Life celebrated... God bless you Shannon Perry

Today family and friends buried a dear woman. Believers from the Messianic Jewish community as well as her church at the Vineyard Mt. Comfort celebrated, sang and danced the way this amazing woman would want.

Life lived in hindsight is 20/20. Often we are mired in our present. Confused and lost one day, happy and free another. All who knew Shannon, knew her as the antithesis of this. Shannon was consistent. Jubilant, triumphant, passionate in love for her God, her husband, family and church. Never did I know her to not be upbeat, present and passionate.

Love poured from her pores. As I said today at her service, she was Love, she was a Marvel and she was special. As the Rabbi finished her memorial today we closed with a blessing from God of hope to all of us here on earth:

Numbers 6:24-26
The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.

Thank you Shannon for your example of living life filled with love.

Hilliary and Danny Cofer's Wedding @ the Scottish Rite Cathedral

I had the pleasure shooting a couple "firsts" for this last wedding I did. Click to enjoy the slideshow and read on to learn about a couple firsts. Thank you Hilliary and Danny! God bless you guys. I thoroughly enjoyed your day and thank you for trusting me with it!

The first for me was to shoot on a Thursday. Normally, weddings are Saturday events, but this couple is an outside the dots kind of family and I really love that!
Second, it was my first wedding at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. As you can see from the photos, there's not an ugly place in the entire building from the roof on down to the grounds all around. It's a structure worth bringing extra light into. It is breathtaking.
The last thing that was a first for me was to shoot on the roof of the Cathedral. These days it's hard to find a unique location and normally this isn't either a conceived or location or it's just off limits, but thanks to Danny's mom, I got the inside line and with great assistance from everyone @ the Cathedral, took some really unique photos of Danny and his Groomsmen on the roof!
Yep, that's part of DPA and making diehliciouspix... I like to bring light to your life. You can also become a fan on facebook @ www.facebook.com/diehliciouspix

I hope you enjoy the slide show and stay tuned.

Just another interesting day at my church...

If you've read much of my blog you'll notice occasionally a post that has nothing to do with my business and once again, this is one such post. I do facebook and you can be a friend of mine there and a fan of my business which is www.facebook.com/diehlphotographicarts & www.facebook.com/diehliciouspix but one thing that I love is sharing little stories and I know that part of my gift as a photographer is to capture moments that tell a story.
Now the backfill for this story is pretty simple. The youth are leaving for camp today and as part of the challenge to help pay for it and provide ways for others to go, they needed to raise some funds. $2000 to be exact. If they got$2K, they'd get to buzz their leader's head, Keith. $2500 and they take the eyebrows as well. Well as you can see. They didn't get the brows, (we all breathe a sigh of relief on that one). As it is, this once hirsute man has become fully ready for a hot week of camp.

Then, if that wasn't enough, a small group of women practice dancing for health and worship purposes and put on a performance after this. It was not only lovely, but a wonderful Messianic message through song and dance... How cool is that?!

And that's how it is at my church. One day is never the same as the next. Unlike larger churches that have 7 services in 3 locations simultaneously @ 4 different times, we don't have to follow a formula. We worship from the heart for an undetermined time and then continue within the community to share with each other and then have a good message and then we're done. It is satisfying. If you're dissatisfied. Need more from your Sunday, talk to me or come for a visit. We're the big blue church south of I-70 on Mt. Comfort Road.

25th Zoobilation Celebration

I had a blast shooting Zoobilation this year. As my first year at it, I realized 3 things. Zoobilation is the biggest party separate of the Indy 500 week. Zoobilation is the largest party I've ever photographed and lastly, I realized that if I can shoot a party of 4,000, what can't I handle???

Enjoy the slideshow and if you'd like to order images or see the other 400+ pix go to this website on Pictage and register and order there. http://pictage.com/1061588

Good news and bad news...

So bad news first because it's serious! Or not, but it's the last day of the world as we know it.
That said, I'd have to say I'm excited for this beautiful day and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I will.
Good news is, is that if today's not the end, I'll be shooting the 25th Zoobilation celebration this year and for that I'm exceptionally happy for that opportunity. So to celebrate, here's some shots from there.

Baby Dedication at the Vineyard, Mt. Comfort

I Love my church. I'll call it Variety even though it's proper name is The Vineyard.
Growing up in a western states Southern Baptist church is nothing like a So.Bap East of the Bible Belt. That said, it was far from a pentecostal and far from fundamentalist church. It's safe to say that where I attend now isn't easily categorized either.
I know speaking about religion on one's blog is a lot like doing so around the possible future inlaws or talking about politics around the dinner table or asking a woman's age, or, well you get the point. But honestly, I'm not ashamed of my beliefs and I promise to never make you uncomfortable about yours.
But let me tell you why I love my church and allow these photos to illustrate why it's really a special place.

My perspective of God, church and the least of these, "religion", has evolved over the past decade of being out of the house, out of college and as I've come into my "own" as a believer.
One thing that I hunger for is amazing worship, and another is divine leadership. At my Vineyard, I get those and within the leadership is my Pastor, Rick Francis, who has a baby dedication, which is a pretty common occurrence at church, but then encourages the church to come up and pray for the little one's.
So, the thing I love about MY church is that it's a highly participatory church. Not a sit in the pew and push play and when the show's over put away the remote and leave. It's kind of like comedy sports, not comedy central, just not that funny....

Some are shy, but they're encouraged to be involved as much as they're comfortable w/o being made uncomfortable. There is much freedom to express one's self there and serving families, people, and our God are all the basis of my Pastor's plan for making this church a Home.
So here's some photos of my "church" in action. We had a few little one's come to be dedicated and then our other Pastor, Mike Robertson preached a message using members of the church. I'm not sure if any of my readers learn by doing more than just reading or listening. This technique is a good way to reinforce an idea. Granted this doesn't happen 100% of the time. Variety could be my church's other name... Variety @t Mt.Comfort starts this Sunday at 10:45.
God Bless!

2011 Zoobilation Fashion Show @Saks 5th Avenue slideshow

A week later, here's the pix from the most fun fashion show I've shot ever. This was held and hosted by Saks 5th Avenue to show what's hip and new for this years Zoobilation. They rocked, it rocked and the slide show rocks! Enjoy!