inspiration...

"laughter is the recognition that everything in every moment is essential and that nothing at all is important. we are brought closer together when we acknowledge that laughter is at the heart of things. There is a child hidden in every one of us and we always have the spirit of play somewhere inside us. sheer delight is uncompromising and when we yield to laughter we become whole. laughter makes us shine and renews our original unity with nature."
- brian vikander

so in my photography class last night we had a guest speaker. his name is brian vikander. he is a self-taught photographer of 30 years... traveling around the world and has been published in national geographic multiple times and has won photography competetions world-wide. and it was an absolutely amazing two hours! he showed us slides of his work and talked about the all of the countries that he has visited, and the different people that he has gotten to know... and of the goodness and pure human-ness of everyone regardless of what country they are from, what color their skin is, what language they speak, what religion they practice... he was such an fascinating and knowledgeable man! it was... wow. just an amazing class! it was pretty inspiring too! what would it be like to be able to visit those countries, those people and see how real and similar to us they are? we are so blinded by the media... and all the negative and hatred that they portray. but to be able to find the good everywhere you go... wow. it was really cool. anyway. you should check out his website! [i cant put any pictures on my blog... they are all mega copyrighted and stuff... so just click here!] but seriously... absolutely breathtaking pictures! that quote above accompanies the picture called "laughter at the heart" [click here to go directly to that picture] and i think it is my favorite picture of his.... and i love that quote!