I strongly encourage you to watch the documentary and talk about it with your children, friends and family. There are many issues covered that pertain to raising children such as health, visiting/supporting certain types of businesses (e.g. zoos, marine parks, etc.), and less directly, how our consumption directly impacts the world around us.

Learn more about the film by visiting thecovemovie.com.

Caleb and I chose to hike over Mt. Hale and meet Megan’s group for the night at the Zealand Falls Hut, and then hike east on the A-Z Trail for a night in the backcountry before heading to our car to pick Megan up on the morning of the third day. Caleb and I had muddy, wet and rainy conditions on our first day but Caleb made it up and over Mt. Hale all on his own! If you don’t count his Moosilauke hike (since I carried him for roughly 2 of the 7.5 miles), Mt. Hale is Caleb’s first 4000-foot peak!

The night at the Zealand Falls Hut was pleasant (Caleb did not really dig waking up in the middle of the night to pitch black, nor did he like ramming his head a few minutes later on the corner of the shelf on the wall in his bunk — yet he still had a great time) and we look forward to returning soon. Caleb and I opted to hike 5.5 miles out to our car on the second day instead of camping near Mt. Field (as originally planned) because the weather was a bit of a drag on our morale, and we had a hard time spotting suitable tent sites from the trail, let alone 200+ feet away.

The rest of the trip was very relaxing and we opted not to do any more major hikes (we took a few short strolls…). We look forward to going back again very soon!

Caleb: “Jonathan, you are my best friend. I think about you in my heart.”

Caleb did a bunch of hiking and had a fantastic time. He did not enjoy the bugs (mainly those that crawled on the tent) but really liked the hiking and playing at our campsite. We came prepared with two footballs, a soccer ball, a bunch of toys and books, and had several short hikes in our back pocket if we ran out of things to do. One highlight was a massive rainbow (sorry, no photos) that appeared during the short rain shower just after I woke up on our second day. Another was when Caleb came out of nowhere with information we discussed about hiking with an ice axe. But I think my favorite part of the trip was watching my son scramble up to the peak of Bald Mountain like a champ. Enjoy the photos below (click on the image for more…).

First, I love the archival aspect of blogs. Megan and I have redesigned our photography website about 10 times since we launched our business in 1999. Many of those designs are long since forgotten. Some can be found online in various historical archives while others we more diligently preserved on our own. With a blog, however, content is almost never lost (within the blog, on an internet archive, within various server backups, etc.), so I tend to post things that I want to remember.

Second, Megan and I care deeply (very deeply) about making travel a constant presence in our own lives, and more importantly, in Caleb’s life. He loves to travel and we love to travel with him. Accordingly, we are opening our business (lumiereimaging.com) up to take on more exclusively travel and documentary photography commissions, whereas previously we would only take on wedding or small portraiture work.

Third, in looking at our photographs (granted, the following is a bit awkward to point out about one’s own work), our travel and documentary images represent very honestly a lot of what makes Megan and I tick. And indeed, whenever we travel as a family, or on our own, we always come home changed in some mild or noticeably profound way. Caleb shows the same growth during our adventures, a result we strive to maintain by committing to take a healthy number of trips every year.

So, click on the below to browse through a few of our new home page images (they appear with a randomizer script on the Lumiere homepage) which are focused on documentary and travel imagery. We’ll be updating our portfolios in the next month or so and will also start to pursue this type of work more actively. (Shameless plug: If you happen to stumble across this post and want nothing more than to secure us immediately for a documentary or travel project, please contact us on the Lumiere Imaging contact page. – Thank you!)

Click on the photo below to see more images from our trip.

Megan and I were recently exposed to the above video and both found it quite powerful. Coincidentally, we were strongly considering a material giftless Christmas this year before we saw the video, but are now set on following through. We have given donations or Heifer International gifts in past years, but never 100% exclusively to all recipients. To each other and to Caleb, we typically give something special or homemade, or material but with a strong connection to the recipient. We’ve already given Caleb an early present (a sweet Erector Set, which he has really taken to) and are dabbling with ways to make a donation less of an abstract concept to a three year-old.

This year we are considering our old favorites (Heifer International as well as the Humane Society), but may also throw Megan’s organization and some volunteering opportunities into the mix.

I am particularly interested in hearing what non-Christians think of the video. It is extremely well done (music, editing, content, use of text and movement, etc.) and I am curious how broadly the message might be received.