I always talk about how nature is beautiful; but so are many man-made things. This is a crumbling sidewalk I found at one of my favorite parks. I feel like no one appreciates it, and I thought it was really cool. 

It's simple man-made things like this that I really love. It blows my mind how simple yet pretty things like this can be, and how people can create things like this. 

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

- Revelation 21:4 

I know I probably shouldn't make a religious post, but oh well. It's a big part of me. It isn't just a religion to me either; it a lifestyle. There's so many things to say on this subject but I think it will become a little ranty. 

Anyway, the main reason I posted this one is to remind myself that there is hope. The water might be choppy now, maybe stormy, but if you keep swimming, keep trooping on, you will eventually come to that gorgeous horizon where the sun shines and the stars sparkle all for you. 

This picture makes me hope. 

I think pictures of flowers are always my best shots. 

My grandmother, who practically raised me for 3 years, died recently, and one of her things were flowers. She loved flowers. She would make it a point to point out flowers every time I was out an about with her, and I can almost hear her say even now that flowers were one of God's greatest creations. 

I agree. 

Flowers make me feel peaceful, and happy. I think a big reason I love them so much was because of her too. I just love how something so small, so seemingly insignificant, can be so gorgeous. Each one is completely different from te next, and yet each still beautiful. 

Why can't we view people like that? Each person is beautiful but in their own separate way - just like flowers. 

I make it a point to get the best shots for flowers. I really want to try to bring out as much of their beauty as I can. 

Thanksgiving is honestly normally one of the hardest holidays for me. I find it really hard to be thankful for what I have even though I do really have it good. My life may not be perfect but I have a lot of things tht I really should be super thankful for. I know I've posted a day late but this Thanksgiving was a really fantastic one, an I didn't want to pull away from the magic. 

Aside from the most wonderful people that I'm so lucky to have in my life, I'm thankful for my photography. I would be completely lost without it. It's probably one of the only things that keep me sane. And on top of that, I'm thankful for all the beautiful things God has put into this world for me to capture, and I'm thankful for the opportunities to photgraph them. I'm so thankful to have the amazing camera I have. That's probably the one material thing I wouldn't want to lose; it's practically always attached to me! 

This picture especially is important to me. It symbolizes recovery, and how wounds can fade to scars with the help of the beauty in life. Some days I feel very depressed, but that's a part of the process. Scars may never fully go away, but they will always tell the story of what happened to you and how you overcame that. And that's why they're important. My grandpa says that scars are natural tattoos with stories and memories and feelings attached to them. I think it's important to have scars to say that you've lived, and that you've enjoyed life, and that the moments you don't enjoy it were overcome. 

Today was a tough one, really. But there will always be days like that. You just have to hold on to hope, and believe in better days. It's so important to be thankful for what you already have too, and I have a lot, even though it doesn't seem like it sometimes. 

I'm so blessed. 

Especially with beautiful pictures from sights like this. :)

First of all, how cool is this flower? Nature does some weird things! I found this outside of a Dunkin Donuts and I thought it was fake at first. It's such a weird and beautiful flower. 

But at the end of a long hard day like today was, it's important to find things like this to brighten it up a little bit. I try to find something beautiful every single day, whether it's a flower or a poem or a feeling, so that I have something to be happy about. And even when I can't find something, I can look back at my pictures a remember the joy these things brought me, and that is my thing to be happy about that day. 

This is exactly why I love photography. On days where I can't find anything beautiful, I can look at all the emotions I have captured in a picture, and that is enough. 

For this one, I was actually lucky enough to be able to get it from a seventh floor balcony. This was in Daytona Beach; since it was a youth retreat, we were required to get up super early, and it was amazing being able to see the sunrise every day for five days in a row. Even now once in a while I will get up early to watch the sunrise; they're just as beautiful as sunsets, and much less appreciated. 

The thing I like about sunrises is that they symbolize a new day, a new hope. If the day before wasn't good, then you have a new day to start out fresh and be happy. If something went wrong you can start again. I love not only the sheer beauty of the sunrise but what it symbolizes as well. Although at the time I was not happy about having to get up early, once I saw that sunrise I was immediately thankful. It had changed my perception; I look forward to each new sunrise. 

It really is amazing the things that the sky can do. Honestly, who else would have thought of something as beautiful as this? I got lucky enough to stumble upon an open clearing at the end of an abandoned parkway. I know where to go when I need some peace an quiet and want to just appreciate the works of nature. 

I think today I'm just going to post a bunch of sunset and sky pictures. You can truly see the beauty of nature through these and it reminds me that even though the world throws a bunch of problems at you, it makes up for it by giving you things like sunsets and flowers and water. 

I really love nature. It makes me feel relaxed. 

As a hobbyist photographer, I take thousands of pictures a week. And a lot of them I have been told are good. But there's sometimes one shot you get at just the right angle, just the right time, just the right place. And you completely fall in love with it. This is one of those shots. 

The best thing about this picture was that it was barely edited at all. When you have the right camera and take pictures from the right angles, you can create just about any effect you want. 

The area this was taken in holds a lot of good and bad memories in it, but it's pretty fantastic for taking sunset pictures. There are so many good photos you can get from a little park within a neighborhood that no one knows about. 

But honestly the envoronment helped a lot too. I'm not the biggest fan of Florida, but I really love the sunsets here. I'm so blessed to be able to see this kind of thing every day. 

The other day in my philosophy-type class, we were talking about art. Two of the questions were, "Can you take a picture of a feeling?" and "Can you convey a feeling through a picture?" Since photography is my passion above all, I am of course inclined to say yes. Every single picture conveys some type of emotion I think. I think photography IS emotion; all art is. Some people don't see photgraphy as an art, and I guess there's no helping that. I just think that for me, there is no other adequate way to express how I'm feeling except through my photography. 

A few months ago, I lost someone who was really important to me; he was a father to me. His name was JR, and he was my best friends dad (who I've known for 13 years), and he had colon cancer, which should have been one of the most treatable types. The thing about cancer is that it is a really touchy subject - I myself have a hard time talking about it especially because it's so personal to me. I hate cancer. It ruins not only the life of the person who has it, but those who care about them. 

See, it's a really hard thing to do to watch someone literally just waste away with no hope of recovery. The thing with JR is that they took years to find it, and even after they told us it was curable. It wasn't. After two years of chemotherapy and medication, even a short stage where it was completely gone, the doctors told him suddenly that he wouldn't live past his daughters sixteenth birthday. 

I feel like that is completely unethical. Not only did the doctors give us false hope of recovery, but they put JR on medicine that he didn't need just to live for a few extra days. I mean, he was supposedly fine, but all of a sudden the cancer came back. Doctors today are almost always only in the profession because of money and they will do all they can to make as much as they can, sometimes even at the risk of a life. 

And the thing is, this sort of thing happens a lot. Doctors put patients on medications when they don't even know what's wrong (I have had firsthand experience with such.) Even after diagnosis, they will try to give the patient as much medication and as many procedures as they can to make more money, even if nothing was able to help. 

I believe that doctors should be doctors to help people in the most painless way possible, not just to be able to gather money. 

It's rainy, cloudy days that make me really appreciate photography. There's so much to take pictures of and not nearly enough time. It's kind of insane, the beauty that comes from the worlds sadness. It just shows that we can always overcome our sadness and make beauty out of it, even though sometimes it seems hard to do. 

"It will get better, but it will never be perfect. Learn to live through the small moments of happiness. When they disappear, remember they will resurface."

Flowers really are one of my favorite things. Look how cute this little one is :) I found it at work. Flowers just brighten up my day so much, they remind me that even after so much rain you can still bloom and come out beautiful. 

Honestly, this is one of my favorite pictures of all time. I mean, who is lucky enough to be able to get a picture of a butterfly on some flowers? I had to follow the little guy around for quite a while but it was well worth it. I'm feeling really happy about this one :) the colors on their own just make me want to smile

This is the start of a project I'm doing; every day, I am going to post something beautiful that I find, most likely of the nature variety. It is mainly for a sort of recovery, and as well as the fact that it might cheer me up, I really love photography and it is very therapeutic to me. There's something about flowers that really cheer me up - in my opinion, they are some of the most beautiful things the world has to offer.