Category: <span>Photography</span>

I don’t think I was 100% there this morning at church… or at least my mind wandered around funny little metaphors and analogies which I am determined to make something of – even if it just promotes more silliness.

I have been sitting on writing several posts on how studying aspects of design makes me think about God. Steering clear of the typical, ‘the great designer’ stuff because he is, but I mean in ‘other’ ways. Those ways of course I can’t remember right at this moment, but this morning my head went off on a tangent about photography.

Yes Rob, should you ever read this, this is where my mind was in the middle of your sermon.

So, Luke 10 was being used, (the Martha/Mary story) along with a whole lot of other things which I couldn’t keep track of – flighty mind – about the sole pursuit of God and of his kingdom. This directed attention dropped me into thinking about photos taken with a shallow depth of field, bear with me now, you might learn something, if I’ve learnt it correctly. An example of a photo with a shallow depth of field is at the top of this post.

One thing is in focus, the rest is not. This technique is used for a couple of pretty obvious reasons: the object is imperative for the use of the photograph, ie: a tomato in a salad for a food magazine where the adjacent article is specifically about tomatoes in salad. Wow. Or the background is boring, or, you just like taking photos like this because it makes you look professional. Ignoring the last suggestion, it’s pretty clear. The thing in focus, should you be a competent photographer, is the thing that matters.

I may have just made it all up in my head, but I think Rob mentioned distractions and being busy as deterrents for this single minded pursuit… it does make sense.

There are two things (roughly speaking) that you need to consider with taking photos regarding light – which is what will give you the image. You can go elsewhere for finer details, but these things are aperture and shutter-speed. I am partial in considering apertures first, but really they work hand in hand.

If you have wide aperture O you get more light than if you have a small aperture o. A wide aperture – means that your shutter speed doesn’t need to be as slow as if you would with a small aperture. Wider apertures give you a shallower depth of field (blurry background).

Here’s my metaphor. *Crosses fingers and hopes it makes sense now that I’m actually trying to make something out of it*

**all metaphors fall short at a certain point, this is never the fault of the metaphor maker but only that of the people who think too much. (Does that get me out of trouble?)

If our single minded pursuit of God has a ‘wide aperture’, letting much (considering the world and the kingdom of God) in O , but still quickly (shutter speed) coming back to God – thus avoiding more distractions, we get that focused picture. If we go about dallying around in looking at the world and even the kingdom of God through theories but don’t get straight back to him we wind up in a metaphorically overexposed position (That means, too much light, too much white) and it’s not much good.

We need to get back to God before anything works. Throw your high and mighty theology out the window if it isn’t lived and grounded in Him.

It’s a very shaky explanation, quite poor metaphor and I can’t be bothered right now seeing it works in reverse, but it’s gotten me thinking.

Keep hot, not lukewarm. Keep a wide perspective and a rapid point of reference in God.

(The photo is mine)