One Quarter Down...Seven To Go

Hey guys! Well the first quarter of grad school is officially over. Before I get to all that happened at my final presentation critiques, I'll go ahead and fill you all in a little update of other things. First of all, thank you to all of your prayers and support for my Father. To those who didn't know, Saturday night late, my Dad was feeling pains in his chest and my Mom took him to the hospital. At first I thought it was a heart attack, but luckily his blood work and tests came back ok. They then identified it as an intestinal issue that might have been causing the pains. Then, they found a few lumps on his lungs. The tests from those came back ok, and my Dad was released! :) Praise the Lord! He has to go back in a month just for a brief checkup, but he is in fine spirits and sounds like Dad :) It was such a weird feeling because I picture my Dad as this indestructible Superman. He still is! Thank you, Jesus.

My roommate Eric and I decided to rearrange the living room of our townhome apt. I know that sounds really "metro" of us haha, but we wanted to let more room in. And it worked well. Moved the flat screen TV to a different wall and arranged the furniture differently and now there is enough room in there to move around when we jam out to Rock Band on Wii or whatever.

I got rid of my Verizon Wireless account a week ago because I had had issues with my new Blackberry that I bought. It wouldn't let me check email, and when I called to get support they didn't really have any advice except to send it back to them and let them fix it. And I need my phone. Of course I tried to get a deal sorted out since it wasn't my fault and I just got the run around. So a fellow classmate was telling me about AT&T, so I checked their plans and rates out on my way to the Verizon store. It turns out, I can save $20 a month by switiching to AT&T and keeping my number and all my options. So I switched and got a new phone. But not just any new phone, mind you...the iPhone!!!!



Yeah it's pretty much the best thing EVER!!! It has GPS, Games, I can check up to 10 different e-mail accounts, find local cheap gas and restaurants, check my bank account, check my Facebook, watch videos, Instant messenger, make a grocery list, manage my calendar for weddings and other events, make restuarant reservations, monitor my health, etc. It does everything but brush my teeth and bathe me pretty much. I love it! The best part is a lot of the options are in an Application format that work super fast, so I rarely have to use my internet...even though that is fast...but more time consuming. I can check movie showtimes and order tickets. Just so much. I don't know why I didn't do this to begin with. Plus I'm saving $20 a month! My Blackberry couldn't do all of that. So yeah, needless to say I'm excited. Thank you, Apple iPhone haha.

This weekend I'm going home for Christmas break. Second Quarter doesn't start until Jan. 5! On my way home, I'm stopping in Greenville for the weekend to hang out with Andy, go on a "date" with my friend Meredith, and shoot some engagement photos for my friend Brittany. Then I'll keep driving North on home to Virginia on Sunday. YAY! I love home...plus we need to go get our Christmas tree. I think I've been listening to holiday music since Halloween.

Without further wait, I'll now go over my grad school critique. My Photography one was Monday night and it went really well! I think I made a great impression. I was kinda bummed though I had to go first of the seven of us. Oh well. They wanted to start out with an awesome photographer I assume :) I'll try and post all 12 of my final shots on here so you can see my final results. Some of them you have seen, and others you haven't. I think the favorite ones they seemed to love the best were my murder scene, fruit bowling, my roommate shot of him playing the guitar in the middle of the street and definitly my WWII widow shot. My professor actually said "I absolutely love this!" for that shot. :) My Writing critique was last night and it wasn't bad but not great either. I have a lot to work on as far as keeping the reader engaged and writing with deeper emotion, etc. But its ok. They could tell I was used to blog writing and also editorial writing in college. I'll post the photos in the next day or so. To those of you who have Facebook, you can see my work there. Or on my grad school photo page on my website www.redbulbphotography.com. Enjoy!! We won't find out our number grade for our work and critique until we get back in Januray. Which kinda sucks.

Keep praying for my sister Rachel as she prepares to leave the US Jan 12 for missionary training in Germany before heading to the Phillipines. I'm so excited for her! Also, I've been in talks with the International Mission Board regarding freelance photography assignments that maybe I can be involved with overseas on breaks from school. I'm waiting to hear back of any opportunities. Until then, I'll be keeping all of you in my thoughts and prayers and hope the holiday season is off to a great start. God Bless!

More to come...

Giving Thanks & Getting Prepared

What a nice battery charge I received at home this past weekend for Thanksgiving break from life in Atlanta. (Not that I'm not loving it down here). But I'm pretty sure about 85% of the people out there will agree that there is just nothing like going home.

I took the Amtrak train home because A it was cheaper, B I didn't want to deal with traffic in this crazy city and C I could sleep. A normal drive home to Virginia is about 8 hours, but the train took 10 due to stops and stuff. The train left Wednesday night at 8p but didn't arrive in Lynchburg til a little after 6a Thanksgiving morning. The train ride up there was not pleasant. It was so crowded because of the holiday I take it and it made it almost impossible to sleep the first several hours. I sat next to some guy up until the stop in Charlotte and then at that point this African-American man sat next to me and he was quite an interesting character. He decided to use his cell phone and drop the F-bomb to his friend about everything imaginable. When he hung up, I noticed the wallpaper of his cell was a naked black chick hahahahaha. I literally started laughing out loud. Luckily, I was watching Fred Claus on my laptop so he probably assumed I was laughing at that. Little did he know... So yeah he finally moved to his own seat once the train cleared up, but by that time it was already 3a and I couldn't fall asleep. The ride back overnight Sun into Mon morning was much smoother.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorites simply because my whole family is together. With five children my parents had a hand in creating, it's hard to get us all together a lot. There was about 20 people at the table Thursday night. My immediate family including siblings-in-law, my brother-in-law's folks, my aunt, three niece and nephews, a friend of my sister's and three friends of another sister. Yeah it was crazy but that's why we love it. Not to mention it's the time of year when we make chocolate eclair cake, but that is a blog in itself. Also that Sunday morning I was thrilled to be in town at the time of my sister's commissioning service in front of the entire Thomas Road Baptist Church. She is leaving in January to be a missionary for two years with Wycliffe and the church took up an offering and also had a moment of prayer over her with all of us on stage in support. It's weird to think that she won't be with us until 2011. I'll be done with grad school by then, or maybe even married. Weird indeed. This Christmas and New Year will be bittersweet. That same Sunday was also baby dedication, and my nephew Gavin got dedicated! I was very fortunate to be in town. Gosh, I love my family! We also haven't had an updated family photo since last Thanksgiving, so I provided my Nikon D700 to the cause of a new family photo we took at the church. Here are a few for you to enjoy. (More photos from the weekend are on Facebook).


These were our formal family photo and then of course our signature Hampton sense of humor. Here is one of us 5 siblings...and us picking on the youngest.


Yeah, the Hampton sarcasm and humor is something in itself to be thankful for.

This week is Studio Week here at school. It basically is a week of no classes so you have immense free time to work on your due projects. I think I expressed the whole critique and deliverables thing in the last blog. I have 15 total final projects to show for critique, and of those I have 11 completed. Just 4 to go! Tonight I finished my mailer for Photoshop class which is basically a mock postcard for your business front and back. It looks really nice I think and I'll post it on here next week when all assignments are done. I also finished the window assignment for Photoshop class. We're to take a photo of any window we want on a building and then place a separate photo within that window. I captured a window at a church and then placed a sunrise picture in the window. You'll see that soon as well. Finally, I finished my "Up High" assignment for Photoshop class where we were told to shoot something up high in the sky or at a certain vantage point, etc and then place stuff in that photo to make it look like it was already there. My original idea was a photo of Atlanta skyline and then I would put a dozen planes in the sky. Then I thought of a better idea with this Abercrombie billboard near my apartment. I shot the billboard and decided to put my head on the guy's body to make it seem like I was on the billboard hahahaha. I just have to show it to you now...


Hahaha I think it turned out pretty well. I hope this at least brightens your day if nothing else does.

I got my critique presentation times and I ask that you keep me in prayer for those. My Photography critique presentation is Monday Dec. 8 @ 6:30p and my Writing one is Tuesday Dec. 9 @ 6:30p. After that I'm finished for the quarter! I'll hang around Atlanta several days before going to Greenville that weekend of the 11th to shoot Engagement Photos, see some friends like Andy and Meredith, and visit the school etc on my way home to Virginia for break. Then second quarter begins Jan. 5.

Last thing, keep mentioning my business to any friends you may know getting married. I'm up to 13 weddings now, including one in Houston, TX. It's really going well. How I'll balance school in the summer with wedding season will soon be revealed. www.redbulbphotography.com. That is all for now. I hope everyone is doing well and keeps me posted on their own life's chronicles. God Bless!

More to come...