Growing So Fast

Here's a quick photo update of how much Rachel has been growing up. It's amazing how much she is developing and learning week by week. She is honestly such a sweetheart all the time. You couldn't ask for a better baby.

Our New Addition

Hello World! I'd like to announce the arrival of the newest and cutest addition to our family, Rachel! She is so sweet and adorable, and surprisingly well behaved. And what else do you say about a newborn... oh, yeah, you just pull out the pictures next.

Just some design fun

Some of you may know that Becky and her mom raise show quality mini lops (that's a type of bunny). And they do some top quality breeding! So when Becky was about to print out some new business cards I stopped her so I could design her a new business card with a new logo to match the caliber of her bunnies (that was wishful thinking, her bunnies surpass my design skills by a long shot). Anyway, I came up with a logo that I thought turned out alright, so I decided to post it here. Also, if you'd like to see some of Becky's bunnies go to oasisrabbitry.com

Then (in the least narcissistic way possible) I made some modifications to a personal logo I had made previously. I just tried to make it more compact. Designing and Illustrator are fun, end of story.

Dad's Advice

I posted this video on my blog a couple of years ago, but it was a very small compressed version... so I thought it would be a good idea to get a slightly better version online so it could be easily accessible and enjoyed by family and friends online.

My dad sits down and gives his kids some advice. This was two months before he passed away from cancer.

Man of the Cloth

For those of you who didn't get to see my capstone film, I've made it available to watch here. Enjoy!

Father Archibald is a new priest on his way to a small parish in a dying mining town. It's not the assignment he was hoping for, but the few parishioners that are left help him remember why he joined the priesthood in the first place.

LIFE

Here's the video I ended up making for the LDS international video contest. Enjoy!

Breakdancing

At the end of December I was working on a film shoot with Miguel and promised him that I'd put together a video of him breakdancing because he was just so awesome! Luckily it didn't take me too long to fulfill the promise. Take a look at the video and help make him famous on youtube.

My Mormon Message

It wasn’t uncommon to get a bag of fruit, vegetables, or preserves from the neighbors. Especially when I was younger I remembered that everyone seemed to be bottling the fruit off their fruit trees, giving away zucchinis, and giving away zucchini bread from the zucchinis they couldn’t get rid of. You know, you want to share your bounty with the neighbors, because your neighbors were your friends and that’s what you’d do, you’d share with them, and they’d share with you. You didn’t need an apricot tree if the neighbors had one, because they’d end up with more apricots than they could use and vise-versa. So fresh produce from a neighbor wasn’t an unusual gift to see on the kitchen counter. There was one bag of nectarines, however, that was an especially important gift to me.

Sister Hall was a widow in the ward who had had polio when she was younger, and as a result had trouble getting around. She needed a walker to help her get from place to place. My first memories of Sister Hall came when I turned fourteen and became my Dad’s home teaching companion. Really it was through those visits to Sister Hall that my Dad taught me the importance of home teaching; what a home teacher really is. I could see that my Dad loved and cared for Sister Hall and took his responsibility to care for this widow very seriously. I’ll never forget my Dad always going to shovel Sister Hall’s steps and driveway after a snowstorm. He remembered the little things that she’d need, and he made sure the priesthood was always available to her and her family in her home.

Years later when I was living away from home going to college we found out that my Dad had cancer and that it was unlikely he live much longer. Maybe a year at the most. As the cancer progressed there were fewer foods my Dad could include in his diet. A few days before he passed away I remember waking up and eating breakfast with him. We had fruit on cereal. He liked to eat fruit because it was one of the few things he could eat that would help get rid of the awful taste he always had in his mouth.

My dad died on July 15, 2007. That day we put a note on our front door thanking people that would come by for their thoughts and prayers, but asking them not to disturb us so we could have some time just as a family. Later that evening we opened the front door and found a few things that people had left on the porch, including a bag of fresh nectarines from Sister Hall. Sister Hall knew how much my dad enjoyed nectarines, and that simple gift was just what my Dad would have appreciated most. The nectarines came too late for my Dad to enjoy them, but that gift had a profound effect on me. The bag of nectarines from Sister Hall seemed to me like the widow’s mite in the New Testament. There was so much love in that gift from a widow to her home teacher in need. And isn’t that what it’s really all about. All of us loving and caring about each other. That’s Zion to me.

Temple Art Available Online

A company out of Arizona, Raymond Designs, is now selling some of my temple art online! See in in their online store.

I have a larger selection of my temple art available in another online store at imagekind.

Take a look, and let me know which pictures you like the best!

New Website

I've been working on a new website for myself, so if you have a little time to look at it and give me any feedback it would be much appreciated. I'd just like to see what people's responses are like before I go ahead and pay for a domain name. Thanks everyone.

Here's the link: www.wix.com/bgandy/home

My New Reel

Check out my new reel!

Bryce Gandy Reel from Bryce Gandy on Vimeo.

Large Font, or Not?

Just wanted to do another quick survey, because I really do value your opinions. Of these which do you prefer: the large, or small font?

Any other observations or critiques are also welcome. And, as always, you can see them in higher resolution on flickr.

Redemptive Film Festival

Good news! My BYU capstone film Man of the Cloth is one of the official selections of the Redemptive Film Festival and will be awarded with a Redemptive Storyteller Award at the festival in November. The festival is in Virginia Beach, so if anyone is out in Virginia in November you should go see the film.

Bountiful Temple

Here's another variation on the previous Bountiful Temple photo. I was thinking Japanese blossoms on an aged scroll :) see it on flickr

Temple Photography

I appreciate the feedback I got on my last post, it encouraged me to do a couple more variations of this vintage style photography. How do these next two photos compare? Remember you can look at them in a higher resolution on my flickr page.

Good Enough To Buy?

Photographers sell pictures like these. I made these today, but are they good enough that you'd buy them? Look at them in a higher resolution on my flickr photostream.

Antelope Island

The film shoot came to a close yesterday so I thought I'd post a couple of my photos from White Rock Bay on Antelope Island where we were on location for the last week of our shoot. The location was gorgeous, but the bugs were awful. Also, if you haven't experienced floating in the Great Salt Lake, you should. It's pretty cool.

For Robbing The Dead

This past month I've been working as the Production Coordinator on the set of For Robbing The Dead. It's a western based on the true story of Jean Baptiste who robbed graves in the Salt Lake cemetery back in the 1860's. It's a beautiful, compassionate story that will be a fantastic film.

We've had some awesome locations, so I've brought my camera along to snap pictures when I'm not busy. Below are some pictures I took at our Utah Lake location: orange headed birds... green dancing bugs... and some panoramas...

I'm Getting Married!

I'm getting married to Becky Jones on June 12th in Salt Lake. Becky is amazing and I love her! She is also the reason I have failed to blog at all so far in 2010. The picture above is of us right after I proposed. We set the camera up on a tripod, set the timer and got this magical shot.

A Little Christmas Miracle

Christmas break is a wonderful time, made even more wonderful when it's actually a break. Although after sleeping in every day for a week straight I find myself feeling a little anxious to do something at least somewhat productive... so now I'm blogging.

Life has been busy so I kind of forgot to make a post about dancing in Christmas Around The World in the Marriot Center. It was a great concert and I was thrilled to be a part of it as a part of the Performing Arts Company this year. Really it's been a dream come true. The entire week before the performance was definitely crazy with all of the rehearsals, but luckily my biggest paper was due before all of the rehearsals got started that week. For the actual concert I got to dance in five of the numbers: Haj'd Povedi Veselo from Serbia, Hambone from the USA, Balle Balle from India, Betekintés Szatmárba from Hungary, and the Hopak from the Ukraine.

Last year I was in Christmas Around The World and did Tinikling from the Philippines. I remember being in the wings waiting to come on for the finale while PAC did Hopak. Each night I would watched Hopak and wish that I could perform it... someday... maybe if I was lucky. But I never really imagined that I'd actually make PAC and perform Hopak in Christmas Around The World. Folk dance is part of my heritage since my parents were both folk dancers, and something about that dance really has allowed me to connect with my heritage in a whole new way. So this year I've had a simple prayer answered that I prayed offstage and never imagined would actually come true. It was a tender mercy for me.

Below is a picture of my mom, Mary Bee (the founder of folk dance and director when my parents folk danced at BYU), and me in the Serbian costume.

Here is a picture of me, Ed Austin, and my mom. Ed is the director of the Performing Arts Company now, and he danced with my parents way back in the day.

After the concert I had finals to look forward to. Don't worry, I survived, and almost all of my finals went better than I was expecting them to. Okay, now I'm going to go back to relaxing and taking advantage of the break. Have a happy new year everyone!