In the Living Dramatization of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” an event at my church last night, worshippers entered the Sanctuary just after Jesus spoke the words from Matthew 26:21 “…Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me.” This is the point at which Leonardo created his famous painting, and the point at which the dramatization began.

I was in the back balcony, taking pictures only during the songs with no flash. I took the picture above with my Nikon D3 on ISO 6400, f/3.2 at shutter speed 1/160 seconds. Focal length: 52 mm. The lights in the Sanctuary were very low; the actors on the edges were in shadows creating quite a lighting difference between “Jesus” in the center, and “Simon” on the far right and “Nathaniel” on the far left.

You can see the picture above as a 13×19 print displayed in the First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen Narthex on Easter Sunday.

This one realistically depicts the lighting, and how far back I was, except the camera makes it seem as though the chandeliers were bright, and they were actually dimmed quite a lot.

I could switch lenses and get closer too.

“Jesus,” right, stared straight ahead for entire length of the program.

The dramatization explored the instant emotional tumult the disciples might have felt just after Jesus spoke of the impending betrayal. One by one, each man broke his pose and delivered a soliloquy revealing his inner thoughts, ultimately questioning who the guilty one was, and each one ending with “Is it I?” before resuming his pose in Leonardo’s painting.

When I said I only took pictures during the songs, I lied! Yikes! I did take this one during “Philip’s” monologue as a way to illustrate the point of the dramatization.

We either need a slightly shorter table, or a spotlight.

In this one, I did a little photoshop work to see if I could even out the lighting by blending two versions of the same picture. I bumped the exposure up for the end with “Simon,” and darkened the side with “Matthew,” but I didn’t bother disguising the line between the two exposures because I think it looks kind of interesting, like a rainbow. I’m sure you can see it.

Here’s what it really looked like, with no exposure tweaking in photoshop. If you go back to the image at the top of this post, I bet you can’t see that line. I photoshopped it out on the picture I wanted to make as a big print. Sneaky, huh? (But it’s possible you can see a subtle line in the print.)

Click here for a little slide show of the split second after the actors finally were allowed to break pose.

To all involved in the production: EXCELLENT job! From the costumes to the backdrop to the acting, posing and music, it was a very moving service. Thank you for all your hard work!

Yesterday, I promised an update on the dogwood’s progress. Will she blossom in time for Easter? I seriously doubt there’s any chance we’ll see even a hint of blossoming by Sunday but I’ll keep watch, just in case.

Above, that’s her mugshot for today. Not much different from Monday, except the sun has gone away. Coming tomorrow on my walk through Holy Week: my Lenten promise.

As the legend goes, dogwood trees blossom at Easter. With cross-shaped bracts, petals tinged blood-red at the edges, thorny crown in the center, the blossoming tree does get me thinking. Every year. Like clock work. (See 2006 post about watching the dogwood tree.)

Incidentally, I took the picture above with my Nikon D3 today on ISO 100. Nice performance on the low end of that camera’s range.

Any bets on whether she will blossom by Sunday morning? Check back tomorrow for an update.

But the red maples are all aglow today! This is my October Glory red maple.

Here’s another one of my red maple.

And here’s the sad little purple leaf plum. Why sad?

Check out her support brace: electrical tape and an old piece of lumber, put there by Mike in a last-ditch effort to save Gregory’s Tree from the ax.

Incidentally, this is not my recommended method for attempting to correct a leaning tree. To be clear: I wanted to cut the tree down, but Mike said he couldn’t bear cutting it down and was going to try to straighten her. I said, “Whatever,” and washed my hands of that sad little tree. Father, forgive me.

She has quite a lean, just one thing in her long list of problems.

Coming Tuesday on my Holy Week walk: something to do with the Last Supper, God willing.

For all the little children who check out my blog, Bradley is actually a very nice young man. He was playing the part of a guard outside Jesus’s tomb yesterday during “Walk Through Holy Week” at my church. I told him to “look menacing” for a quick picture. He did a great job! (And will probably stab me repeatedly for putting this picture up. I’m thankful that’s a plastic sword!)

Many children participated in the walk, going from set to set where they heard the stories of Palm Sunday through the Resurrection, as acted out by the youth group.

I was inspired by the “walk” and thought I would make a plan to post a picture every day this week of my personal “walk” as I prepare for Easter Sunday. First thing on my agenda: check the dogwood. Story coming tomorrow.

I received word just now that Sid Riddlestorffer went home to be with the Lord this morning around 1:30. He was 97 years old and lived a full and wonderful life.

Sid was such a dear friend to me, always encouraging and teaching me, inspiring me to find creative ways to be involved in the mission of our church. He had a way of bringing me out of my busy schedule and into a world where people live for the moment when a visitor will arrive, unexpectedly sharing in some great old Psalm, made new by the way Sid read it.

Click here for the slide show from Sid’s 96th birthday party.

We will miss you, Sid, but we are certain that Jesus welcomed you with open arms. Well done, good and faithful servant.

The memorial service for Sidney Riddlestorffer Jr. will be held on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 11 a.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, Metuchen. Click here to read an obit in the Asbury Park Press.

I’ve had two official shoots now with my new camera. I’m loving it! But here’s my problem. I took the photo above with the new Nikon D3 this morning before worship began. Take a look at the meta data below. ISO 3200! With my old camera, a Nikon D200, any image taken above ISO 800 would have had so many ugly digital artifacts, or noise, in the picture (way uglier than film grain) that I would have spent quite a bit of time messing with the image in Photoshop in an attempt to “fix” it.

ISO 3200. 1/100s at f/5.6. 14-24 mm lens. Focal length: 24 mm

The youth choir was singing this morning. I’m thrilled that I was able to take this picture, and in the high resolution version, the beautiful faces of our young singers are sharply in focus and there’s no troubling graininess to deal with. Plus, because I can use such a high ISO, that also means I can shoot with a much more narrow aperture, allowing for a much larger focal plane. This means that the faces in the front row will be as sharply focused as the faces in the back row. Awesome!

ISO 3200. 1/100s at f/5.6. 28-70 mm lens. Focal length: 35 mm

So what’s the problem, you ask? See how nice that picture looks? I did practically nothing to it except give it a very slight saturation bump. (I always do that with RAW files because the camera expects that the photographer wants a custom level of saturation in RAW mode).

ISO 6400. 1/100s at f/5.6. 28-70 mm lens. Focal length: 62 mm

Here’s the problem: to contrast, this is a picture from Christmas Eve of the Christmas Pageant cast taken with my old camera, a Nikon D200. If you compare this picture with the one above it, you might think they look reasonably similar, and they do, but KNOW THIS: for the top three pictures, I spent virtually NO time tweaking them on the computer. For this one, I spent at least half an hour on that one image. And it still looks yucky! Admittedly, the lighting conditions are not the same, so it’s a flawed test, but it’s such a vast difference in usable camera settings that I now know that next year’s picture of the pageant cast will be SO much clearer!

In the high resolution version of the picture above, the faces are blurry and there’s noticeable grain noise. I removed as much noise as I could in Photoshop, but when you remove noise, sharpness decreases exponentially. Plus, there is some layer masking in that shot to try to even out the light and dark areas, and yet it still looks uneven.

I give up. Thing is, I have lots of pictures from Christmas Eve (before I got my new camera) that I still need to edit. *sigh*

(Nikon D200) ISO 800. 1/100s at f/3.5. 17-50 mm lens. Actual focal length: 36 mm. (Focal length equivalent to full frame camera: 54 mm)

But I still love the pageant pictures! If you go to my church, be sure to check the bulletin board outside the education office next Sunday for some prints! Above, I love this picture of Sophie as baby Jesus! Isn’t her family adorable?

This is not the first time we’ve seen Sophie on the blog. I was so happy when the church staff asked her family to be in the pageant. First of all, I’m the director, and secondly, I’m the resident photographer AND I’ve been documenting Sophie’s first year since her mom’s maternity session. These pictures from the pageant will add so much to Sophie’s “First Year” book! Keep watching this space for her family’s Christmas card design coming soon too.

(Nikon D200) ISO 800. 1/80s at f/4.5. 17-50 mm lens. Actual focal length: 34 mm. (Focal length equivalent to full frame camera: 51 mm).

That’s it for today’s D3 vs. D200 discussion. Bottom line: I am so excited by the places my new camera will take me! Woo hoo! And SO much less time tweaking on the computer! Yay!

Oooh! Here’s one more of Sophie and her mom and dad.
So cute! (She’s smiling at her grandma!)
I love my church family!

Realizing that we’ve all just now gotten our kids back to school and had a minute to catch our breath, I figured you might appreciate a little more time to consider ordering prints from the Vacation Bible School Galleries. So I’ve extended the deadline to Sept. 24!

HERE’S HOW TO ORDER PRINTS
Each VBS slide show has a gallery icon at the bottom right corner. It looks like a square with a bunch of little squares inside. Click that icon. Then click on any thumbnail image. That allows you to see the pictures individually. Each picture’s filename is shown at the bottom. It looks like this: “vbs-thu-053.”

Each print will be mounted on mat board. This makes it easy to frame, or you can simply stand the print up at your desk at work with no frame or stick a magnet on the back and put it on your fridge. Way more durable than an unmounted print!

Suggested donation for a 5×7 is $10 each. Suggested donation for an 8×10 is $20 each. You must place your order with me by September 24.

Make your check out to: “First Presbyterian Church” and marked “YOUTH MISSION” in the memo field. This insures that your donation will directly benefit the Habitat for Humanity youth mission project.

Send your check, along with the filenames of the images you want to order to me (Julie Walton Shaver) at 610 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ, 08840. Make certain you tell me what SIZE you want! Please include your phone number and e-mail address in your letter!

(Please keep in mind that no toning changes will be made — if the image is presented as black and white in the gallery, it can’t be printed as a color image.)

On September 25th, I will send one big order to the lab. When the prints arrive a few days later, I will send a mass email letting everone know the prints are in, and you can pick yours up at the church office in the First Presbyterian Church Social Center.

Let me know if you need the username and password to get into the slide shows.

Here’s the link to the main gallery page.

Yesterday at church was what we call “Habitat Sunday.” That’s the Sunday when the youth group returns from their annual summer mission trip. This year, somewhere around 60 young people and 20 adults went to Cleveland to build houses with Habitat for Humanity.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank each one of them, and all the adults, for putting their lives on hold for a week to go out in the world to help people. I am humbled by your sacrifice and grateful for your safe return.

Sunday morning, most of them were in church telling stories about how their lives were changed by the experience. To hear young people talk of doing something to make a difference in someone’s life, well, that’s one church service I can’t get through without a tissue. And while it’s wonderful to help others by building a safe and secure home, the mission trip is about far more than that.

Part of the reason for going is to inspire the youth to make it a life-long habit to pay attention to those who may be less fortunate, and to do whatever they can to help. Another reason is to educate the congregation at large about how we can use our resources — manpower, physical space, financial resources, prayer, building supplies, time and talent — to extend the love of God far beyond the walls of our church. There are many other positive aspects of the Habitat mission trip, and you can read lots more about that on the Habitat Web site.

As for me personally, I look forward to two years from now when Bradley will be old enough to go. I know the experience will be fun and educational for him. But also, secretly, I hope I get to go too. Bring on the rain, bring on the heat, bring on the tears — that sort of emotional story is just the kind of story I love to tell in my pictures.

So I figured I’d get an early start on my personal committment to Habitat by giving the Vacation Bible School parents the opportunity to support this wonderful cause when they buy prints from the VBS galleries.

HERE’S HOW TO ORDER PRINTS
Each VBS slide show has a gallery icon at the bottom right corner. It looks like a square with a bunch of little squares inside. Click that icon. Then click on any thumbnail image. That allows you to see the pictures individually. Each picture’s filename is shown at the bottom. It looks like this: “vbs-thu-053.”

Each print will be mounted on mat board. This makes it easy to frame, or you can simply stand the print up at your desk at work with no frame or stick a magnet on the back and put it on your fridge. Way more durable than an unmounted print!

Suggested donation for a 5×7 is $10 each. Suggested donation for an 8×10 is $20 each. You must place your order with me by September 18.

Make your check out to: “First Presbyterian Church” and marked “YOUTH MISSION” in the memo field. This insures that your donation will directly benefit the Habitat mission project.

Send your check, along with the filenames of the images you want to order to me (Jelly) at 610 Main Street, Metuchen, NJ, 08840. Make certain you tell me what SIZE you want! Please include your phone number and e-mail address in your letter!

(Please keep in mind that no toning changes will be made — if the image is presented as black and white in the gallery, it can’t be printed as a color image.)

On September 19th, I will send one big order to the lab. When the prints arrive a few days later, I will send a mass email letting everone know the prints are in, and you can pick yours up at the church office in the First Presbyterian Church Social Center. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Let me know if you need the username and password to get into the slide shows. And I can’t wait until I can go on the Habitat trip myself. Now THAT’LL be one awesome slide show!

All my love, Jelly

Click the picture to jump to the slide show of Sophie’s baptism. Above — I love it — Sophie’s big sister mimicks our attempt at a “GQ pose,” below.





This is my favorite picture of Sophie.



This is my favorite one of Sophie’s family. Look! Even Sophie’s looking at the camera! Yay!



I caught this one as the family was walking up to the church. The timing was perfect!



We were fortunate it wasn’t too horribly hot for some family group shots.



Later, we discovered a room in the Hilton, where the celebration brunch was held, with nice window light and air-conditioning!



Yay air-conditioning! (And I really love the light. So much more interesting than overhead sun.)



I love this shot of dad looking on during the baptism.



Smart parents. They brought their own little ball pit for the toddlers to play in during brunch!



I love the shots of Sophie’s sister and cousin playing too.

I’m doing another shoot with Sophie’s family in October in New York. That’s going to be so much fun! I LOVE fall! See you soon!

Click the picture above (taken by my 6-year-old assistant, Gregory!) to get to the VBS entry page. Let me know if you need the username and password. Enjoy!

It takes many hands to put together such a big week-long event with so many children. HUGE thanks to Nancy Leardi, our director, for doing such a fantastic job! Without her, none of these beautiful pictures of smiling children would have ever existed!

Also, a heartfelt thanks to all our area leaders — snacks, music, games, storytime and art. The planning that went into each of these areas, from every fish stuck on the wall to making sure your part reinforced the theme each day, was truly well done.

Of course, I have to thank the teachers for being such great leaders for the more than 100 children and youth volunteers. From where I was (and I was EVERYWHERE!), it seemed like the children were having a great time!

Last but not least, from the Assembly Leader area, I have to thank Gabe, Lindsey and Gregory for being great assistants, and of course, Bradley, for being the most cooperative Starfish I’ve ever seen! He worked really hard on his lines, and for this to happen in his “summer-of-unstructured-leisure” is just an a-maaaaaaa-zing accomplishment! Thank you, Nancy, for giving Bradley and me the opportunity to strengthen our bond.

Parents: please watch the VBS blog for an announcement about how to order prints. All proceeds from print sales will support the mission fund of the First Presbyterian Church. And, OF COURSE, thank you for lending us your children. I’m sure I speak for all the VBS volunteers when I say: We had a wonderful week at the Great Bible Reef! See you all next year!

Peace mon,
Love, Jelly

The highlight of Friday’s VBS schedule was clearly the watermelon. Ok not really. Our visit from the Metuchen Fire Department brought the loudest screams I’ve heard since the last time I took my little jellyfishes on a roller coaster. I LOVE the firetruck!

So while I work on making the slide show — with lots of fun pictures of our field activities — here’s a reminder of the five points of the starfish: care, trust, believe, listen and obey. Check back soon for the “Friday” slide show!
Peace, mon, and I’ll be seeing you all around town!
Love, Jelly
Personal Assistant to Mr. Starfish