Memory Box Photography

Here’s what’s up, Internet World!

Sorry for the lull in posts as of late.  About that, I have good news, and bad news, and good news?  Which do you want first?  Good > Bad > Good?  Perfect!  That’s exactly how it’s going to be!

GOOD NEWS: I have a good bit of sessions lined up this month, which means more blog posts!

BAD NEWS: Well, it’s more bad for you than for me.  About half of them are Bridal sessions.  What’s that mean?  That means you wont see them until AFTER the wedding!  So not as many blog posts as you thought.
GOOD NEWS: Spring Break is this month!  How is that good for you?  Well this year, I have too much on my plate, so I can’t go on a trip.  For the first time since maybe my sophomore year in High School, I’m chillin’ at the house for Spring Break working on projects (school and photo), papers, assignments, and to-do lists.

So what does that mean for you?  That means that I have an entire week where I’m reading, writing, shooting, editing, and designing.  Since I’ll be doing all of that, I’ve decided to give away a free session!  Here are the details.

1. Session can be for you and up to 2 of your friends.
2. Session will take place between March 22-27, 2010.

SIMPLE as that!  Pretty sweet deal eh?  Here’s how you win!  You have to be nominated!  So here’s what I want YOU to do.  Think about someone you think deserves a free portrait session.  Maybe they’ve had a rough semester, a hard time with their job, just had a big accomplishment in life, who knows!  Nominate someone (preferably not yourself!) that you think should get the Give Me Free session by commenting on this post, emailing givemefree@memoryboxphotos.com, DM or @reply me on twitter, or facebook messaging me!  Submissions close 11:59 March 17, 2010.  At that point, I’ll read through all of the submissions, pick the winner and get in touch with them.

Here’s what you should include in your nomination…

1. Your name
2. Your email
3. Your cell #
4. WHO you are nominating.
5. WHY you think they should get the GIVE ME FREE session.
6. HOW I can get in touch with them if they should win.
7. ONE thing about yourself that I dont know.

Also, to help spread the word, feel free to tweet this: Win a FREE portrait session with Memory Box Photos from @austinjwalker http://ow.ly/1fJ6G

Finally…did I mention that the person who is nominated AND the person who nominated the winner get a FREE 20% off discount code for their next print order?

And because each post should have a picture, here’s a shot that wasnt taken on the way home from Little Rock yesterday…. :/

If you want the session to take place outside of 50 travel miles from Little Rock, minimal travel fee applies.
prints and/or digital copies not included.

This post doesn’t have much to it! It’s just been a while, so I wanted you to know what’s been going on. Right now, I’m flashing through over 200 vocab cards of Greek words (seen below, taken by my Blackberry). Why? For a very good reason! I need to know them…by tomorrow morning! Why dont I know them? Because I neglected much of my school work over the past few weeks. Turns out, if you dont keep reviewing Greek vocab, you lose your touch (you especially lose your touch if you never had one to begin with).

I got the opportunity to speak at a D-Now youth retreat weekend for First Baptist Church Clarksville in Northwestern Arkansas last weekend. So I spent the few weeks leading up to it focusing on crafting and developing sermons! It was an ABSOLUTE BLAST! I LOVE speaking to students and getting to know them throughout the weekend. It was really encouraging to hear stories from group leaders of their students opening up in group time, and even to have students come up to me and say, “Austin…this is what I’m going through.” So February was all about preparing for that retreat. I wanted to make sure I honored the Scripture and what it said, and made it understandable and relevant to where they were. I was extremely nervous, but one of my mentors and good friends, Brandon Barnard, told me, “You honor the text. God’s word doesn’t return void. You do your part, dont stress about the rest.” Thanks to that and to knowing I was staying true to the text, the nerves went away and I was able to enjoy what God called me to.

Now, it’s March! I have quite a few shoots and smaller things lined up. Over spring break, I’ll be writing about six papers, including one on Exodus 32:9-14, which will be a blast. I enjoy what I learn from the process of writing them, just not necessarily the process itself. Anyway, I’m thinking about offering a free session during Spring Break. I’m not sure what that will look like yet, but I’ll let you know, so check back soon!

I took these “Blackberry Polaroids” Wednesday afternoon. Yes…WEDNESDAY! Remember, Arkadelphia, all the rain we got on Friday? The ankle deep water we trudged through to get to class, just to sit in the classrooms soaking wet? Well, a mere 35 miles north (and beyond), that was snow. Snow that was so intense, it was STILL around on Wednesday! That’s CRAZY! So I just wanted to show you some quick phone shots of what exactly it was that we missed out. Granted, it’s had days to melt, but its still a lot. Which just shows you how much there was in the first place.

I love snow. But I live in Arkadelphia.

In other news, this weekend, assuming WinterChill happens (I prewrite a lot of my blog posts), there’s some pretty cool photo stuff up my sleeve to surprise the high school students with. It’s going to be a blast. Be praying that God first clears the way for us to get there safely, but just as, and maybe more importantly, pray that God does amazing things in the lives of these High Schoolers! It’s going to be a blast, I cant wait to show you some stuff from it!

Grace and Peace and I want snow next week,
Austin

READERS DIGEST VERSION: Thursday. 5-6 PM. Berry Chapel. Free Pics. Come by, bring a prop or something goofy if you want. Read on for details.

For any of yall that follow me on twitter ( @austinjwalker ) know that I have recently gotten a little bit more equipment in the mail! I’ve gotten a good bit of stuff, some of which I had trouble finding places in my room to keep it out of the way.

Here’s where you come in. I’ve reserved Berry Chapel for a fun MemoryBooth Shoot! If you are a college student in Arkadelphia, you are invited! Come and get a cRaZy picture made of you, your suite, a few of your friends, or whatever! Then, after it goes through the super secret process I send my work through, it will pop out as a great photo! For this one time only, I’ll post any and all that turn out well to an album on flickr, in which you will be able to snag it, download it, make it your profile pic, whatever you want! (details to come on that later).

Here’s what you need to know.

- NO normal stand and say cheese pictures allowed.
- Berry Chapel on THURSDAY from 5:00 P.M. until 6:00 P.M.
- Dress goofy if you want.
- Bring props if you want! These can be something as simple to something crazy. Huge sunglasses, your iphone, a strange gift you got for Christmas. If you think it could make for an interesting picture, bring it. Even if you dont know WHAT to do with it, we’ll figure something out.
- You dont have to be my friend, or even my Facebook friend to show up! If you want a picture, whether you know me or not, come. This isn’t just a hang out with my friends. I want to meet you, so come, introduce yourself, get some rockin’ awesome shots of you at the MemoryBooth, and add me on Facebook! I want to meet new people through this, not just get some pictures. So DONT be shy!

BEFORE you do anything else, if you’re going to show up, I need you to do something! On the left, see that bar of links? Click “TID BITS.” See those three options that popped down? Pretty sweet isn’t it?! What you need to do is go subscribe to the newsletter. I’m NOT going to spam you, I promise. This is just the easiest way for me to get the word out to anyone that wants a picture about how to go online and find it! I wont be putting on the blog how to find yours! I’ll load them, share how to access them, and let you enjoy.

Go do that. Right now. then come back and finish reading this.

……….

Ok. You back? AWESOME! I’m excited, and you better be too!

The last thing you need to do before coming is tweet the post below! The more, the merrier! I’ll shoot until my computer and cards run out of space or until 6 PM (mostly because I only have the chapel reserved for so long….also because I want to eat before the caf closes). Some of you may be thinking it sounds lame to tweet about it, but the more people we have, the more fun it’s going to be. If it’s just me and 3 other people, sure it will be fun, but I want as many people as possible to get their picture taken. Lets pack that place out!

TWEET THIS: Free pictures, check out the link for info http://ow.ly/13aMl

I know a few of you are skeptics. What’s in it for me? Free? There’s always a catch. Think about this. I just invested a LOT of money on stuff for the wedding season this year, and instead of it sitting under my bed in my room, I want to USE it! So I decided instead of trying to just tinker with it every once and a while, I’ll invite my friends to come reap the benefits. Will they be perfect? Probably not. Will they all come out awesome? A lot of that is up to you. Will we have a blast? Always.

So……..in summary.

- get pics.
- be crazy.
- free.
- thursday. 5-6 pm. berry chapel.
- tweet this.
- fb status this.
- txt this.
- share this.

And finally, because no post is complete without a picture, here’s a couple Blackberry Polaroids I took while I was driving back from getting all of these packages!

For those of you who haven’t ever been to the Memory Box Photography blog, take a look around. You’ll like what you see! Blackberry Polaroids are just shots that I take during every day life from my Blackberry. They’re not my portfolio work, but they are where I am (if that makes sense).

FINALLY! I KNOW there is some Running Back fans. Their newest song, “Serpent’s Tongue” is now the first song in the jukebox on the Memory Box Photography Main Site. Check it out!

I feele like a kid on Christmas morning….except a kid who sees his presents, but cant play with them. He knows what they are, but can’t do a thing about it. Thanks to the weather and the busyness of life, I’ve been unable to go get some of the big packages I have waiting at my home in Benton.

Check back on the blog about Thursday. ESPECIALLY if you live in Arkadelphia. HOPEFULLY (barring any unforeseen events) there will be a post that you’ll be very interested in, and will pan out to be a lot of fun for any and everyone that takes part. So Thursday afternoon/morning/night/evening/sometime, check back on the blog, read the post, tweet the post, share the post.

Both of my jobs have been a little low key lately, due to different things. School? Not so much. I leave you with a Blackberry Polaroid of what I’m doing right now. Working on that Greek translating!

“You all worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, since salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”

I drive.

a lot.

At least I think it’s a lot? Usually (excluding any photography related trips) I’ll drive anywhere from 325-375 miles a week. Fortunately, sometimes I get to go on these drives with some of my best friends and great influences in my life, such as @Emma Smith, @Jake Sligh, or Wes Hymer. MOST of the driving consists of the interstate stretch between Arkadelphia and Little Rock, a long and boring stretch. But, like I said, often I’ve got great company that always leads to great conversations and fellowship.

And then….

And then there are mornings like this morning. Driving solo both ways, coffee in one hand, steering wheel in the other. Sometimes, like this morning, I wake up a good hour and a half after my alarm and dont have a peaceful morning, and other times I get away in plenty of time, but maybe not “the most awake.” The solo drives are always interesting. I take the time to catch up on podcasts primarily. When I drive with someone in the car, I often feel bad about listening to the podcasts. I dont want people I’m with to think I’m not listening to what they say…but I also DO want to hear what the podcast is saying, so usually I’ll just set it to shuffle or a radio station and keep the volume low.

Other times, I just drive. Windows up, windows down, doesn’t matter. Just no radio. I’m sure i’m not the only one, but I never have the time to just…..sit. I’ll have some time with God, meditate on some Scripture that’s given me a gut check lately, or just…be. This morning, I spent a good amount of time dwelling on the “divine tension” as Matt Chandler calls it, of sovereignty vs. “ask and you will receive,” as well as the purposes/implications of the tension.

On the way back, I listened to my new album. I definitely recommend the album, it’s the album version of the Hope for Haiti Now telethon that all the major networks broadcast. While the telethon was on, a few friends and I were eating dinner at Chili’s, surrounded by 5 televisions. On 4 of them, the Lakers’ game. On one (and fortunately the sound source) was the telethon. As John Legend went to begin his song…they changed that TV to the Lakers’ game. I guess 4 TV’s of the game wasn’t quite enough. Thankfully, you can buy the album on iTunes.

Hope for Haiti Now Album

Here’s some “Blackberry Polaroids” from the drive today.

And if you have any podcast/album recommendations, I’m ALWAYS up for more.

Well…the time has come. I’m all moved in at school again. Friends are trickling in with bags of clothes, new and old, trinkets, and food here and there. The semester has picked up, and there’s no turning back. However, break was great. Booked a couple more 2010 Wedding clients, which is always exciting. Arguably more importantly, I took part in Passion 2010, a conference of over 20,000 college students worshipping God and “Doing Something Now.” We cumulatively ended up raising over $1 Million, for causes ranging from Compassion International, to sending Middle Eastern men to seminary, to translating the Bible for unreached people groups, and countless other causes. It was a great way to start off 2010, and I cant wait to see how it bears fruit in the time to come.

Here’s a shot from our drive back. Good luck to everyone in 2010, I can’t wait to see where it brings us.