Central Valley Harvest

It's a wrap. I always look forward to Harvest events outside Southern CA because the communities are so excited. 150 churches worked together to bring the event to light and many thousands of people prayed and planned for it for over 10 years. It was a great time. I got a shock on Friday when I learned I was the only photographer on staff there. I began taking pics like a mad woman for the Friday night slideshow for the harvest blog. The people in the video truck started playing "where's waldo" except it was "where's crissy." I popped up everywhere. I was SO TIRED but I had a great time. Check out the blog when you have a chance. Here are some of my favorite pics from the weekend...some are just personal shots that wouldn't be appropriate for the harvest blog.

Things you didn't know...

My good friend and fellow photographer Dawn Malone wants me to play along with a blog game that lets you in on 8 things you didn't already know about me. So here goes...

1. Here is me as a kid with my three sisters. I was the second born and the only blonde.



2. I was once attacked by a bear and a mad man with a gun (not all in the same night) I'll tell you more if you ask sometime...they are both good stories.

3. I was in a terrible accident when I was three. My foot got caught in the spokes of my dad's 10 speed. I remember everything about it. I wanted crutches but they said I was too young and I didn't like that at all.

4. I was once jetted off on a private jet to a romantic dinner in San Francisco and then taken back to a house in Beverly Hills next door to Frank Sinatra. (K all of this happened when I was 13 along with the rest of my family because of the kindness of an elderly business friend of my dad. I know it sounded good for a minute didn't it!)

5. I paid my way through college doing various jobs; tutoring foster kids in Compton and teaching speed reading techniques.

6. I owned one doll my whole life and I only liked it because it peed and pooped. It was a Baby Alive doll. My favorite toy growing up was my race track.

7. I ran CIF in high school in both hurdles and the 4 girl 440 relay. I was third leg. (I know - hard to believe)

8. I lived in the same house from birth until I got married. And then moved into my husband's home that had the exact same floor plan as the one I grew up in. I've been married 16 years to my husband Brian who is an awesome musician who plays drums at our church and is rubbing off his musical talent on my kids. Sam plays guitar and Grace plays bass. The Partridge family here we come!

new bathroom big window

Okay most of you who read my blog know that we recently re-did our master bathroom. You'd think I'd be so excited that I would want to show it off with a nice pic. Uh uh! It just is so tempting with this awesome big window...it calls out to me and says USE me...USE my light! So I grabbed Grace today and we did a few shots before we left for Maddie and Mariah's play which was AWESOME. So here are three that I liked. Grace is growing up too fast. I played with the flash with these and shot these with my 50mm lens. Technically speaking I modified the levels,contrast and dodged the backgroud a bit. Grace liked them!

Playing in Sepia and Color

Went out with the family this weekend to scope out some good places for family pics. We weren't doing a real photo shoot just playing around but there were a few I liked. The plan is to dress appropriately, wash the hair and really go for it one day. We have a wall in our bedroom and a bunch of empty frames and we thought a sepia collection would look cool but I couldn't bear making a couple sepia because I loved the colors too. Fun stuff. :)

A New Look

I've finally got a new look for my website. The Logo is for sure...the rest is still in creative mode. My thought is that I'll switch out the photo now and then to give it a fresh look until I have a landing page with a slideshow. One of these days I'll have a real website with pages and links and everything. But in the mean time I am content with this freshened look.
This site is where I post photos for clients. You can visit it by going to:
http://www.dolcevita-images.com

Here is a pic of what you'll see:

My sentiments exactly

This first picture is one of my favorites of the weekend. And its so simple. WOW - the job was challenging. I was like a one man band and if it weren't for my cargo pants...I would have been up a creek without a paddle. I brought along with me, my camera (loaded down of course with my 70-200 lens), my notepad and pen (which I managed not to lose all weekend - a miracle in and of itself), and my MP3 voice recorder and microphone. But my eye was always looking out for the best stories and hopefully a good picture too. Sometimes the story started with the pic. But in the end...it was my favorite crusade experience in Anaheim.

Nothing can describe the feeling of knowing that no matter what is going wrong in our lives and how hard it might seem - that there is a God in heaven who sent his son Jesus Christ to save us from our sin because He loves us. No mattter how good we think we are, we are not good enough to even approach God if it weren't for Jesus. I owe my life to Him and working at a Crusade event reminds me in a very powerful way how much that simply acknowledging that great truth frees us from guilt, shame and burdens and invites us into the peace that surpasses all understanding (as the Bible says.)

I count it a great privilege to work at such an event. Here are a few more pics.

tobyMac stopped for me to take his pic.



My buddies Mariann and Dawn

signing for the deaf minsitry

What A Night

Saturday night at the crusade was truly amazing. It was packed. Over 42,000 in attendance and over 4,000 made commitments to Christ. Here are some of my pics that didn't make the official harvest blog. I have been reporting on stories and taking pics and it has been so much fun. One of my jobs is moderator of the comments on the blog. It is so great to read the encouragement pouring in from as far away as Japan. Tomorrow is the last night and it will surely be amazing as Tobymac is an amazing performer. I know my kids are most excited for this night. Pastor Greg seems to be over his vertigo and delivered a great message tonight. If you weren't able to attend you can always watch the archives located at harvest.org.
Enjoy the pics.

These are my photography buddies Jeanette and Dawn.


This is my buddy Dirk who encourages me in my photography. He's a phenomenal designer.


This was one of those people that stopped me in my tracks. Youth night wasn't only for the youth tonight.


A man in the stands worshipping during Leeland's performance. Leeland is very young but I was very very impressed.


I took this photo yesterday. These folks were reading the Harvest news piece I helped plan out.



My job has really been focused on getting good stories with good pics and most of these are posted on the harvest blog.
Take care everyone.

Crowder and Crissy

What an amazing night it was at Angel Stadium. I got to talk to many great people who were attending the Crusade and wrote about them on the harvest blog site. Visit http://cc.harvestlive.net to read the stories.
But as you can see one of the highlights of my night was getting talk with David Crowder.



Pastor Ricky Ryan took this picture in the Angels Stadium dugout after the event. Ricky was telling David how he taught me how to surf in Hawaii and how he wanted to get David on a board. Now for those of you who do not know who David Crowder is...he's an AMAZING musician who leads worship at a church in Waco Texas. His worship team began writing songs and before they knew it...well everyone around the country now sings his songs. His performance tonight had everybody in the stands totally engaged. He is also very very tall (he had to practically kneel for the picture) and as you can tell has his own sense of style. It was a great great night. And despite Pastor Greg's illness he was able to preach and we saw many people at the end of the evening come forward to commit their lives to Jesus. I believe it was over 2000 people.

Well I'm looking forward to another incredible night. Don't forget to visit the blog site to see all the other stories.