to do, is to become a man of God and NOT complain, and to trust in His plan for me. I need to learn how to listen and be obedient to what God has already said and planned out for me.
2. Become a man to my parents, my family, and my friends. At the age of 16, I'm slowly becoming more and more responsible. It is important that I learn to treat my family and friends with the love and respect that a man of God does.
3. Set my priorities straight. From school work, church, to basketball, it is important for me to learn how to set my priorities and when to say "no" to fun in order to fulfill my calling as a student.
4. Love photography again. Apparently, I have a talent, but so many times, I find myself taking pictures because I have to or because someone has asked me to. It's time for me to find the fun in it again, and to take pictures FOR FUN!
5. Love my friends. I find myself, so many times, trying to be the cool one or the funny one yet I fail to build deep relationships with my friends. I feel like I have very superficial, surface-leveled relationships. One of my goals this year is to make TRUE friends and show them that I'm not this obnoxious, loud, guy who wants to be liked by everyone, but the guy who is willing to be tortured and ridiculed, yet has a deep, long-lasting relationship with some people who he can REALLY call friends.

So more or less, those are my "New Year's Resolutions." I am almost positive that I am forgetting many of them, but for now, those are the five that I can think of.

I'm extremely sad to say that this is my first post since November of 2010, so below, expect many photos, and maybe even some videos. Enjoy!

From December 19-25, my uncle, cousin, and my grandparents came to spend the holidays. As my cousin was in town, me, my uncle, my cousin, and my sisters went to Downtown Disney to take pictures along with pictures back at home. For those of you who have been following me for quite some time, you know my cousin is my little model. Enjoy the following!

I have yet to perfect silhouettes.... haha

Every Christmas, our church always has a Christmas service. After the worship/sermon portion, we had a time of presentations where three of our congregations, Kingdom Keepers, Harvest, and Vision Church, all prepare some sort of presentation, along with other groups such as our church hip-hop team, jazz band, etc. Enjoy the pictures!

Following Christmas, from December 27-30, our youth ministry had our 2010 Harvest Youth Winter Retreat. We were blessed to have such an amazing speaker Pastor Sam Kim and guest praise team leader Kyle Lake. Retreats are always such an amazing time of blessings and a time for intimacy with God. Praise God for His abundant blessings. Following the pictures is a short slideshow to re-cap all four days.

Every year, our church has a service from 10.30PM Dec. 31-1.00AM Jan. 1. One of the first things we do is watch an end-of-the-year video produced by our church's Inservio team. This year, I was in charge of creating the end-of-the-year video from Harvest, which would be combined with the end-of-the-year video from our Vision Church Congregation. All I can say is, wow, how amazing is iPhoto and iMovie. While I still wish I could do multiple things with Final Cut Pro, iPhoto and iMovie has made it REALLY easy to make and publish amazing videos. The ORIGINAL, original was actually 37 minutes long, but due to time restraints, I had to cut it down to under 10 minutes. Enjoy!

The only problem that I have with iPhoto is that it tends to cut off pictures. 

THAT would explain why many heads were cut off in many of the photos.

As I look back at 2010, it had its high moments, but it also had its low moments. Honestly speaking, I can admit that 2010 was not a good year for me. I look back and I don't remember any significantly bad moments, but I look back and I don't find any moments that make me extremely happy either. I don't say that to explain how bad of a year 2010 was, but I say that because now, I can look at 2011 and expect/want to make it a good year. I can come into 2011 with the determination to make the most out of 2011 both physically and spiritually. I hope to be able to update more often this year than I did last year.

I'm really excited to take on 2011 and I'm positive that God will continue to be faithful within my life and the life of others through 2011 and the years to come! Happy New Years!

The Front Lines of War!

What can I say, I've recently been talking about how much my youth group has grown and how it has contributed so much to my spiritual growth over the past couple weeks. I have however, failed to mention something that has helped me out throughout the week when I'm not at church, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

FCA has grown so much and I can not even express how much of a blessing it is to see that other kids at Cypress Creek are bold and wanting to profess and proclaim their love for Christ. For years, I have been trying to get myself to be more bold in my classrooms, in my lunchroom, in my hallways, etc. God has answered my prayers by encouraging me with FCA!

This past Thursday, November 18, our FCA held a rally during lunch in order to tell other student about FCA and to tell other students about God's truth. Here are some pictures.

One of the pastors who has become a big influence and part of FCA is Pastor Alan Adorno (right). He gave this awesome sermon that consists of rhymes, almost like a rap. It was definitely awesome and a true blessing. When you get the chance, I highly recommend that you listen to the words that Pastor Alan says and to really meditate on them. The rhyme is called, "I got water in my gospel?!?!"

We had originally planned to give away free pizza to help lure in the students but at the last minute, we were informed that we could not do so. We knew this was Satan in the works, trying to suppress what we knew God would do. In the end, God proved to be faithful yet again! By the end of the day, 45% of the WHOLE ENTIRE student body at Cypress Creek attended the rally. No free food necessary, nothing. God is good. If you have any questions about FCA or any other questions in general, click here to contact me.

Samosas and Butter Chicken

So before I actually write about what I want to, I just felt like I should give a quick update. Over the past weeks, I've begun to REALLY see how faithful and true God really is. His unconditional love and grace over my life has been, overwhelming. From the awesome car that I have, to the two best parents, to the best of friends, to the best two sisters, to the best mentors in my life, and to everything, God has made sure to make me feel loved and watched over! My faith has grown in ways that I never would have imagined and I'm glad to say that although I have my set backs, it's not trouble for me to come back! 

Although spiritually I'm doing phenomenal, it is all starting to hit me, I'm growing up. I have my license now and within a couple months, I'll have to start SAT prep along with taking the SATs themselves. Not only that, but all the IMPORTANT assignment for being in the IB program are all coming within the next year. It's not doubt that my play time is relatively over! I have to get serious and start paying attention to life. I realized that it was time for me to grow up when I hated thinking about how when I get a job, I won't have a lot of "chill" time with my friends. Play time is over for me my friends. HOWEVER! It's a good thing photography isn't COMPLETELY play for me!

This past Friday, I had an excused absence to skip fifth, sixth, and seventh period to attend this years 2010 ISA Festival. For those of you who have been following me over the past year (at least), you may remember photographs from the 2009 ISA Festival last year. The ISA Festival is a festival put together by the Indian Student Association (ISA) to help educate the kids of Cypress Creek High School about Indian food, culture, dress, dance, etc.

While the ISA festival is usually held in the amphitheater, this year it was in the auditorium! For me, it was bitter sweet! As a part of the audience, I LOVED IT, no more suffering in the hot sun. However, as the photographer, I hated it! The auditorium has HORRIBLE lighting and unless you are a professional photographer, these low light situations = nightmare for amateur photographers such as myself. Despite the low light though, I must say, I captured some decent photographs. ENJOY!

So the festival started off outside where everyone could get a chance to eat some naan, samosas, butter chicken, and other delicious Indian food along with the chance to purchase from Indian jewelry and get some henna done!

Henna (right) and some of the Indian jewelry

Some of the Indian dances

And here is the fashion show that everyone usually always looks forward to.

*By the way, Ana Alexander and Ahnaf chowdhury(bottom left) are really not that orange. The extreme amount of orange pigmentation is due to the poor lighting/ orange stage lights....*

More of the fashion show.

At the end, the performers invited members of the audience 

to come up on stage and learn some of the Indian dances.

Overall, it was AWESOME! It was hands down the best ISA festival that I have been to and I am so, SO proud of the person who was in charge, Nisha Desai! While there were other members of ISA also putting it together, I would personally like to give a HUGE shout out to Nisha! she was constantly stressing out and going over and beyond the expectations of ISA to ensure that this was the best one yet. HUGE SHOUT OUT to all of the performers and the backstage crew too! Awesome job everyone!

Slow It Down...

So this past Tuesday, I got pulled over for going at a rather fast speed. Of course, my IMMEDIATE reaction was to start praying. Due to God's unconditional mercy and grace, I was let off the hook but the cop specifically told me, "Slow it down!"

I realized that a lot of times, we tend to go to God only when we need something. A good grade, a break, forgiveness, or a 'favor', many times, we tend to only go to God when we need something. I realized that I do this a lot and in fact, I needed to "slow it down." I got so caught up in serving in the church, doing photography as a 'business' that I do not exactly enjoy the things I am supposed to as a hormonal, 16 year-old teenager.

I realized that I do not get to play sports as much as 'normal' teenagers, I don't hang out or "party" as much as a normal teenager should, nor do I really ENJOY life as much as I should... at least, I didn't.

Just as a quick update, over the past couple months, our youth ministry, Harvest, has been growing LIKE CRAZY! The youth are responding and for many kids, church, on a Saturday night, is their favorite day of the week, PRAISE GOD! I can honestly testify that ever since our Saturday Night Fellowships have improved, my life itself has also improved. As a SLT member, it is such a blessing to see that the youth are responding to whatever the SLT plans. Whether it be joint services or outreach projects, THE YOUTH ARE RESPONDING! I realized that in general, ever since SNF has improved, and ever since I started to SOLELY trust in God, I actually enjoy life.

I have been enjoying life in ways that I never thought possible. I enjoy my friends much more and I honestly believe that I have created stronger friendships somehow. I enjoy God in ways that I never did before. I feel this sense of comfort and enjoyment in know that I LOVE God more these days.

Anyways, just a small update on how I've been. As you can see, I've been doing rather well. Here are just a couple pictures from a golf tournament that I photographed a couple weeks ago...

P.S
Golf-tournaments are officially the most boring sport to photograph. haha

Apparently, the top right picture is VERY PROPER form... 

That's my dad! haha.

I just really like the contrast between the golfers and the background!