Orlando Came Out With Pride

Sharing a few random shots from a fun day shooting for the Come Out With Pride festival in Orlando held October 14th.

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earl harris photography
Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings
throughout Central Florida.

#OrlandoUnited

“I give you a new commandment – to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
‭‭—John‬ ‭13:34‬ ‭NET‬‬

I had the opportunity to stop at Pulse while on an errand in Orlando on Monday. Out of respect, I did not wish to capture in photos any of the dozens of people who were there to reflect, mourn or add to the amazing mountain of candles and flowers and posters and stuffed animals that are there. It’s an emotionally charged scene that calls us to remember that in all things, love always wins.

#LoveWins #OrlandoStrong #OrlandoUnited #OnePulse

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earl harris photography
Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings
throughout Central Florida.

What the World Needs Now

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” -John 13:34-35

“More Love”, Fujifilm X-T1, ISO 200, f/6.4 at 1/500th sec., 58.9 mm

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Private appointments available

earl harris photography
Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings
throughout Central Florida.

Distorted Love: The Toll Of Our Christian Theology On The LGBT Community

Though not my usual fare, I am re-blogging this post because I am so impressed by it’s poignant look at a very real condition. I have long said that the majority of Christianity will have to answer one day to the people that it has turned away from Christ through intolerance. It’s refreshing to see a pastor who’s finally caught on and is sharing the message.

john pavlovitz

Love doesn’t always look like love.

When I published this blog post two weeks ago, I was prepared for some people to applaud it, and for others to condemn it. That’s what happens whenever you put an opinion out there.

I was fully prepared for the waves of both support and hostility that accompany any vantage point on anything, especially a controversial topic like Sexuality. 

What I was not prepared for in any way, were the literally hundreds and hundreds of people who have reached out to me personally, to thank me for bringing some healing and hope to their families. Parents, children, siblings, and adults have confided in me (some for the first time anywhere), telling of the pain, and bullying, and shunning they’re received from churches, pastors, and church members; from professed followers of Jesus.

Scores of people from all over the world have shared with me their…

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You Are My Sunshine

You are my Sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You’ll never know, dear,
How much I love you
Death can’t take my Sunshine away.

Remembering my husband, James Cantrell, on this 1st anniversary of losing him to cancer.

“James” [Click the image to enlarge/reduce its size.] Nikon D800, ISO 100, f/2.0 at 1/5000 sec., 50 mm

Gerbera Daisy, Transformed

Over the 9 years we were in Utah, James and I didn’t spend Christmas or Thanksgiving together. We both felt that it was important to spend the holidays with our parents: it was important to them and we would have plenty of holidays together after the blessing of having our parents around was lost. I always went home for Christmas and he went home for Thanksgiving. Whomever wasn’t going home stayed behind to care for our kids, the cats.

I took this photo in my parent’s back yard when I was in Orlando for Christmas in 2006. I remember sitting in the grass with the Nikon D100 I was learning to use, very aware of a nearby nest of ants. James liked the photo so much, I gave him a framed 18×24 print for our anniversary. It still hangs on the wall, transformed now somehow into a reminder of how fate can mock our plans and best intentions. This morning, I came across the original image file and decided to revisit it and clean it up using my current editing skills and tool set. The end result isn’t as bright as the original — an unintentional but probably subconsciously driven outcome, for the same can now be said of me. One of the things that has always and will always draw me to photography is the ability of an image to make me reflect and feel, much like one does upon hearing an old, significant song.

“Gerbera Daisy, Transformed”, Nikon D100, ISO 200, f/5.6 at 1/250 sec., 80mm
Click the image to view larger size and available print options.

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Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings.
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Love Hate

“Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.”
— Buddha

[For Takami]

This five-tiered pagoda — goju-no-tu — is Epcot Center’s hyperrealistic landmark for its Japan Pavilion. It is a wonderful representation of a fictionally enhanced replica of reality, a premise around which the whole of Epcot Center has been designed. This structure is a Disney-fied representation of the famous Horyuji Temple in Nara. I took some liberties with the photo and hyperrealized the subject even further. I hope you like it.

“Horyuji Hyperreality”, Nikon D800, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/160 sec., 160mm
Click the image to view more detail. This image is available as a standard, canvas or metal print.

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Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings.
Booking family, personal, business and pet portrait sittings throughout Central Florida.

Beauty in Flames

Some new friends invited me to accompany them on a visit to Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center yesterday. I had not been to Epcot in at least 16 years, so the offer of a no-cost employee pass and a day enjoying good company was welcome. The 2014 Flower & Garden Festival is currently underway and much to my surprise, the flowers with real wow-factor were scarce. Based on past experience, I had much higher expectations from the Disney landscape designers. Thankfully, the fun surpassed the flowers, so I’m good — though I had hoped for a handful of striking flower photos.

In my opinion, this bromeliad was queen of the show. If my memory isn’t failing me, it’s a Vriesea ‘Tiffany’. I’d have called it ‘Flaming Queen’.

“Beauty in Flames”, Nikon D800, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/1000 sec., 145mm
Click on the image to view larger size and available print options.

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Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings.
Booking family, personal, business and pet portrait sittings throughout Central Florida.

Please vote for this blog in the Cool Photo Blog Awards – just click here. Thank you for supporting and sharing “I Shutter at the Thought!“.

Eggsistential

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty what he was before.
      — Samuel Arnold, Juvenile Amusements, 1797

I am a few days early for a new year’s eve message, but today’s photo prompts me to get on with it. As I was walking along a sidewalk downtown, I came upon an egg that had fallen out of a nest built on a street light above. The sun had dried out the splattered yolk and a few ants scurried about the broken shell, feasting on misfortune. It struck me as a fitting reflection and symbol of the year that now comes to a close.

Despite the many advances in GLBT rights, I will forever equate 2013 to loss, destruction, pain and death. It is the year that shattered my life of happiness with James, watching him so cruelly and horrifyingly being eaten alive by cancer. Like a new and long-hoped-for egg, we embarked on the adventure of marriage on July 29 – after 21 years together – only to have that monumental accomplishment tossed out and splattered across the sidewalk a month-and-a-half later. Now, I sit alone in a nest that echoes with emptiness while hell taunts me with thoughts of what was and what never will be.

Goodbye, 2013 – and good riddance! I pray that 2014 will be a year that holds some hope of starting to heal from the experience this egg and I have shared. Perhaps my hopes are tainted by knowing all-too-well how Humpty Dumpty turned out.

“Eggsistential” [Click the image to enlarge/reduce its size.] Nikon D800, ISO 320, f/2.0 at 1/350 sec., 85mm
To purchase a print click here.

Please vote for this blog in the 2013 Cool Photo Blog Awards – just click here and it’s done. Many thanks for your support!

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Now booking individual, couples, family and business portrait sessions for 2014

Current Social Engagements

Find me on Instagram at @EarlHarrisPhoto, where I am posting photos (including lots of kitty pics!) captured and edited solely on my iPhone. #herekittykitty #instagramcats

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Cross of Shadows: A Question of Character

WARNING: Today’s photo comes with a bit of a personal soap box. Thanks for indulging me.

 

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
— 1 John 4:8

Perhaps it’s all the hoopla and undeserved attention Phil Robertson is getting that compels me to write today’s post. I’ll be the first to admit it contains a great deal of an entirely personal rant based on entirely personal perception. I hope you’ll excuse me for adding another voice to the chaos.

As a second-class citizen currently denied the rights given to others, I quite often encounter those who think of themselves as Christians acting as voices for hate rather than love. To that point, today’s post is intended as a bit of a reality check. It is quite clear that A FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH has been put aside in the practice of the Christian faith, one which concerns me greatly. It is the question of God’s character and the failure of most denominations to understand and conform their teachings to this simple and critical truth.

The Bible teaches that God is love. (1 John 4:8). But what exactly does that mean? Let’s start by looking at what it does not mean: It doesn’t mean that God is loving. You and I can be loving, but we cannot be love. Only God can do that. Since scripture should always be used to interpret scripture, we can look at 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 – 8 for a definition of love. And here’s where I’m going to ask you to do something different. Instead of reading these familiar verses as a revelation of what love is, understand them as a revelation of who God is. I’ve substituted “God” where “love” occurs in the scripture to help you see it.

“4 Love God is patient, love God is kind, it He isn’t jealous, it He doesn’t brag, it He isn’t arrogant, 5 it He isn’t rude, it He doesn’t seek His own advantage, it He isn’t irritable, it He doesn’t keep a record of complaints, 6 it He isn’t happy with injustice, but is happy with the truth. 7 Love God puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. 8 Love God never fails…”

Why isn’t this what churches — and Christians — are teaching today? How many times have you heard preachers hurl from the pulpit endless strings of admonishment about God being angry, eager to throw sinners into hell? How can this be reconciled with the clear scriptural evidence of God’s character? Who should you choose to believe, the Bible or your pastor? Yes — the Bible does say to “fear God”, but is the concept of “fear” communicated the kind that leaves us quaking with terror in a corner somewhere, incapable of having a relationship with Him? How can you truly love someone you’re taught to be afraid of? No, it means to look upon Him with awe and respect, reconciled to the truth that there is and can be no greater focus for our love and allegiance.

And what’s truly beautiful about that is the fact that God’s character is unchanging. Can you say the same about your understanding of Him? I hope not. “Judgment Day”, rightly understood, is not so much about how we are judged by God as it ultimately is about how we have judged Him. I may not be trained in theology, but I have spent my life studying God’s Word and seeking to know Him, despite the attitude of the church toward me. Though it would be nice to be accepted into a church family on the sole fact that I love God and seek to have a relationship with Him, I don’t need other believers to validate and confirm God’s love for me. I am grateful for the fact that God is love, even though most Christians are not even loving. Phil Robertson, and those like him, would do well to revisit Scripture and do so with an open mind and a spirit of understanding. Until they do, it’s not God they are serving, but His antithesis. Simply put, if it’s not love that motivates you, it’s not God.

“Cross of Shadows” [Click the image to enlarge/reduce its size.] Nikon D800, ISO 3200, f/1.8 at 1/80 sec., 50 mm

I would appreciate a vote from you in the 2013 Cool Photo Blog Awards. Just click here and you’re done. Thanks for your support!

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Social Engagements

Follow me on Instagram at @EarlHarrisPhoto, where I am posting photos (and quite a few kitty pics!) captured and edited on my iPhone. #herekittykitty #instagramcats

Tweeting from @EarlHarrisPhoto