Photography is precious to me.
Creating something beautiful results in an amazing feeling. It makes you feel alive. It makes you feel proud to have actually made something.
Photography is also an incredible form of worship. What better way of honoring God than by capturing moments in time that He created? Photography is not possible without light. After all, photography is fundamentally the studying and capturing of light. Even at night, in what would typically be called ‘pitch black’, with a long enough shutter, you can still capture some light. Eventually, light prevails.
Our culture is filled with darkness. Finding those moments, those emotions, those fleeting sunsets is a way to preserve beauty, hope and light.
On a trip several years ago, I was on traveling underground on a tunnel car in a foreign city. The tunnel was filled with lights and there were a couple of those inflatable-wavy-arm things that sit outside cell phone stores and car lots.
I braced my camera against my body while resting it on a handrail because of the low light and shot periodically as we moved along. As I walked back above ground, I noticed this image:
I froze in my tracks and immediately zoomed in on my display screen. Now, I’m not saying I captured the Virgin Mary on my grilled cheese, but check out that upper left corner.
As to not skew the response, I showed the image to some friends and asked what they saw. Everyone said “Jesus with a crown of thorns.” Here’s a side-by-side rotated comparison.
Now, do I actually believe that God said, “I declare the image of my son to appear in this camera!” No, of course not. But, I do think that it’s awesome to have captured something that reminds me Jesus is the King to those people and is a light in a dark, dark place.
Greater things are yet to come in that city.
The Pressing On 