College Briefing 2015 // Take Back the Night

When I last worked a summer at Forest Home in 2012, I was just coming into my own. I had begun shooting weddings in 2011 and had some during the summer while living a camp. My focus and interest was in portraits and pictures of my friends. It was only until after I left that my interest turned to landscapes and skill sets that involved a little more patience, composition and travel.

Coming back and spending some time in the canyon gave me the chance to go back and see the camp and it's surrounding nature with new eyes and a different vantage point than what I left with. 

After a couple of years of travel and landscape photography, I walked back into the Forest Home marketing department and asked what type of photos they needed from me. To my pleasure, they showed me an inspiration page of landscapes and astro-photography. The rest is history. 

College Briefing 2015 // Sunrise at Inspiration Point

When I started to challenge myself to take photographs that weren't of plants, food, or my dog, I would go to the beach and photograph my friends and the sunset. One morning after an all-nighter, some classmates and I went to watch the sunrise from the top of Signal Hill. It was there that I fell in love with the color and the magic of a new day.

It's been a love and hate relationship since then. As I type this entry, I'm still pretty tired from waking up two mornings in a row to see the dawn in Mill Creek Canyon. This morning different though. As the second morning of the weekend, we planned this one out as we knew the outcome was to be spectacular. As we arrived, we pulled out the Jet Boil to make some coffee and we flew the drone with a newly taped on polarizer filter.

Here are some shots of a new day dawning.

College Briefing 2015 // Foggy Sunrise

We woke up at 5:30 in the morning and were greeted to overcast clouds that crept their way up the canyon. After flying the drone around the Forest Home sign off California 38, we ventured down around Mountain Home Village to dance in the clouds.

College Briefing 2015 // Proclaim

The College Briefing Conference at Forest Home is the camp's longest running conference. The mission of the gathering is to encourage, equip and empower young people to take the Gospel back down the mountain and share it. The mic drop of people that have attended include Billy Graham and Bill Bright.

This year's conference included preaching from Albert Tate and worship led Urban Rescue. I attended and worked my first Briefing in 2009 with both Albert and the band. Check out some photos from a long weekend in the mountains.

Every chain will fall
Every heart will know
We are not alone
Jesus is Alive

Need more visuals? Check out this video done by my friend Andrew Rurik (pictured above).

Eastern Sierra Wanderings // Elizabeth Lake

While dropping off people to fish at Lake Elery in the Tioga pass, a couple of friends and I ventured into Yosemite National Park. It was a crowded morning when we entered into the Eastern entrance. We headed to the Tuolumne  Meadows Visitors Center to check out weather and trails. After spending a couple minutes hovered over a map, we settled for a 5 mile round trip hike to Lake Elizabeth, tucked above the Tuolumne Meadows Campground. Upon arrival, we set up our hammocks, ate our lunches, and enjoyed the serenity and peace of the lake and Cathedral Peak in the background.