So I finally roused myself to do some church hunting again.  It seems some years my attendance is good, and then there are the other years…  I could go back to my church of a few months in 2006, but I must confess: I’m embarrassed by my 18 month hiatus and the appearance of being a “fair weather friend”.  I doubt anyone would judge me - to my face at least - but it would sit in the back of my mind, never mind wondering if I really am.

With “fresh start” and “explore” in mind, I suddenly remembered a church I had meant to look into the last time I was looking around.  I couldn’t remember the name, but I remembered its unique feature: Sunday service held in a movie theatre.

The Meeting House has multiple locations, most (all?) held in movie theatres before they’re open for Sunday business.  The announcements and singing are performed locally, then they switch over to a satellite feed on the big screen for the sermon.  The pastor presents locally at one of the locations.

I had heard about this church years ago, and it’s apparent it’s been popular.  There were 6-7 “satellite branches” listed and I would estimate that the downtown location filled to 400+ people.

Prior to the start of sermon, there were “pre-roll” slides, similar what one might watch when arriving for a movie early.  The quotes were all related to the sermon’s topic, and I was impressed they had even selected an energetic background music to match.

The sermon itself had excellent videography, and was punctuated with video clips to drive home the point visually.  The pastor encouraged anyone with a question to send a text message, which were later addressed in the Q&A period near the end.

The message itself took a refreshing direction.  Although the series was about David (of David and Goliath fame), the day’s “moral” was about having humility.  In particular, some advice was given on dealing with antagonism, e.g. “Don’t villify the other person, instead relate to the best version of them”.

I’m intrigued so far, and it’s pleasant to attend Sunday service again.  Time will tell, of course, but for now those cushy movie theatre seats have quite a lot of appeal over wooden pews. 

I enjoy watching anime, but I’ve never been to an anime convention.  By happenstance, I discovered one was coming to Toronto in August, so I figured, “why not?”

The convention is a mix of several genres: anime, horror, sci-fi, gaming, and comics.  While there were workshops, shows, LAN games, and many vendors, I spent most of my attention on the people and costumes, capturing the more interesting as photography practice.

As an aside, the masquerade event (people showing their costumes on stage), was surprisingly good.  You’ll see some mediocre pictures of it in the full set (my angle was terrible), but the MC for the event was quite funny.  Some of the acts were good, too… although some were embarrassingly bad.  Some acts would come on stage to music, or have voice-over dialogue that they were would lip sync or mime to.

As an experiment, I took some of the more easily distinguishable costumes and paired them up with pictures of the characters.  To my chagrin, I discovered the hard part isn’t stitching two pictures together, it’s finding an appropriate image on the Internet.  :/  I did a few before I gave it up as too time consuming.

The video’s not very good quality, you can’t see how good the costumes are.  Higher quality montage pictures are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157606930635654/

The full set of high quality pictures from the Expo are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157606933762931/
. There are lots of good costumes that weren’t in the montage video.

Steve and Vicky tied the knot on August 16th!  Yay!

The culled and processed photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157606865426392/.  If you see a picture of yourself you don’t like, let me know and I’ll take it down.  Maybe I’ll even be able to “fix” it with digital editing!  :)  I’m still learning how to post-process (e.g. colours, white balance), so feedback is appreciated.

Steve and Vicky’s wedding was easily the most ambitious I’ve ever attended: 800′ish people spread over a ceremony and two receptions!  Saw some familiar faces, caught up with some, and met new ones!  As one of the helpers, I was a bit too busy to socialize as much as I wished, but that’s OK; what mingling I did reminded me how quickly I either A) draw a blank on what to say next, or B) put my foot in my mouth.  What can I say, I have problems with verbal dexterity under pressure?

Naturally, the wedding provided ample opportunity to continue practicing with my camera.  Having reviewed a few hundred pictures and deleted a whole lot, my main lesson is to check and adjust the camera settings more often.  I had far too many pictures that were at ISO1600 (Auto ISO) and/or were focused on an object in the distance (left it on “centre-weighted focus” instead of “closest subject”).  I also got useful tips from the amateur-going-pro photographers that the couple had asked to help out.