I haven’t been able to shake the idea that I need to be at Story Chicago next month, but financially it’s just wasn’t going to happen for me. Then God confirmed in some pretty obvious ways that I need to be there, so I’m taking a leap of faith and committing to going.
I feel so pulled to this idea of ‘story’. There’s this idea that we’re supposed to stop loving stories when we grow up, but that’s not true. Why do you think the film industry is booming? We love being transported into another world, we love story.
Our hearts crave story.
Take this photograph, as an example. I took it at a school last summer when I was working out in Uganda. There are lots of statistics I could tell you about child mortality in Uganda, about access to education, about gender equality, and so on. But the photograph tells the story in a different way.
Without clear and compelling stories, are lives are poorer.
And what about Jesus? He was a master storyteller. He sat around telling stories for days on end, forgetting about food, so caught up in the cadence and rhythm of a great story.
My dream of taking photographs that change the world is crazy, I know that. But they called Jesus crazy too. I’m desperate to be as good as I can be at storytelling, visually and verbally. I love being able to share stories on this blog, and my job lets me tell the stories of what Christian Aid is doing too. Being at Story Chicago is a way to give my heart and head some space to dream again about what storytelling means, about what it means to take photographs that change the world. It doesn’t hurt that it’s in a city that I love, that inspires me so much.
I’ve already been blown away by the generosity of friends & strangers in helping me make it to Story…. but I still need a little help. I need around £350 to book flights and then a bit more to hire a car.
Hire me?
I’m offering you a special deal over the next few weeks…. You can get an hour-long session with me, at your home or on location, and 5 high-resolution images, for £50/ $80.
It’s time-limited: I’ll be in Glasgow until Oct 23rd, or in Chicago 25 Oct – 1 Nov, or LA on 3 – 7 Nov. Dates are all a little flexible until I firm up flight details. Anyone interested? It’s a great chance to have some new portraits taken, get some family photographs, or whatever else you fancy! If you’re interested drop me an email on emma@emmaboyd.co.uk.
There are, of course, other ways to help: Maybe you have a ton of airmiles you’d like to donate to buy my flight? Or you can just donate via Paypal. Or buy a print of a photograph from my website or flickr account. If you need anymore information on those again, drop me an email at the address above.
I’m so excited to see how God’s going to provide for this, and to be at Story!
If there’s one thing that Apple have got down to a T, it’s packaging design. They know that it’s about so much more than the product – it’s about the whole experience, from looking, to purchase, to unpacking, to setup. I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard, and was reminded how much fun it is to use Apple products. It’s so beautiful and intricately packaged. Wonder how many people use Apple for that reason alone?
Blogging has been a crazy journey of the years, but one of the consistent things about it that I love is the connections. I’ve been reading Ben Arment’s blog for years, and more often than not it inspires me, challenges me, to step out of my comfort zone and really pursue the dreams God’s put on my heart.
Ben has been putting together this unbelievably awesome looking conference, Story, over the last while. It’s all about how we experience and communicate the Gospel, and man… the talent involved behind the scenes alone makes me want to be there, never mind the presenter line-up!
There is such a pull to this idea of story in my life, that I can’t quite understand how/what to do with it yet… but let me say, if I had enough spare cash for a flight to O’Hare, I’d be at Story.
Saw 500 Days of Summer on Friday night, and I have to say, I’m pretty sure it’s my favourite film all summer! Loved it.
Also, I caved and signed up for an unlimited cinema pass. I’m so on this thing now – too many films I want to see to pay real adult prices all the time for them!
Promise ran a fun little online art show over on her blog today… really cool to take part, and there are some amazing artists around her community there!
Blaine is running one next week… stop by his blog & submit something cool for us all to see.
I’ve really enjoyed getting my (photography) work out there a bit more, as terrifying as that is. I realise I haven’t really blogged much about these things, but there are a few places you can find me currently…
‘Where Your Heart Is‘ specialises in wedding favours, and a few months back I did the photography for the site. You can also find me under their ‘featured artist‘ section at the minute.
Big Mouth Coffee is, of course, my local coffeehouse… and a few of my photographs are adorning it’s walls currently. I’m also featured on their brand new website here.
I’ve also just booked my first wedding photography gig… really excited about pushing myself creatively and can’t wait to get stuck into it! I’m also utterly terrified, but I think that’s a normal part of the process!
I was at a couple of Rob Bell’s events at Greenbelt, ‘Drops Like Stars’ and ‘In Conversation’. Despite the huge queues for Drops Like Stars, it was worth it. I knew roughly what he would say, having read the book, but I like watching how he presents things. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy his books so much: he writes the way he speaks.
The ‘In Conversation’ piece was really interesting… I’m interested in what happens when it’s unscripted, when you’re put on the spot and it’s just a dialogue between people rather than a full-on presentation. A couple of things he said stood out for me.
“The point of the church is to break our bodies and pour ourselves out for the healing of the world.”
I’ve heard him speak about this before, but it gets me every time. I wonder what it would look like if we really started to live that out? In so many churches I fear we’ve turned communion back into this religious ritual, rather than it being an everyday occurrence. Wasn’t that the point initially? It’s bread and wine.. it’s whatever you’ve got to hand, that everyone has access to, and it’s not kept just for the religious people. If the Eucharist truly is the Good Gift, what does it mean for us to be a Good Gift to our communities? We become the body, that was broken, and we become the blood, that was poured out. We break ourselves & we pour ourselves out… on their behalf.
“Every little bit of hope you stumble across is real.”
This phrase just grabbed me. Hope is real. Hope is not a myth.
One of the best things I did at Greennbelt was attend an evening worship event run by Church on the Corner. Decelerate: New Ways of Inhabiting the City was a reflection on the hectic, fast-paced rat race we are surrounded by living in the city.
It’s something I think about regularly. I love living in the city: I love all the hustle and bustle, the interaction, the diversity. Yet I need to slow down regularly. And maybe that’s where Sabbath comes back in again. But it was fantastic to sit down, slow down, and be reminded that I am not a slave, that nobody cares what I do for a living, that the world keeps on spinning when I stop for a minute.
Last year as I did the Christian Aid gap year, I got to meet and get to know Kevin. Kevin has this rock star persona; he’s larger than life in a really understated way, and he’s funny and intelligent at the same time. One of those people we love to hate, because they’re good at everything.
Kevin wrote an article after we came back from the DR Congo last year, on water and sanitation in Kinshasa. That article, Trench Warfare, landed him among the finalists in the Guardian’s International Development journalism competition.
As a result, Kevin’s currently in India researching a new article for the Guardian, and he’s blogging his journey over at On The Silk Road. I highly recommend you check it out!
One of the cool things that was happening in the Christian Aid tent at Greenbelt over the weekend was an innovative rice show (trust me… you’ll want to read on) called ‘Of All The People In All The World’. Essentially, the show uses grains of rice to visualise world statistics, which each grain of rice representing one person. It’s a powerful way of comparing myself, one person, with all the people who aren’t me. Such as…
Caption on the left reads: Refugees in the world.
Caption on the right reads: Millionaires in the world.
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