Something to Think About

It's nice to have those centering moments, those when you evaluate your life and where you stand in the cosmos and give yourself new direction when necessary. It's also nice to be assured that these moments make you a better person. For me, it's not necessarily a quest for self-improvement. It's a quest to focus on what's important and what's not.

Putting things in perspective helps. If you realize that this entire universe, in its immensity and infinity, sits in a dark corner of God's eye, it gives you perspective. When you consider that the Creator could make such a universe, limitless in size, and that this universe would still be miniscule in comparison to His greatness, this gives you perspective. I find it unbelievable that so many can invert this notion, making themselves bigger and more important that God. Though I wish on no one eternal judgement, I find such a sentence just in light of the violation. Remember the perspective.

With regularity, I also try and remind myself that I am here for God's purposes. This makes a lot of things that seem important really pointless and cheap. We give a lot of thought to clothes, houses, cars, phones and other things. These things won't even exist in eternity. They barely exist here, most having such a short useful life. Yet we give them preeminence over things that are more weighty, more lasting, more important. The things that last forever, we push aside. If our priorities were in the right place, we would put all of our energy and all of our resources into people. That "we" most assuredly includes me. I spend most of my time thinking about how I dislike people and how much I like things that don't talk. In trying to maintain this perspective that places people first, I feel like I walk a narrow path which falls off steeply on both sides. One step to the left or the right and I find myself scrambling for all I'm worth to get back on top. Most of the time, I'm content just to roll to the bottom and stay there.

Yet here I sit at my desk. I look around me and in all corners I see things, not people. It's easy to lose perspective. When I'm surrounded by people, I'm not thinking about them as people though. I'm thinking about them as obstacles, traffic cones to be steered around. Yet what I'm really thinking is that I'm bigger than they are. My goals, the tasks at my hand, are more important. Then, if I have a moment of clarity, I notice that I'm looking through the binoculars backwards like a doofus. I pull them away from my eyes and see that we--myself and those around me--are the same size. We are crossing paths on the way from our Points A to our Points B and we all have our eyes fixed on Point B. I look back and see a hand resting on my shoulder, having just shaken me awake. This wasn't my great idea, putting people first. I would never have such a thought. Yet it is a good idea and I'll do what I can to move in that direction.

So what do you do when you make your way through the teeming masses, everyone with their head to the ground, plowing their way through the throng? What I try to do is to make contact with these people. Eye contact is a first. You have to be actively searching for this, too. Verbal contact, when possible, is next. I'm not talking about establishing deep, lasting friendships with all or any of these people. What I'm talking about is acknowledging that they exist and forcing them to acknowledge that you exist. Add value to their life by noticing it. Toss out a friendly word and see if the cat licks it up.

Many years ago, I saw a commercial that I remember with clarity (I wasted quite a lot of time looking for it this morning with zero success). An old woman, matronly in figure, obviously not getting about with the ease of her younger years, is walking down the sidewalk. She passes a young, nice-looking man who catches her eye and says, "Hey there, good looking!" In the next scene, you see her, spirits buoyed by the contact, telling her friend on the phone about the encounter. During all of this, a voice-over is selling long distance service, insurance, investment brokering or Mormonism, but that's not the important part of the commercial. The message is obvious: you can make someone's day with a simple word and simply noticing they are there. I've wanted to try this, but I just don't think I can pull it off. I'm not really sure how important the young, good-looking man aspect is in the equation. Since I don't meet that requirement, if I tried, I'd probably get a face full of pepper spray. One of these days, I'll try it anyway. No guts, no glory, right?

So I offer you this challenge: as you move about, going from A to B, take notice of those around you. As you purposely seek eye contact, when you find it, say "Hi" to that person. Any other variation will work, too: "Hi there", "Howdy", "Hey", or for the truly bold, "Hey there, good looking!".

 

Wedding Shoot #2

A couple of weekends ago today, I had just finished photographing my third wedding. With only three weddings under my belt, one being so long ago as to not be relevant, I am far from a veteran of the wedding shoot, but I'm getting there, closer and closer with every opportunity. This wedding found me more educated than the last, and the next will hopefully not be so far in the future that my experience will not remain beneficial.

(Photo to right: Me catching the maiden of honor as my assistant caught me.)

I did one thing at this wedding that I had read about, and the results were good enough that I will defininitely try it again. I set up a photo booth between the receiving line and the reception where I took a quick snap of all the wedding guests. I decided that table shots were a less-than-ideal way to photograph the guests. You always are catching someone with a mouth full of cake, or you have people on the wrong side of the table. You are also always asking someone to move around and do a better job of getting into the picture. I have always sensed that many people in that context consider the photograph to be a violation of their privacy, and if not that, then at least a disturbance of their peace. Circling the reception like a vulture, camera in hand, I feel like the unwanted guest of the wanted guests.

The photo booth was a success with only one slight exception. It was a last minute adaptation and I didn't have the opportunity to create or find a suitable backdrop. Instead, I used a utilitarian one: a wide spot in the hallway on the way to the reception hall. It worked. The controlled environment created some consistency in quality and some control, though you wouldn't believe how differences in skin color and the color of clothing can jerk things around, exposure-wise. There is nothing that will fool you camera's meter better than dark skin. The next time, I'd like to have the classic white backdrop or maybe a nice muslin. We'll see.

I turned a DVD over to the family today. There were 754 images that made the final cut. I could have cut more out, but I was satisfied with what was in that group. I realize that there is no way they will print all, or even most, of that 754, so I am happy with the overkill. Actually, I started editing with almost 1200 images. I had an assistant on this shoot, and between me and her, we were certainly victims of Digital Overkill*. After cutting the ones with soft focus (what a photographer calls those images he took which are out of focus, for whatever reason) and after cutting the ones that seemed particularly bad or unnecessary, I was left with 754 that I was unashamed of. The final word will be when the family reports back, either satisfied or dissatisfied. I will try and get an untainted opinion by not asking what they think, begging for a compliment.

Once again, this wedding shoot proved to be a marathon. I arrived at the church at 10:30am and left at around 5:30pm. Afterward, I let my camera sit untouched for two days, not looking at a single image until then. The culling/editing process took time. Photography is, after all, moonlighting for me, so I don't have huge slabs of time to devote to editing between gigs. Like the tortoise, slow and sure does the job. I finally finished and all that remains is to see if the family is satisfied.

Fingers are still crossed. I am, in all regards, still a novice.

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* - Digital Overkill: The tendency to shoot far more exposures than is necessary due to the ease of doing so with a digital camera. With film, photographers tended to be more judicious because of the cost of shooting, processing and printing lots of film. Digital cameras allow us to blast away, typically resulting in huge exposure count.

Wanting Things

It seems in life there should be some balance between lustful materialism and totally austere anti-materialism. After all, we need things to live, perhaps not as much as we have, but we still need things. The balance probably falls somewhere between never being satisfied with what you have and being satisfied with having nothing.

Morally speaking, I have done some soul searching and don't think that I have an unhealthy appetite for More and Better. I may be delusional, but when I want something, it is, most often, a something that will equip me to do another something, i.e., a tool of some kind. There have been other times when I realize the "tools" I have at present are so shoddily poor that I want to improve on what I have to hopefully improve my output. Generally, I am just happy if I have something that works.

I was having a discussion with Dale the other day. He asked me something that alluded to whether my wish list still had a bass guitar of some kind on it. I told him that since I had gotten the Lakland, I stopped looking at guitars. I told him that was sort of like marrying the right woman: when you find her, you know you've found her and you stop looking.

I recently purchased a new amp: a Gallien-Krueger MB-115. It is a 200-watt combo with one 15-inch speaker and a switchable horn (for high freqs). I played through one at Guitar Center a few months ago and loved its sound. I have barely used it, so I don't really have a good opinion, but I like it so far. Having this amplifier will hopefully mean that I stop looking at amps, too.

The gnostic notion that all material is bad and that we are spirits trapped in an evil, material world is silly and I don't hold to that at all.  However, I do believe that there is Christian teaching that counters materialism. It centers on the notion that God is our provider, that he both created and sustains life. When we think that we exist because of our own ingenuity and due to our own wits, we are deluded. Granted, we have responsibilities, but we make a grave mistake when we believe that we are self-made men. Since God is our provider and since he is sovereign over all things and since he is omniscient and knows all things, then he knows what we need and will provide for all our needs "according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).  He also provides us with the skills, gifts and the raw materials to do our own work, so ultimately nothing we do is of ourselves. By wanting more and more, we are saying that we are dissatisfied with God's provision. We are saying that we know better what it is we need than He does.

Truthfully, I didn't need either a Lakland 55-01 or a Gallien-Krueger MB-115. There are a lot of things in my life that are there, not out of necessity or need, but because they make life a little more enjoyable. I don't believe that life should be austere and that there is no room for pleasure and enjoyment. I just believe that in the midst of my consumption of the material bounty often found in this life, I should be both thankful and content: thankful to the Provider, and content that what he has provided is good enough.