Kevin goes to his first confession..the joys of a telephoto lens....

A big step for a little boy towards God's grace

February 01, 2015 by Eric Wojtkun in Americana, Atlanta, Alpharetta, Blue Knights, Capture One, Catholic, Christianity, Event, Family, Fujifiilm, Georgia, Photography, Photojournalism, Roswell

Yesterday was one of those milestone days in our family. Our third child, Kevin, went to his first confession. He's been asking to go for the last month, and yesterday was the day set up for a third of the second grade classes to attend. The true milestone though was Kevin asked to go to confession over a month ago. We parents only had to facilitate the sacrament. I believe this is is a sign God sent the gift of faith to Kevin.

As parents, my wife and I believe the greatest judgment God will put on us is whether or not we did our best to bring the word of God to our children. Please note I did not say successfully bring the word, attend at church strictly, ensure memorization of text or anything like that . I said God will judge us our efforts at doing our best in evangelizing our children.

At this point of my spiritual growth I fully recognize the gift of faith is one I cannot bestow on myself. If I cannot bestow this gift on myself, I also cannot bestow it on others! All I can do personally is develop my fear of the Lord into love of the Lord. Where I lack skills in evangelization for my children, I must look for other places for children to find them. After all the yapping is done, the real work still rests with God. God bestows the gifts of the spirit, as needed, for us to accomplish the tasks he gives us.

Over the last year we just did our best to help Kevin learn his act of contrition, talk to him about forgiveness, repenting, and repairing damage made by our sins. My wife and I also constantly work to provide the children a somewhat peaceful environment around the home. There God can speak to our children without undue distraction. We are glad our travels, orchestrated by God, led us to be with many others who believe in the same parental mission.

We fully recognize God's hand guided the course of events inside Kevin's heart. Those events led the little boy to accept God's gift of grace yesterday at confession. It bodes of so much potential grace to follow in his life, if he continues to move on the same path into manhood.

Today however, I will use these photos to remember the moment this little boy took his first step into adulthood as a Catholic. It is wonderful and overwhelming to see God working in our midst. That is after all why I started carrying the camera in the first place...

-ehw

Capturing his Glory!

Kevin signs the book of the elect with his own hand.

Hand in the Candy Bucket

December 15, 2014 by Eric Wojtkun in Alpharetta, Americana, Art, Atlanta, Catholic, Christianity, Family, Event, Editing, Fujifiilm, Georgia, Instruction, Photography, Photojournalism, Roswell, Travel

I'll confess this little one is a sweetheart, and I'm partial to her since her parents are good friends of ours. However I think those eyes make the shot, and capture your heart. Her eyes will captivate you in person, and I hope I put such a feeling in this photo.

To accomplish this little shot I was playing with my favorite little lens, the Fujinon 23mm F1.4. In this photo I experimented with an extremely shallow depth of field, opening the aperture all the way just to see what it will do. Because I was using a mirrorless camera, my Fuji XE-1, I was able to see the DOF in the screen as I composed the image in real time.

I know some purists out there will be screaming that professionals use a viewfinder, and that I am violating some law of photography since I did not have my eye up to the viewfinder. Heck I might as well have used a cell phone right? Well probably yes and definitely no.

See part of the reason I switched from traditional DSLRs to this mirrorless design was I got comfortable keeping eye contact with my subjects during composition. An instructor told us how vital was, and at first I was like yah right...but then I tried it. Eye contact helped me take a great group photo of 64 VIPs. Why? Because by looking at my subjects I kept control over them. It then helped me take individual subjects mind off the camera and kept it focused on our conversation. With younger kids it became much less about the camera, and more about the game we were playing. I found more candid moments caught, and fewer cheesy smiles that look like the child in under duress.

Well...the journey is still moving forward as I learn more about my little craft...and I hope to share more of these lessons as I go forward with you!

-ehw

A Different Day

October 13, 2014 by Eric Wojtkun in Alpharetta, Americana, Atlanta, Capture One, Catholic, Christianity, Family, Fujifiilm, Georgia, Photography, Photojournalism, Religion, Roswell, Travel

A different type of day today. It is a Federal holiday, so I had the day off and wrote up a busy schedule for myself. However it was a still a school day for Regina Caeli Academy so the four kiddos with the momma got up and at it in the early morning light.

Nine days out of ten...well 95 out of 100...I am the guy up first and out the door while they enjoy their warm blankets for another hour or so. So to be roused by my wife's alarm, and the sound of lots of other feet is a game changer.

Today you can see the Silver Bullet headed out the door on its mission. As it left I found myself reading the news alone with my coffee. I found myself experiencing the same fears I had in my bed last night at 2 and 3 and 4....Ebola, TB outbreak, Flu type 68, ISIS, Russia on the move worldwide, China on the move in the South China Sea, a disarming US, Bishops in the middle east and Africa reminding their people they need to defend themselves, and a blatant turning away from natural law this country was founded on on every page.

Now fear is not a good state to live in, instead it is an emotion that should push us to new work to right the situation. So I made my list for the day, heard the divine office, read the morning prayer, and moved out to 9Am mass. During mass I listened and fell deep into thought. I wanted to ask God where he was. I wanted to ask him to do something about this madness around me, to help my family survive the coming turbulence. In the silence of post communion I my head rang with words from so many other sources me like a piece of lead dropped from the roof.

"Son I did do something about all this. I made you."

With that I got myself into motion working on preparation for Blue Knights tomorrow night (6 new boys coming in for the first time making their shields), meeting with a friend, and saying a few prayers along the way. I guess the big guy reminded me, to do what I can, where I can to build his kingdom. So I better get a little busier!

-ehw