Kindle Notes & Highlights
You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved. —ANSEL ADAMS
Like a photographer or storyteller, Jesus exhibited time and again how easy it is to capture moments of profound importance simply by noticing, stopping, and responding to his surroundings.
What we see depends mainly on what we look for. —JOHN LUBBOCK
If we describe our relational needs in terms of physical hunger, the majority of the “friends” we interact with via technology fill us up the way an iced mocha cappuccino does—an initial burst of energy and pleasure that crashes shortly after. What our soul really craves is a solid meal—interactions with actual friends or family that take time, an investment of emotional energy, planning, thought, and focus.
When we start to fill our minds and hearts with voices that don’t really add meaning, over time we’ll silence the voice of the only One who does.
we weren’t created for technology; technology was created for us.
Our greatest and most destructive sin may just be “being busy.” It is robbing us of the moments right in front of us. We have to learn to resist the anxious momentum of the world. We need to see quietness and rest as our salvation. Christ is our rest, our peace. He is the gaps and moments of our days. He is there to free us from the exhaustion, to direct our passions and lives. If we let our minds be consumed and abused by the world’s stuff, we will lose our ability to know God and show him to the world and our families.
laughing at ourselves is okay, but when we invite others to laugh with us it’s a gift.”
No statistic can ever carry more power than a person’s true story told with authenticity.
Where there is perfection there is no story to tell. —BEN OKRI
The sad reality of all this effort is that no matter how much planning, preparation, or focus you give it, there is no such thing as the perfect photo. Artistic perfection does not exist, no matter how fervently we strive after it.
Stories without struggles feel empty and hollow. We resonate with pain, with challenges, with mistakes and mess-ups.
We love these types of stories because we identify with the imperfections. We see the flaws in our own character yet hope and pray that God can somehow make something great out of us. We think, If God could use that person, perhaps he could use me. And that is why we must share more of our stories—more of the flaws, more of the mistakes, more of the fall-flat-on-our-face moments where we messed things up almost beyond repair.
To share only the pain of our stories is to leave them incomplete. We must share how God redeemed our failures, how we learned to laugh at ourselves, how we learned life-changing lessons through those moments that have shaped who we are today.
I’ve realized that my idealism will never be sheltered from the world; other people will still be able to see that I am not perfect. As a matter of fact, people seldom expect us to be perfect, but somehow there is no way to avoid seeing our own imperfections.
a story won’t be able to accomplish any of these things if our fear of imperfection keeps us from sharing it. Nor will it affect anyone’s life if the story is shared but never heard, because it’s not enough just to share a story—someone has to take the time to stop . . . and listen.
Listening helps to honor people’s presence, and when you honor their presence, you get to their deeper, essential self.
Let’s face it, sometimes we want to be distracted. We welcome distractions in our lives because they are a great excuse to get us out of doing the difficult things that require our attention and focus. We love pretending that these minor things are so
There are always stories we don’t see hidden beneath the story we do
I like the descriptive image of sunsets, because there’s something that happens in the waning hours of the day that causes all of us to look toward the horizon, breathe, and reflect. Sunsets are life’s way of reminding us to focus for a second.
I’ve noticed that God’s people are often more taken up with working for him rather than with worshipping him.
Catherine Wallace writes, “Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”3 Some of the best parents I know are the ones who can empathize with their children and remember what it felt like to be their age. They don’t talk down to their kids; they affirm what their children are thinking and let them know they understand and they care.
Perspective helps us move away from a simplistic, one-dimensional view of life and allows us to explore the depth found in our subjects—even when the subjects are ourselves.
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. —HENRY VAN DYKE
I don’t go anywhere without a camera. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have as long as you bring it along. The best camera you have is always the one you have with you.1 You never know when a subject will suddenly show itself.
photographs don’t require a common vocabulary, they speak a universal language.
While I shoot digital images now, I still ration my shutter to take only images that stand against the test of time. For some, taking photos is like holding down the trigger on a machine gun—you hold down the shutter and capture twelve images in a second, leaving captured images strewn across your memory card like spent shotgun shells on the ground. For me, taking a photograph has holy significance. It is a likeness, and in that, it stands for something much, much more. The pictures I create are not the same ones I photographed—they are more; they are images that matter and stretch one’s
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Our world is made up of patterns, textures, and lines. A photographer is able to see how the parts can make a beautiful whole—an image.
We struggle in the tension between wanting to be who God created us to be and feeling frustrated with the way he made
We were all born unique, but most of us will die copies.2
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Our most beautiful works, many times, come stained with the most blood, sweat, and tears. Out of the struggle are birthed new revelations, new perspectives, and new life.
Good photographs are seen long before they happen. They are visualized in the mind before the shutter is triggered. They are brought to life and made in the darkness. A
if we share only the parts of our story that shine and are bright, our story has far less of an impact. Perfection is much more difficult to relate to.
The discovery of darkness is not an endorsement of it. It is an acknowledgment that it exists and that we serve a God big enough to make beauty out of it.
In some ways, stripping our stories of life’s sometimes messy details is what makes our faith seem so irrelevant to the dirty details of real life.
“Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.”
Light is the faithful. Light is the way. Light is here to save us from the darkness that threatens our world. Light is confidence. Light is holy and encompassing. Light is the one true way. Light is a promise of a new day. Light is eternal. Light is Jesus.
It is ironic, then, that without faith in others we’ll never be able to accept or receive promises that are made to
The darkness around us never, ever changes the truth that the sun exists. And the darkness around us never, ever changes the truth that the Light exists. Jesus said of himself, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”15 Jesus is faithful. Jesus can be trusted. Jesus is the Light.
The best artists and storytellers have the same world around them as the rest of us. It’s the same viewfinder, the same easel, the same software, and the same subjects. There is no special access to great art.
“The best photos happen to those who can see them.” The moments do not differ, only the eyes.
