My wife and I just returned from a life changing trip to the village of San Antonio. We joined The Potter’s School, a non-profit organization that offers supplimental classes for the home school community, on their annual service trip (my wife teaches for the school). Partnering with a Honduran-run medical organization, Predisan, the school adopted the village of San Antonio ministering to it’s people and helping them with basic physical needs and spiritual health.

Prior to my time in Honduras I had my own reservations about the trip. I had never been on any sort of service trip and certainly have never given so much of myself on so many levels. Although I consider myself a Christian and have accepted Christ as my personal savior, I was fearful of two things: changing Honduran culture with western ways and forcing Christian beliefs on the people of San Antonio. Anyone close to me knows I am not the type of person to beat someone over the head with a Bible. My own experiences with some Christians in the past led me to feel judged an forced into strict religious beliefs. As a Christian I want to share my faith and desire others to know Christ, but not in an oppressive way. I strive not to judge others, and I certainly hope by sharing more of myself in this post you won’t judge me. For me relationships are more important than what you believe. I don’t have ulterior motives–I want to get to know you. I want to be your friend.

This was most certainly my desire with the people of San Antonio. I went with the hope of building relationships with those that call San Antonio home, to lend a helping hand and give more of myself than I ever have before. In the end the trip far exceeded my expectations. Yes, we accomplished many physical tasks like the construction of numerous latrines and playing games with the village children. More importantly though, friendships were formed and relationships strengthened. The people of San Antonio welcomed us into their homes and lives while sharing their own stories, friendship and faith with us. They live with so little, yet gave so much of themselves.

In addition to spending time in San Antonio, my wife and I collectively worked on a pro-bono project for The Potter’s School to help raise awareness of the needs in San Antonio and the relationship the school has formed with the village. For those who don’t know my wife is an excellent photographer in her own right and teaches both photography and junior high English for The Potter’s School. This was our first time working on a photo-related project together, and in some ways the experince of collaborating with my wife was as amazing as working with the people of San Antonio. Over the next few weeks we’ll be finishing the photo project for The Potter’s School. Those images that I can, I will share here.

Finally, for those that are interested, you can read more about the work Presidan is doing in Honduras on their website. As someone who has personally witnessed the many lives they have impacted, I believe with all my heart they are worthy of supporting.

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Despite Snorkel Bob’s warning and my wife’s strong opposition I bravely headed to the water’s edge. “Warm sun. No fins surfacing. Seems fine.” Then, less than 2 minutes after submersing myself, it happened. “Oscar” and two of his friends emerged in the distance. I guess that Snorkel Bob dude was right. Now I’m no oceanic expert, nor do I claim to know anything about shark behavior. But a shark is a shark in my book. And I wasn’t about to stick around to see if “Oscar” and his friends were an aggressive species or not. In all my time in Hawaii, I don’t think I ever swam as quickly as I did that afternoon to shore. Typically I can spend hours poking around in the water even when I say I’m only going to be a minute. So when I emerged from the water after only a few minutes, my wife knew but said nothing to save any ounce of manly ego that remained. (She’s cool like that.)

Aside from that one shark incident, my first experinces shooting in the ocean with an underwater housing went extremely well. Shooting with the Ewa Marine housing took a little getting used to, and I quickly learned how difficult is is to compose a shot when both you and your subject are at the mercy of the ocean. The slightest swell, wave or current compound movements significantly.

Lessons Learned: ALWAYS heed Snorkel Bob’s warnings. Shoot TONS of frames to ensure you get the shot you after; between the cumbersome nature of housings and the movement of the water there will be lots of misfires. Using large memory cards helps reduce the number of times you have to get out of the water to change cards. It’s a time-consuming process. When shooting over/unders make sure to dunk your camera in the water frequently. This helps ensure success as water droplets “stick” to the front element differently each time. Spit helps too. Finally, I learned that I can swim almost as fast as Michael Phelps when trying to outrun reef sharks. (Which I have since learn are quite docile animals.)

Equipment Used: Ewa Marine UB-100 housing, Nikon D300, Nikon 12-24mm f/4 lens, Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens (only fits in housing when set to 70mm due to it’s length), SanDisk Extreme 4 8GB cards

Additional samples of my underwater work from Hawaii can be found in the “Latest Work” gallery on my website.

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In my opinion Park City Mountain Resort has the best halfpipe and parks in Utah. Not only are they well groomed but the staff at the resort is phenomenal as well. The images above are from a recent action/lifestyle shoot at the resort with freeskier Ty Peterson. Ty is a killer park and pipe rider who is on the current Winter Dew Tour. Make sure to root him on this weekend (Feb. 4-7) as he competes in the Toyota Championships at Mt. Snow.

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A few images shot at Centered City Yoga earlier this week here in Salt Lake City with yoga instructor Kim Warren. Kim offers incredible yoga retreats in Costa Rica, Mexico and here in the US. If you are into yoga check out her website or consider taking one of her classes.

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