I am not at liberty to share the “news photos” I shoot until much “after the fact” consequently I very rarely share them. I thought, however, these couple might still be worthy of a “look” if only to testify to the amazing crowd at the Father Corapi all day conference held in St. Louis last week. While the seats behind the stage were kept empty the rest of the arena was filled to near capacity with souls who listened to every word spoken by the great Preacher. Indeed, his words had my 13 -year-old-ants-in-the-pants-son glued to his seat for an entire day of oration! (He particularly loved Father confessing to riding a Harley Davidson Motorcycle and his “all in fun joking” to riding it up a ramp and landing on the stage through a ring of fire with it at his next Conference! Everyone was in stitches over that comment to be sure!) Truly though, the conferences, which revolved around the theme of “Be Not Afraid – There is Truth!” spoke to the worry of many souls at a time when there has never been so much fear and anxiety in the world. From economic meltdowns, to terrorism and war Father acknowledged how we could feel distressed over such seeming disasters in our lives but commented to the effect: “The stock market may crash but will you?! I listened intently the entire day to all of Father’s impassioned words but none struck quick to my heart as when he confidently spoke these words, “Fear is useless, what is needed is Trust!” This nugget of wisdom is powerful indeed and he said it with such conviction that all my worries instantaneously slipped away. (Praise God for that!)

I recently worked on a story for the newspaper about the stigma of mental illness and how the Catholic Family Services in St. Louis works with its patients. Obviously photographing patients for the story would be out of the question so I worked on developing a photo illustration to run with it instead. I used my dear photo-artist friend and we headed downtown with my lights for some shooting. I used three snooted strobes and a little HDR technique for this image which was shoot near high noon. It is often a challenge to over power the sun but keeping out of direct sun often helps and you can use the sun to your advantage as a light source.

I had to shoot some images in downtown St. Louis yesterday afternoon.  What luck it was a beautiful day with gorgeous light!

This morning I was privileged to photograph the Stations of the Cross at  St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in the Shaw Neighborhood  of St. Louis.  Before I finished I wanted to shoot images to produce an HDR photograph of the main altar and sanctuary.  This church holds some very special memories for me and it was wonderful to be present there.  I thought sharing this photo may provide a glimpse into the beauty of the house of prayer.  Thank you to Fr. W. for allowing me to bring my camera inside!  (Also a special thanks to Carmela and Colleen!)

To see the finished multi-media project click here.

This multimedia slideshow I produced for the St. Louis Review newspaper. It features the rosary led by Archbishop Robert Carlson and and interview with Beth Lauver the Director of Respect Life Apostolate for the Archdiocese.

Please feel free to visit the story at the newspaper’s website or over at aeternus.com

More fog in St. Louis for the next few days. I hope I can make it out for a photo adventure before it blows away…

After a mighty few weeks of frigid temperatures St. Louis is beginning to thaw.  The children were off school on Monday in honor of Martin Luther King day so we took a little walk around Forrest Park in the afternoon fog.

The Grand Basin is located at the foot of Art Hill in front of the Art Museum in Forest Park.  The park is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. At 1,293 acres, it is approximately 500 acres larger than Central Park in New York.  In 1904, St. Louis held the World’s Fair and drew more than 20 million visitors from around the world to Forest Park.