Thursday was a bit of a lazy day here at Kaleo so some of us decided to take a hike to the point. With the seasons changed and the colors beginning to really change the view was amazing, walking beneath a sunlit canopy of warm yellows.

Lately I have been struggling with where my passions lie and where I should be investing most of my time. To let you in on a bit of how this is happening here is a bit of an explanation.

Many of you know that I am working as an intern in the Kaleo program (an adventure based first year bible college program based out of Camp Qwanoes). Within this role I am basically asked to throw my life at these students, love them, care for them, have fun with them and watch them grow. It takes a lot of time, a lot of will power and a lot of patience - patience beyond what I can bare sometimes. 

On the other side of things is this passion, my photography. I am barely going a day without thinking about what I will be doing with it in the come years. It as well takes a lot of time, practice, patience and will power. 

Here is where the two worlds collide. Both allow me to do something which I have a joyful passion of doing, making a meaningful difference in the lives of others and in this world. Sounds like both fit, right? They do. So why am I struggling with this? I don’t know. 

Professionally I want to go all out for my photography. I want to dive into this crazy vat of glue called this world and get all sticky. I want to go out there and tell the stories that need to be told. I want to tell the stories of children around the world. Most of all, I want people to have their hearts broken for the issues tackled in my images. I want a child’s smile to warm a heart, a personality to speak through an image and attack a persons conscience to the point where they want to act. Most of all, I want to bring hope and love in a new unique way. 

Are you passionate for something? Do you struggle with a balance? How do you tackle the battle in your heart? 

I’m excited for the future and more excited for the now.

First, I just want to apologize for the slow down in posts as of late. Kaleo has kicked off and has been taking up a lot of my time. We recently just returned from a surfing trip around Tofino (Long Beach area). I would post images from that trip, but alas, I forgot to pack my camera for it! Ya, I know, how could I ever forget a piece of equipment like that. But I did. 

So now that it’s Thanksgiving, why not take a break and spend time with your family and loved ones. Appreciate the smells and old familiar aromas of the season. Take a walk and admire the colors. Make some coffee and read a book. Slow down a bit, and be thankful that you have the ability to appreciate these things, you have the ability to see what others do not see, and the ability to capture them. It’s a gift that could easily go away.

I have to apologize for the lack of content being put forth lately on the blog, but I do have good excuse. I have been having tons of fun on crazy adventures with Kaleo. Today we just got back from a five day sailing trip on the Pacific Grace. I have added some pictures to the portfolio and here are a few to wet the appetite.

These past couple of days we went on a backpacking trip up to the peak of Mount Albert-Edward. It was an amazing trip, filled with tons of sun and incredible vistas. Here are a few shots from the trip.

With Kaleo now underway and going forward there will be a bit of a slowdown for the next couple of weeks on the blog. The gang is complete with an amazing amount of people interested in photography and some great personalities. Here is a quick image of what has happened so far.

Yet another later night, but the new Kaleo Five galleries have been updated as well. You may see some new images in there as well! These have all been remastered with my new “editorial vision”. You can check them out HERE.

Also a quick update on the weekly news and photos, those will be coming back this fall, once the mayhem that is summer is finished with.

Since I aquired a Canon G9 back in November it has allowed me on a consistent basis to take pictures where I usually wouldn’t take my 30D or 5D. Recently this happened on a trip to Mt. Washington for the day.

I realized that I couldn’t afford to lug around a giant camera, I opted for the pocketable G9. Tossing it in my front coat pocket and hitting the slopes. It proved to be an amazing resource for capturing the beautiful views a top the Mt. Washington ski hill. To my surprise the G9 held up quite well to the cold air. The LCD responded very quickly in the minus 10C conditions. My only complaint…small buttons. Even when using biking gloves it was hard to select the proper button. Though this is a minor detail, it can get very frustrating when attempting to capture a skier/snowboarder going past and all you’re doing is fiddling trying to find the proper buttons.

Shooting with AV and On Camera Flash: A great trick I realized with the G9 when shoot in AV mode with the on-camera flash was to bring the exposure down -2 stops. I find the G9 often will want to overexpose certain areas of the image and with the flash it just looks awful. So if you want aperture control but still want to use the flash, use this trick, it will help create much smooth images when using the flash.

Just this past weekend I had the privilege of heading over to Vancouver with the students for the renowned Missions Fest. A place where hundreds of missions organization get together and pitch their unique ideas at you and it’s an amazing place to get reacquainted with old connections.  

After being there for a full two days, I now realize that I have met and greet thousands of people, and talked so many different organizations about what they do. Some very interesting prospects have come up for myself in the realm of photography through going to this festival. But I won’t go into that at this time. 

If you ever get the chance, I would suggest heading over to this conference to see what people are doing around the world. 

This past week has been such an amazing week in the mountains of Vancouver Island. We took 5 days to stay on the hill at Mt. Washington ski resort. Just before we got there it had been snowing close to 2′ every day, but the time we got there, there was a cool 14′+ feet of snow at the base. With all these good conditions it was the perfect chance to get some amazing images of the trip. This specific image above is of one side of the large log lodge we stayed on right off the beginner hill. 

If you would like to see some images from our trip head over to this LINK.

Ever experience an environment for so long that the slightest change will create a completely different atmosphere? That is exactly what happened here yesterday at Qwanoes. There was a large snow storm that went through the area and dumped 6″+ of snow.

The students and staff loved it so much. The snow was perfect for snowball fights and ski/snowboard jumps. We were pretty much having a snowball fight all evening (my arm is very sore today).

The snow added a great atmosphere for pictures in the late evening when the snow calmed down and the stars started to come out. With the lights reflecting off the snow, it made it almost dream like. Here’s a quick shot of what I got, you can find more here.

Last night we had the privilege of being in attendance for the Ladysmith annual Light-Up ceremonies. This specific event brings in thousands upon thousands of people from Victora, Nanaimo, Duncan, etc. The streets are lined for kilometers along a specific street where the parade goes through.

At the end of the parade, the people are then moved down to the end of the street to watch an amazing fireworks show. This year, it was amazingly well put together. It went on for a good 15 minutes, and many “ooo’s” and “aaahhh’s” from the crowd. It was great fun to shoot fireworks once again with a camera that worked, without having errors.

Just over a year ago, I spent a day on a beach on the south eastern tip of Vancouver Island called Mystic Beach. There I was able to capture an amazing shot that I still love to this day.

Well, this week I was able to travel back to that beach with the Kaleo guys. This time the beach looked much different then the usual. Since the large swells that have happened recently the beach was no longer a beautiful sandy beach, but rather it was filled with rocks and logs. Putting all that aside, there was still a beautiful display of magic in the form of a sunset that evening. With a student posing peacefully in the foreground and the wonderful colors behind, it made for the perfect shot.

What an amazing trip we just had with the Kaleo students. We went for a 3 day surf trip to Tofino, BC. Unfortunately the weather did not work well in our favor so we did not get much surfing in, but we did get lots of site seeing in. I grabbed the waterproof bag before we headed out so I came back with some fun surfing pictures as well.

The second day of the trip we got to experience and watch 20-30′ waves come crashing into the shore line around the Ucluelet lighthouse and the infamous “blowhole”. What a site to see! More photos to come…