JohnCalvinYoung.com » Photography

Highway to the Stars

John Calvin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:24:10 +0000

After the excellent CHEC 2010 Family Conference in Denver, I had a single day to see as much of Colorado as I could with my father and mother, baby sister Katie, and younger brother Matthew. The highlight of our trip was an excursion up Mount Evans along Colorado Highway 5–the Highway to the Stars. The highest paved road in the world, Highway 5 runs from below Echo Lake around 7,000 feet to a parking lot slightly below the summit at 14,130 feet. For this flatlander, 14,000 feet was a new experience–with atmospheric pressure down to only ~65% of sea level, the high barren alpine meadows and ridgelines were a far cry from the wooded mountains of my beloved Blue Ridge, reminding me of the “Scottish Soldier” folk song:

Because these green hills are not Highland hills
Or the island hills, they’re not my land’s hills
And fair as these green foreign hills may be
They’re not the hills of home.

That said, it was an incredible, breathtaking experience…but don’t let me tell you, you can see for yourself!

Highway to the Stars

An album from our expedition up Mount Evans in Colorado, along the breathtaking Highway to the Stars, the highest paved road in the world.

Mount Evans, CO

28 photos

The Falls of Sioux Falls

John Calvin — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:15:28 +0000

The Falls of Sioux Falls

An album I shot at the South Dakota capitol’s namesake landmark on my trip to SD for the PSCHEC conference.

Sioux Falls, SD

9 photos

After A Long Wait…

John Calvin — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:15:28 +0000

After A Long Wait…

A new series of photos of Katherine at approximately 8 weeks old…

9 photos

A long-awaited new series of photos of Katie for all y’all. Thanks so much for praying for her!

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Lexington in B&W

John Calvin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:41:39 +0000

Lexington in B&W

An album of B&W pictures of Lexington I shot on a cloudy weekend in February 2009

Lexington, VA

12 photos

Winter at W&L

John Calvin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:40:40 +0000

It has been a surprisingly snowless winter in Lexington, although we haven’t lacked for cold–we’ve had sustained daytime temperatures in the single digits, which for this Southerner is rather colder than I’m used to. We saw snow in the air earlier than I’ve ever seen it–October 19th–but haven’t had an appreciable snowfall until now. February 2nd we had an unexpected three inches of beautiful fluffy snow dropped on us, although since the 3rd was well above freezing, we neither had snow for long nor iced roads, so no snow day. But the campus was beautiful, and I was able to shoot a good album of pictures. The best are below.

W&L in the Snow

We experienced a sudden snowfall February 2nd, which just as quickly melted off…at least so far as it looked pretty. But I was able to get some good photographs before that happened…

Lexington, VA

24 photos

Announcing…Katherine Luther Young!

John Calvin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:57:53 +0000

It is with great joy that we announce to the world the birth of my newest little sibling, born February 13th–Katherine Luther Young! (For those wondering about the name, she’s named after Katherine Von Bora Luther, Martin Luther’s wife.) She was born at 10:24 AM, was 8 lbs, 14 oz., and 22 inches long.

We praise God for his mercy in bringing her safe to term healthy and beautiful after the several scares we had during the pregnancy. Both mother and baby are doing fine, and little Katherine is incredibly cute, which you can see for yourself at the link below.

Announcing…Katherine Luther Young!

An album of my newborn sister Katherine at less than a week old!

11 photos

Big brother to 7 now,
John Calvin Young

No-Sleep Photography

John Calvin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:12:00 +0000

First of all, I apologize for the long drought of updates. I have been surviving my first semester at Washington and Lee University up in the beautiful mountains of Virginia. In between Calculus, Chinese I, and Political Philosophy, I have had little enough time to breathe, much less post regularly on my blog.

That brings me to the topic of my current post. The Lord recently provided an awesome new camera, a Canon SX10 IS, through a special technology scholarship at my school. I’ve since been enjoying shooting photos of our campus, reputed to be among the prettiest in the United States.

Last Sunday night I was busy on a Music History paper due the next morning at 9 and was up most of the night–in fact, I had only 1.5 hours of sleep when I walked into class that morning. The upside to this really long night was that I got to see a spectacular sunrise the next morning at a quarter to seven–the photos below were just taken off my dorm steps twenty feet from my room.

R.E. Lee Episcopal silhouetted against the sunrise.

A little wider shot with the Lee House and Davis Hall in the picture, taken across the BDG Quad.

I’m home for the moment for Thanksgiving and greatly enjoying finally getting enough sleep, despite having a major political philosophy paper to write over break. Sleep, politics paper, food and more sleep cover most of my priorities for this week. And then back to school for one more week of class, then finals and Christmas break! Lord willing I should be able to post some more pictures soon, especially over the Christmas holidays. And now to bed, for it is plenty late already…

Harvest Moon over the Lake

John Calvin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:22:00 +0000

My brother Caleb and I got out with the camera tonight and shot some pretty pictures of the harvest moon’s light on the lake. My favorite is one I shot with the hammock and the dock silhouetted against the light. I tweaked the RAW image a little to adjust the contrast, noise reduction, and sharpening, and changed the white balance slightly. I wish I could post more pictures, but I’m working on a tenuous Internet link at the moment and it took over a minute and a half to upload the single cropped .jpg.

More pictures, posts, (and the much-delayed announcement) later…

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Evening At The Lake

John Calvin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:44:00 +0000

I took this photo while on vacation at Lake Wateree a couple of weeks ago. Subject is my brother Samuel fishing and our dog Martha waiting for the fish.

I love shooting RAW–it gives you such control over the final product. With the camera I was using, it would be very hard to get that picture under the right light conditions, so I actually shot it when it was a little lighter outdoors and adjusted it in post. It was not staged, though–they spent about 20 hours over the week fishing off the dock!

IHS,
John Calvin Young