It was a joy taking these photos, despite the hundreds of people meandering through Duke Gardens on the first warm day of spring!  This was my first engagement shoot since I've moved to the Durham / RDU area and I look forward to more in the near future.  Please feel free to email me if you're interested in my services.

These pictures remind me of the song "There's something better than Gold" which I learned as a child at campmeeting.  It has been sung for generations and the truths in it are timeless.

"For Jesus to wash you whiter than snow is something better than gold!"

There are a few others here.

This season, while traveling around the southeast on my break, I was able to capture a few other images of Christmas in America today.

Atlanta, GA

Glade Spring, VA

Conyers, GA

However, I encountered some of the most compelling images of Christmas when I read St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation for my Church History class this semester. Below are some selected excerpts, but I would encourage Christians at any stage in their faith to read this classic work.

"You must understand why it is that the Word of the Father, so great and so high, has been manifest in bodily form.

He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men. We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning.

The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father's Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection.

It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required. Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word's indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all.

You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death."

Merry Christmas!

Think about your town.  What comes to most people's minds when you tell them the name of it? Now, have you ever actually engaged the site, news story, or bizarre thing that most people name?  If not, I would encourage you to go out and explore it.

For years I heard about the visitations of the Virgin Mary to Nancy Fowler that occurred on her farm in Conyers.  Students would come late to school because traffic was so bad from the thousands of visitors.  Locals would speculate whether this was real or some scheme. Newspapers would publish stories.  And people would go drink water from the well on the property hoping and praying for miracles.  But until last week I had never even read about or been to this place that was less than ten miles from my house.

The Farm ended up being a place of solitude and beauty.  Much different from the sprawl right down the road.  There were acres of property to stroll, meditations to read, and lots of information in the welcome center on the site itself.  The story of The Farm is quite interesting, but I will spare the details and let you read about it at Conyers.org.

I was able to spend some great time in prayer there and capture some of the beauty, mystery, and icons of this place with my camera.  Click "Continue Reading" below to see more photos.

I'm still unsure exactly what to think of this pilgrimage site, but I do know that thousands have lifted prayers and sought after God on this property.  And when I stepped from the grass onto "Rosary Hill" to get some better photos of Jesus on the Cross my feet began to feel like they were on fire.  I looked down and they were covered in fire ants.  Needless to say, from that point on I gave the hill much more respect.

I returned a month later at sunset and it was well worth the trip.  After processing my photos from the trip, I feel almost as satisfied as the lady below drinking the illuminated red wine.

I believe this side of me first came out after working the Rockdale County High School concession stand with my parents in elementary school. I quickly realized the profit margin on candy and from there I began to sell candy and snacks at Boy Scout Camp. Later, I began to sell glow necklaces on the Fourth of July to yuppie families at Hilton Head. Once I became aware of ebay I sold anything I could get my hands on, whether it was items I obtained from estate sales, my closet, or from friends (like this weird car).

In college I have held more traditional jobs, and as a culmination of my photography work for Furman University, I would like to debut a venture that I began with my friend and fellow photographer Nathan Guinn. Over the past few years we have taken thousands of photographs of Furman for various purposes and we both desired to make prints of our best artwork available to friends, alumni, and others throughout the world so we have created a website to put them up for sale. I believe you will find the prices to be very reasonable.

Furman holds a special place in my heart. I grew up hearing stories from my mother, aunt, uncle, and grandparents about how special this place was to them, and after visiting as a child and a prospective I was ecstatic once I chose to continue this legacy. As my time here approaches an end, I can see more clearly how I have been shaped by the relationships, academics, and experiences which have defined my four years here.

The photographs on the site below are glimpses of these moments I have experienced and it is my pleasure to share them with you. I hope that you will share them with your friends as well.

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