Earlier this year the church at Sitio Pantay was built. Mission Love Seeds has now begun construction on a Library next to the church.

After last year’s visit we discussed other improvements for the property. After our visit in March 2009, a kitchen was added to the rear of the church for humanitarian distributions.

Another addition we discussed was adding a library. The library will house books donated both from the Philippines and from Destin, FL. The library should be complete by our trip in February.

Library construction is underway outside of Sitio Pantay church. Photo by MLS staff.

MY HUMANITARIAN PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE PHILIPPINES

Where’s your camera bag? Mine is on my iPhone.

Camera Bag is a iPhone app that provides about a dozen filters you can apply to your iPhone photos. The filters themselves are pretty good. You can choose from Helga, Magazine, 1974, Mono, 1962, Colorcross, Instant, Lolo, Cinema, Fisheye, and Infrared.

I personally use the 1974 and occasionally the Magazine and Helga filters.

Camera Bag Helga Filter at the KISS concert

Once you apply the filter you can save it and even email it from the app. I prefer though to use the standard iPhone email as it seems a bit faster. The Camera bag app also lets you open a camera from the app. Again I usually use the standard iPhone camera as it opens a bit quicker.

Why use the iPhone as a camera? Well sometimes it’s all you got. Plus with a little tweaking you can get a decent picture suitable for the web with your iPhone. I personally use it to post to blogs and in the case of a KISS concert it was the only thing I had.

Should you buy it? Yes.
For $1.99 the Camera bag app is the perfect companion to your iPhone camera.

If you enjoyed this Camera Bag app review please comment!

Camera Bag 1974 filter

The popular Children of Admiral photo was used in the Hunger and Homelessness publication at UNLV. I took the photo back in 2006 in a village named Admiral in the Philippines. A mission group was holding a humanitarian distribution and people throughout the village were coming to attend. I noticed children coming up and down this small road on a hill in the village. I sat and photographed them for some time. The end result was the photo below.

POSTER

Poster for Hunger and Homelessness Week

Children of Admiral

MORE

Here’s a quick tip for you guys using Google Calendar.

Did you know you can add events to your calendar via SMS or text messaging? It’s simple and best of all it’s free.

First you need to have a Google account of course and use Google Calendar (GCal). If you are already using GCal then you probably are familiar with the ease of adding events.

Now you need to set your mobile phone up for GCal.
Click on “Settings” in the top right corner of your browser.
Under Calendar Settings click on Mobile Settings.
Follow the instructions for validating your phone.
Once validated you are ready to send and receive text messages from your mobile phone.

So how do you Add an Event? Easy.
Simply send a text message to 48368.
In the message type something like “Kids Soccer tomorrow 5pm” or “Marketing meeting Jan 20 9am”
Google Calendar will do the rest!
Google will recognize your text and words such as today, tomorrow, or the date and add them as an event to your Calendar.

Power Tip - I use it for reminders as well. “Don’t forget to call John 5pm“. Setup reminders in GCal and you have your own secretary!

You can find an interesting picture just about anywhere.

Along the small roads in Jamaica you will find a variety of taverns and bars. Many will have a sign or painted on the side of the building; “It is my intention to apply to the licensing authority at the next session for a tavern license”. Each time I go back the same tavern still has the same sign outside.

While riding through east Jamaica we passed this small tavern and they added a little extra to their sign “Weapons Are Permitted on this Premises”. I had to get our driver to turn around so I could take this shot. Though it’s a simple image it does offer some idea of the culture in rural Jamaica.

Weapons Are Permitted

Well today was the first round of cold weather for the season. A chilly 55 degrees here in Florida. In honor of the occasion I decided to pull out one of the old snowflake images. I actually took these with a little Canon 640 set to macro and a lot of patience. Of course you have to have snow too. The snow is courtesy of Stowe, VT.
You can find interesting pictures in the smallest of places. Enjoy!

A lone snow flake

Lightning Photo Tip #1 – Don’t get struck!

Be sure to play it safe when shooting lightning pictures. I’ve had some close ones over the years and I quickly packed my bags and left. A good idea is to scout out places to take lightning or storm shots. Also note what’s around you so you can try to create a good composition for your photo. Remember it will be dark when you are shooting and the lightning will act like a flash for your image.

You should also note the directions you can shoot as in, North, South, East or West. With online mapping and weather radar you can easily track storms and predict your shooting location.

In the image below I went to one of my locations and knew the direction of the storm from radar. Though you never know when or where lightning will strike you can do some planning, guessing, and with a little luck get a great picture.

Lightning over Gulf of Mexico in Destin FL

More Lightning Images on Flickr

DISCLAIMER: Hey I gotta say this. Shooting lightning pictures is dangerous. Shoot at your own risk.

Flag drapped over cross after Katrina in Biloxi, MS. Over 2,100 views

As of today the short video below has been seen over 15,000 times. Now I know you can go on YouTube and create some stupid video and get X number of million hits but my point is the way we view images, video, and even art is changing right before our eyes. The Internet has given the ability for everyone to become a broadcaster of their creativity.

15 or even 10 years ago having a picture “seen” by thousands or millions of people was not feasible. Why? One reason was broadband Internet was not widely available and the second is social networking had not taken off. There are advantages and disadvantages to this.

The disadvantage is there is a lot of “noise” or junk out there that you have to sort through. Just sign up for twitter and you’ll see what I mean.

As far as advantages and there are many, one is it gives everyone a chance to show their creativity or work at very little cost. Joe in the middle of nowhere can showcase his work on the Internet just as good or even better than some high-end artist in New York. A level playing field has been created.

I post more on the topic in the coming days. For now take a look at the short clip below. It’s on Flickr which only let’s you create one minute or less videos. For myself, the fact images I created have been seen by thousands of people is amazing, whereas 10 years ago it would have been just a handful of people.

As always I look forward to your comments!

Video with 15,000+ view on Flickr.

See Original Page on Flickr

I added a link to images and a map to the War on Terror Philippines video.

Fely and the rest of the Philippines Mission Love Seeds team have put together 2 slideshows from Typhoon Ketsana. The typhoon hit the mission pretty hard and they have been providing relief services to the families in the Antipolo area.

You can still help by clicking on the Emergency Relief Fund we’ve setup. See link at bottom of post.

Slideshows from Fely
Note: Some of the images are graphic.

You can still donate to our Philippines Emergency Relief Fund by clicking the link below.

Mission Love Seeds is a 501(c)3 non-profit. (CH21942)