blog.michaelcosta.net

Merry Christmas!

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 10:37:07 -0500

Merry Christmas!

Oscar Peterson - O Christmas Tree

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:54:46 -0500

Oscar Peterson - O Christmas Tree

Paper Route - Sing You to Sleep

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:06:16 -0500

Paper Route - Sing You to Sleep

Alex & Jeremy

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:49:57 -0500

One of the highlights of our time in Tampa so far has been meeting a lot of great new friends in the Tampa Bay Clemson Club. It’s there that we have gotten to know Alex and Jeremy—two of the friendliest and warmest people Rita and I have ever met. Jeremy played football at Clemson and Alex was a swimmer. Jeremy coaches high school football in Tampa, and we’ve gone to see him coach his team (who only lost like two games this year by the way). Their wedding in Clemson next fall is going to be epic, and we can’t wait to shoot it.

List of Eponymous Laws

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:17:35 -0500

Internet browsing and curiosity somehow led me to this Wikipedia List of Eponymous Laws. I’ve always wondered what it would take for me to think of something clever, call it Costa’s Law, and see if it takes off. There are a lot of great ones here, ranging from complex physics to stuff like Murphy’s Law. Some of my favorites are:

Rothbard’s law – “Everyone specializes in his own area of weakness.”

Sturgeon’s law – “Ninety percent of everything is crud.”

Godwin’s law – An adage in Internet culture that states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

Littlewood’s law – “Individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month.”

fun. - We Are Young I am always a sucker for epic indie...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:56:04 -0500

fun. - We Are Young

I am always a sucker for epic indie choruses.

"It’s just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there."

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:30:19 -0400

“It’s just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there.”

- The amazing Andy Rooney, suggesting that it’s myopic for one generation to assume that everything new is always worse

On the Dumbing-Down of Spirituality (or the Search for Substance)

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:15:27 -0400

As much as Rita and I have enjoyed the last 5 months in Tampa, there is one aspect of settling in that we’ve found especially difficult: finding a church community that we are content with. I know that it’s never easy finding the best place, because nowhere is going to meet all the factors we are considering. Simply put, there is no perfect place, and we have to accept that. But our church tour of Tampa is revealing more to me than just our spiritual pickiness. I’ve been continually disappointed with the depth of messages we’ve been hearing; it makes me wonder if we have just had bad luck, or if the simplistic, lightweight theme I am weary of has grown so popular that’s hard to find a church with some balls anymore.

We have tried Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and non-denominational (Southern Baptists in disguise). We’ve heard electric guitars, acoustic guitars, trumpets, banjos, organs, choirs, old lady soloists, and a black gospel a cappella group (which was by far my favorite music). No matter what the style of worship, they all shared an overwhelmingly “dumbed down” feel to them. The lyrics to the songs and the messages from the speakers seemed like they were geared toward high schoolers—yet the crowds around us were all ages of people, full of glazed-over eyes and visually predictable reactions.

Rita put it best when she said, “I want to hear a preacher discuss spiritual questions that don’t have clear answers.” That sums up our desire so well. We are adults, and we want messages and ideas that challenge us. We want to learn. I can’t sit in a service that only sings about falling on knees and only discusses issues in a black or white, right or wrong format where the speaker makes clear the side of an issue you should be on if you want to go to heaven. It’s simply not real life.

In college, I started going to FCA my freshman year. I went pretty regularly that year, but there came a point when it dawned on me that I was hearing the same simple message over and over again. And the worst part was, I didn’t even agree with most of it. The speakers were delivering shallow messages on simple topics, and making clear what he or she wanted you to believe, word for word. I realized that Christianity isn’t easy, you don’t automatically have that hole in your life filled when you become a Christian, and you aren’t set for life if you just recite some words while people you don’t know are putting their hands on your shoulders. I became so uncomfortable with that atmosphere that I still—to this day—have trouble enjoying worship if there is even an electric guitar sitting on the stage. I needed a community that wasn’t trying to be cool in front of each other. I began searching out richer messages, with speakers that explored ideas humbly, with respect to the fact that we don’t have all the answers and we never will.

Wise words can set you free by leaving you with more questions than you previously had. I love feeling blown away by a new stance on an issue I have never considered. I love driving to work and wrestling with something I heard the morning before that I disagreed with. I love to hear a minister admit that he’s human and he might be wrong, but he’s going to give it a shot because he is passionate about it.

To be clear however, I really do want there to be environments that cater to people that aren’t as familiar with what church is about. I want there to be places where someone can start from the beginning and learn simply how to grow their faith. But it scares me that it seems like this dumbed down message is spreading to churches that used to have more depth and courage. And it scares me even more to think that this is maybe part of a larger dumbing down of American society—and the church pulpits are one strand of the cheaper, faster, easier, mass-produced, low quality way of life that has been sweeping over us. Instead of a well-built foundation, we throw something together that’s shoddy and won’t last.

This all sounds incredibly picky, and it probably is. But frankly, I am not going to waste valuable time and money somewhere that I don’t get my return on investment (philosophically, spiritually, and emotionally speaking). There have to be people out there who desire the same experience we do. And we’ll find them. For now, it’s back to the search…next Sunday, we’ll hit another church on our list.

One More From Italy

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:32:53 -0400

One more that I forgot to post. Woman in Sienna.

Erin & Matt's Wedding

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:01:15 -0400

Cheers to Erin and Matt for a beautiful, perfect wedding. Also, I’ve never been to a wedding reception where I walked away thinking, “I can’t believe no one got hurt.” That crowd knew how to party like crazy, it was the most fun wedding reception I’ve ever been to where I wasn’t the groom.

360˚ View of Discovery Interior

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:10:24 -0400

Amazing. I busted out laughing though when I saw the crappy Dell laptop. At least they could stay up to date on all their favorite blogs while they were in space. http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html

comealive: Chris Thile & Michael Daves - “My Little Girl in...

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:47:42 -0400

comealive:

Chris Thile & Michael Daves - “My Little Girl in Tennessee”

Italy Roundup

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:09:36 -0400

Here are some more personal photos from Italy. Some guerilla photography, pigeons, and mountains rising up out of the sea. I became obsessed with taking pictures of angry old Italian people. Rita read four books on the trip, I only read one. Catcher in the Rye. Somehow I had skipped it during my first 28 years. I wasn’t too crazy about it overall (it kind of bored me, yeah I said it), but I could really appreciate the great quotes from it. Hopefully you can read these while all the photos are loading.

Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.

- - - - - - - - -

What I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes. What I think is, you’re supposed to leave somebody alone if he’s at least being interesting and he’s getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice.

Kate & Will - Wedding

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:47:57 -0400

I was really fortunate to shoot this one. A little rain actually made the wedding more beautiful. Couldn’t have asked for a better day or a nicer couple. I knew Will a little before becoming their photographer, but I was welcomed in by everyone like an old friend.

Some Italy Photos

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:42:57 -0400

I haven’t had time to go through many of my Italy photos because editing the wedding photos I took there was my priority. But here are a handful. Sorry for the slow loading times and clogging up your newsfeed.

Misty & Jared Engagements in Greenville

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:48:53 -0400

The stars aligned for a last minute engagement shoot with Misty & Jared when I was in Greenville shooting a wedding. I love making good friends and shooting photos at the same time.

grace family pictures in baltimore.

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 10:41:52 -0400

Classic.

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we..."

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:14:34 -0400

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

”

- Wendell Berry, “The Real Work” (via bables)

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Lie Awake This one from...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:03:39 -0400

Alison Krauss & Union Station - Lie Awake

This one from their new album Paper Airplanes is awesome. They are such precise musicians, it just blows me away.

The weekend before leaving for Italy, I got to fly back up to my old hometown of Greenville, SC to...

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:06:47 -0400

The weekend before leaving for Italy, I got to fly back up to my old hometown of Greenville, SC to do two great shoots. I shot some engagements for Misty and Jared:

And I also shot Will and Kate’s wedding (the real Will and Kate). It rained a little, but it made it all the more beautiful. I can’t wait to finish up all the photos from these two shoots. Having a huge backlog of photos to edit is a great feeling. I never want to take it for granted. Having moved to Florida, photography is about to slow down big time so I am trying to relish every moment of what I have now.