Marvel

Friends and neighbors, it's been a good week.  I'll just run through it.


For a while now, Mawwiage Films knew this weekend was on its way.  Mr. Eric Funk and Ms. Stephanie Wiens were set to be married on Sunday, June 19th, 2011 and MF had the pleasure to capture their wedding.  There was a little something that we were particularly excited about though: not only was the beast of a photographer Mr. Nate Goins (nategoinsphotography.com) going to be photographing this particular wedding, but the delightful Ellie Mullins (mullins2.com) was going to be second shooting for him.  Do you know what this meant?  This meant that basically half of the Hume Lake Summer 2010 Media Crew was reuniting to collaborate.  Put it in a word: krill. So, because of this, Mr. Isaac Svensson and I drove up to Fresno a wee bit early in order to capitalize on this unique opportunity.

Saturday night, the crew headed to the Mullins² Studio in Fresno to chill and watch a movie.  And who shows up? Well, another Hume photographer, Ms. Kim Sheehan. What commenced can be described in one word: FUN.  It was great reuniting.  What's cool about friendship is you can pick up right where you left off, whether thats a day, a week, a month, a summer, a school year, a full year, a decade.  It was enjoyable.

The next day was the wedding. I don't want to spoil too much, we've got a teaser coming your way real real soon.  Let's just say, it was a beautiful wedding in Oakhurst, CA.  Nice and warm, lots of happy happy people, including an ecstatic bride and groom.  Plus, shooting with good friends, boy, that's begging for the "GREAT" label.

Now heres the deal with Oakhurst. Oakhurst is right near Fresno, and Fresno is right near Hume Lake, our home away from home. We had already driven 3+ hours for the wedding, we were now a little over an hour from Hume, so clearly, Hume was our next stop. Mr. Nate Goins and Ms. Ellie Mullins are productive workers, so they were not able to join Mr. Isaac Svensson and I on our expedition. After saying our goodbyes for the time being to our good friends, we took off for the mountains.

As we were driving, I noticed flames. I assumed they were crops burning, clearing a spot for a fresh start. As we continued, I realized these weren't crops... this was an actual fire. We began up the 180 towards Hume and in the first 5 miles, sure enough, an entire hill was on fire. As we were driving past, we discussed stopping: we had camera gear, we had time, we had fire, OF COURSE we need to stop.  We pull over to the side of the road amidst the fire crews, pull out the gear and began shooting away.  Here are two shots from the event:

Read this: http://mawwiagefilms.tumblr.com/post/6848925892/a-continued-lesson for continued stories.


After our little run-in with one of the most confusing phenomenon's that is FIRE, we continued on our way up the mountain. We were fortunate to borrow the Goins' family cabin, which was INCREDIBLE. We had a place to sleep, which is a big deal. Because of this, we ended up staying an extra day, simply because we had a place to sleep.

Hume was incredible. This is what I've been telling people: Rekindled friendships, made new friendships, and even made a little video for the campers. It was great great great to see many old friends from last year, friends from Biola that ended up at Hume, friends I knew from other places that ended up at Hume, friends I didn't know too well before but now do more-so, friends that didn't exist before this visit, my sister ROCKIN' the pantry, and some of the Friesen family who were visiting for the week. (Here's the deal, I thought about naming names, I thought about naming lots of names, I thought about for each of these "categories" naming names. But here's the deal with naming names, naturally, there's going to be a hierarchy, there's going to be "favorites." Now, obviously, we all have "favorite" friends, we have friends we get along with better than others, but they are all still friends. So, if I was going to name names, naturally, I would start with friends who I "like" more than other friends, even though they are still friends, perhaps even good friends. But here's the deal, ranking can be sticky business. If you saw yourself on my list and you were first, what would you think? If you saw yourself on my list and you were last, what would you think? If you DIDN'T see yourself on my list, what you think? So for this reason, I did not name names. If you read my categorical list, you know which category you fall under. You know if we're good friends. I know if we're good friends. You know if we're normal friends. I know if we're normal friends. We're all friends.) I enjoyed seeing and talking with every single one of you. I enjoyed our conversation. A lot.

You know what else was incredible? Getting all nostalgic-like; going NUTS in rec chapel, hanging in the media office with the old and new staff, enjoying a 7AM pancake breakfast, skating to and from boys town (my residence last year), enjoying POG, getting my consistent styrofoam cup of water from the G-Store, and finally, working on a short video with the new rec dudes, Nate and Louie, that was played in rec chapel the next day. There's honestly nothing like watching 1000 high schoolers go ABSOLUTELY APE watching your video, definitely top 10 best feelings.

Leaving was tough, we had been engulfed back into the Hume culture, just give us a camera and we were back in business.  We took off into the 100+ temperatures and said adios to our home away from home, a home that is responsible for our current lives, a home that is responsible for us not returning back to work at "home" (which is a bizarre thing to think about).  In fact, one of my art films from a while back was literally the BEGINNING of Mawwiage Films. Hume served as training, we were prepared, this was the BEGINNING:


Profession (Video Art) from Morgan Lott on Vimeo.




All this to say, the last week has been marvelous.  Such good times, such good experiences, such good memories.  Not only that, but Hume Lake is going to influence thousands of kids lives, God is going to work wonders through Hume this summer, it doesn't get better than that. Period.  I hope you enjoyed the story, good stories are always fun.  I hope your week is as marvelous as mine was. Seriously. In fact, to kick things off right, go out and drink out of a drinking fountain. Think about it, public, free, water, free for quenching your thirst. That's a pretty good way to start off a marvelous week.

Seriously folks, thanks for reading. Enjoy your fountain.