As many of you know, my family and I go down to McCreary County in Kentucky every December to bring Christmas presents to the poor kids and to minister to those who have fallen on unfortunate times. This year was no exception. While our specific projects seem to be evolving, we are still doing what we are called to do by God. Over the last few years w've brought down presents for children, helped work a Christmas party up at Rattlesnake Ridge, provided a Christmas dinner for families up at the Ridge, and visited those that we have built relationships with over the years. After all, as Jim Cmolik tells us, it's about sharing the love of God through our relationships, and not the construction. Which is temporary in this world. So as I've gotten to know the area and some of the people that live there, God's put a burden on my heart to take pictures of McCreary County Kentucky. My goal is to define McCreary County in pictures. When I first got the idea, my goal was to shoot the poverty and financial devastation that has gripped that region. I gave this much thought over the three years that I planned this. Unfortunately I was not able to get out and take the pictures I wanted to until this past December. The first shot I took was this truck. I saw it on the side of the road as we were driving in the day before. This was at the north end of the county. As we moved south I went looking for buildings and houses that were burned out, or really run down, and I took quite a few photos of these. But as the day went on, I started being drawn to the beauty of the area. We visited the Natural Arch State Park and got some pictures of natures amazing work. We got some shots in the woods, found another natural arch on the side of a road, and took a picture of a church on top of a hill. It's funny how my goals changed in the midst of the project. I was supposed to be showing the poorest of the poor, but ended up going for the beauty amidst the poverty. Some of the sadness will probably make it into the final project, but I want this area to be represented as a county full of beauty and God's work.
I know many of you have already seen these pictures, but I'll probably post a few more and talk about those a bit.
As I was shooting this truck, a local guy in his pickup stopped to see what I was doing. I thought I would be in trouble so I threw him a little wave. He got a big smile on his face, waved back and drove away. A little wave goes a long way down there.
This was shot with a Canon 50D and a Canon 17-85mm is at24mm, 1/100sec at f7.1 ISO 100.
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