Noise

Phoebe

Hark!  What's that I hear?   Some kind of obnoxious visual static is ruining my groove and it's so loud I really can almost hear it.   When I saw the tiny version of this photo on my camera (and all the other tiny photos that showed on my tiny LCD screen that day), I thought it was lovely.  When I downloaded it and saw it full screen, I had to put my hands over my ears.  NOISE!   I checked the properties of the photo and discovered that my camera did an end run around my intentions and bumped the ISO up to 1600.   When I take an indoor photo without flash in a reasonably well-lit room with the aperture set at F/2.4, I don't expect to be confronted with the number 1600.   The shutter speed was 1/45.   All my photos that day (Christmas, actually) were lousy with noise.   What went wrong here?

Must calm down.   (Breathing deeply...breathing deeply...)  

I've allowed a fair amount of noise in my life, things that take away from the clarity of my thoughts and add static to my brain.   I'm sort of like Counselor Troi when it comes to picking up emotional static from all around me ("Captain, I'm sensing a feeling of loss, of anger...")    There are times when emotional sensitivity comes in handy, but there are lots of times when it becomes NOISE.  I'll let you know if I figure out how to resolve the noise issues in my life.  (Rats!  I should have said "I'll keep you posted.")  It might revolve around taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.  And as for the camera noise?  There's probably a setting deep in the labyrinth of the menu that I've ignored somewhere along the way, or that I set incorrectly, forgetting to leave a trail of bread crumbs on my way out so I could find it again.  

It's the last day of 2011.  I'm posting today mostly because I set a goal of doing two blog posts a month as a discipline.   Before you look at my blog post schedule for this year and see the glaring inconsistencies, let me hastily point out that I made this resolve in September.   (Ha!)   My goal at the beginning of the year was to do one a week, but let's not get caught up in the messy details of my failures.  

Depth of Field

All right, class, it's time for a little lesson on depth of field.  I have a new lens to play with, the official title of which is "smc Pentax-DA 35mm F2.4 AL."  Most of that doesn't mean much to me.  The key piece of information is the F2.4, which means that I now have a wider aperture setting for low light conditions.  More light!   I'm still experimenting with it and have discovered that lower aperture setting requires more care with focusing, since the depth of field (the field in which the camera will focus) becomes smaller with a wider aperture.  (I can almost believe that I'm starting to understand this stuff!)  Here are a couple examples:

In each case the first photo was more focused on the body of the snowman, rather than the face.  There are times for unfocused faces, but this was not one of them.

In life, as in photography, we sometimes need to vary our depth of field, our focus, as it were.  Sometimes we need to see the big picture: F/22, where the depth of field is basically infinity (kind of an interesting concept when you think about it).  But if we spend all our time only looking at the big picture, we miss the individual, or the "particulars," as Francis Schaeffer was fond of saying.  The trick with both the camera and with life, is to have the wisdom to know the best depth of field for each situation.   Jesus saw the whole crowd of 5,000 and fed them.  Jesus also saw the one leper in need of healing and compassion, the one whose face was blurry and unfocused to the rest of the world.   He saw, He focused, He touched, He healed.   If you really want a good lesson on depth of field, go read your Bible and spend some time with the Master Photographer.

What Do You See?

What do you see?  Do you see an old man?  Of course you do, for that is what he is, an old man nearing the end of his journey.  He sleeps most of the time, rarely talks, doesn't remember much.  And that, if you don't know him, is all you can see when you look at these photographs.  That is the limitation of photography and, in fact, a limitation of our eyes.  We can only capture what is visible in that moment in time; we don't see the broad spectrum of what makes that person who he is; we don't see the rich and varied history of his life.

You see an old man. I see my father.  You see white hair, age spots and wrinkles.  I see the gentle, good-humored, kind and dependable man who helped raise me.  You see his current uselessness, while I see a gymnast, a musician, a band teacher, a fisherman, a handyman, a fellow who worked hard, dressed like Mister Rogers and was lovingly faithful to his wife.  You see a man who no longer interacts with his world; I see someone who read to his children, took them on endless camping trips, went swimming with them often every summer, told funny stories, whose knees creaked as he came running up the stairs at night saying, "you kids settle down up there!" and who much later quietly grieved the loss of his oldest daughter.   And even what I see isn't all there is to the man.  Think what his wife and parents could tell, what they could add to our understanding of his life.  Yet with all of that, our picture still isn't complete, for only God knows the deepest parts of a man's soul.

What do you see?  What can any of us really see?  Pray that the God Who Really Sees would open our eyes and give us compassion for those who can no longer tell us who they are.  

Me in my Dad's lap

More Light

When you can't understand "The Idiot's Guide to..." you know you're in trouble.  Such was the case when I started reading photography books, including the Idiot's Guide.  I realized early on that I didn't care about the mechanics of how digital photography works, the acronyms (CCD! SR! RGB!) and all their environs.  I started to skip those chapters in the hopes of finding useful information further on, but was dismayed to find out that in order to get the most out of my camera, I had to disengage the autopilot and engage my brain to make all sorts of decisions.  Is it good for me?  Of course!  Has it been a road filled with error, confusion and frustration?  Absolutely.  I kept large note cards beside me while I read and jotted down all sorts of information that I promptly forgot.  I'm not one of those people who learns by reading; I learn by doing.  Now that I'm older, real learning only takes place when I do it A LOT.  Nevertheless, there have been small triumphs along the way.

Recently I was visiting my mom and dad at the nursing home where my dad lives.  There was a  flower in a vase by the window that caught my eye.  I took the photo  and of course the light coming in behind the vase obscured the flower in darkness - not a bad effect, but not what I was looking for.

As I pondered this business of the light, some dim memory began to surface about different options with light metering.  Didn't I read something about that 2 years ago when I was making all those notes?  Spot metering?  I managed to find it on the menu (no small feat - it's a jungle in there!), changed the setting and took another photo.  Amazing difference!

Although there's almost too much light in this photograph, my usual cry is "more light! more light!"  I crave light.  Even in the winter when opening the drapes means letting in more cold, I don't hesitate.  I have to have it.   My soul craves it as well; my cry to Jesus is "more light! more light!"   Psalm 36:9 says

"For with You is the fountain of life; 

     In Your light we see light."

There you have it.  More light must come from the Source of light and life.  It is He who opens up the aperture, who spreads wide the drapes that darken our souls.  Hallelujah!

Imagination

Imagination allows us to pick up a weirdly shaped yellow pepper and "see" a pirate lurking in it.   In this case, Sam's imagination prompted him to make his idea a reality by adding the right props, as you can see.  

Vegetables actually provide a lot of "scope for the imagination," to quote Anne with an "e."   When I was cleaning our potatoes, I found one that was the spittin' image of a bare hiney.  Now why didn't I get a picture of that?  Probably a subconscious sense of modesty kept me from making a permanent record.   However, I did get a picture of these carroty friends sharing a sweet embrace (I can almost imagine that it is a joyful reunion after a long separation, or perhaps a last hug before one has to leave the other for an extended time).

I propose this definition:  Imagination is a function of creation: it is the means by which we create new ideas, for better or for worse, from that which we see and know in the real world.  Why on earth did God give us imaginations?  For certainly imagination has its dark side as well - those of you who have imagined fearful and dark things in the future, or who have created harmful fantasy images know of which I speak.  As far as I know, the Bible doesn't say much about our imaginations...or does it?  It is said "...we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," and Paul's injunction to the Philippians is to let their minds dwell on those things which are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent or worthy of praise.  Thinking creatures must imagine.  Our imaginations will either be sanctified or sullied; true or tainted; whimsical or warped.   Thank God for your imagination and then ask Him to make it like His.   He came to make all things new.

Touching Up and Glorifying

There are all sorts of great photo editing programs out there, some of which are free and available to schmucks like me.  I struggle sometimes with the ethics of changing a photo, altering it so that it takes on colors, vibrancy, softness, etc. that aren't original to the photo.  I guess it's not an ethical violation unless I am selling the photo with the claim that it is unedited.   Moral dilemma solved!  Let's proceed.

Here are a couple before and after photos to demonstrate what can be done with a little computer sleight of hand.

I can't help but like the second one better.  Look how the blue jumps out at you!  The contrast between the egg and the pine needles is startling and eye catching.  Yet I have to admit, the top photo more accurately reflects what I saw, even though it seems like a pale foreshadowing of what it was meant to be.

Pretty much the same thing was done with this photo (which was taken by Ruth, by the way).  I bumped up the saturation so that the color of the leaves nearly burns against the cool, dark water.  Now is this falsifying or glorifying the photograph?   The Bible says that woman is the glory of the man, meaning that she takes what he does and makes it better, fills it out or adds to it.   It doesn't seem right to take a photo of what God created and then "glorify" it, as if He didn't make the world glorious enough.  But I like to think that perhaps what we see here on earth is but a pale shadow of what He has in store for us, the unedited photo, as it were.   When we see Him face to face, we'll see the glorified Jesus, the saturated God-Man.  Maybe even the leaves will seem like they are on fire.

Mr. Shiny

Someone spotted this little fella by the back door one night.  Normally I don't get too excited about frogs; I'd rather that they stay in their world and I in mine.  However, this one was (warning: I'm about to say a very girly thing) -- as I was saying, this one was SO CUTE!   There it sat with its shiny green jacket on, clinging vertically to the wood in a way that illustrated its Creator's design.   I mean, look at those grippers!  Just by looking at the thing you can tell that it's doing just what it was made to do.  I admire that.  Would that people could say the same thing by looking at me.

Warning Part 2: boring camera details ahead.  Veer left!
Back to Mr. Shiny (much preferred over the name Mr. Slimy, I think).  I spent quite a bit of time fussing over the photos and could be heard mumbling things like "too dark.. "  "too bright..."  "blurry!"  "Way too blurry!"   Really, it's amazing that Mr. Shiny didn't just exit, stage left.  It's surprisingly difficult to get the camera to see just what I see.  Or maybe what I should say is that my mind makes all sorts of adjustments for the lighting so I see what I want to see; the camera tells the truth.   I wonder if that's why it's so easy to overlook sin in my life?  The heart is more deceitful than all else...  The camera of God's word is unsparing; if there's something hidden in the dark, He will illumine it.   And that, my friend, is a good thing.

In the end I dialed back the flash quite a bit and was reasonably happy with the results which you see here, although I'm not expecting calls from National Geographic any time soon.

Dying Beauty

There's nothing about the other seasons that makes me catch my breath with awe like the sight of a tree blazing with autumn color.   In the normal course of things, aging is ugly.  Plants shrivel and become colorless, humans do the same.  Dying isn't so pretty either, whether it be a violent, blood-soaked death, an agonizingly long and  painful one or even an old wrinkled one preceded by loss of youth and vitality .  Yet here we have leaves which have a glory-filled exit, leaves that fling themselves off the tree in a vivid riot of color.   Is there anyone besides God who can make dying things beautiful, who can take the brutal ugliness of death and transform it into a glorious victory?  Here's how Corrie Ten Boom described her sister Betsie right after she died in a concentration camp during World War II:

"For there lay Betsie, her eyes closed as if in sleep, her face full and young.  The care lines, the grief lines, the deep hollows of hunger and disease were simply gone.  In front of me was the Betsie of Haarlem, happy and at peace.  Stronger!  Freer!  This was the Betsie of heaven, bursting with joy and health.  Even her hair was graciously in place as if an angel had ministered to her."

It is a mystery, the mystery of Christ our Champion over Death.

They say aging isn't for wimps.  Don't I know it.  I don't like pain.  I don't like growing in weakness and frailty.  I don't like knowing my brain cells are leaving en masse.  I don't even like the weirdly surreal world in which what I hear and what was actually said are not even mildly related.  I'll be frank: I fear dying.  Yet, autumn  reminds me that God can make dying beautiful.  "Though the outer man is decaying, yet the inner man is renewed day by day."  When I go, may I go out with a blaze of color and with the graceful abandon of the autumn leaf.

Dragonfly

There are few winners of beauty contests in the insect world, but the dragonfly is right up there on stage, definitely about to get the Miss Insect crown on her head.  Surely the squat, ugly and shrill cicadas must be a wee bit jealous when one of these beauties flies by.  The dragonfly is naturally slim, arrayed in elegant and dazzling clothing, has the grace to move quietly around in her little world, and takes care to be seen on only the most lovely flowers.  She's got my vote!   (and yes, I do know that some dragonflies are males.)

Declaring the Glory

We started seeing beautiful puffy white clouds on our way east through South Dakota. Eventually, they took on a darker, more sinister cast, so Kris checked his handy dandy phone for the weather...uh oh, trouble ahead. We were less than 10 miles from our campground destination, but prudence bade us pull over at the rest area and wait this one out.

We got out of the van there and within minutes the heat-filled air had cooled and the wind was whipping our hair around (those of us who have enough hair for whipping). That's when I took the top photo, which doesn't communicate even half of the terrible glory of this storm cloud. Underneath it was a rainbow. The terrible, awesome glory cloud was even then eclipsed in some way by the grace of the covenant rainbow.

When it seemed it had passed, we drove on and soon arrived at the KOA, which bore the blasted look of a place shaken by fury, the ground littered with leaf clusters and hail, windows here and there broken by the wind hurling fistfuls of hailstones at them...

The storm cloud passed on to the north east and from our perspective carried only the fading remnants of color and beauty. But as the sky darkened into evening, we saw lightning in its midst, a constant flicker of light, a filling of light. We watched for a long time, silently contemplating the mystery of God's presence in the sky.

Perseverance

I watched him make this. First the idea came, a perfectly splendid idea! He started with a few cards using his newest deck. It wasn't long before he realized that he'd need to use the oldest, most seasoned deck of cards that our house had to offer. I'm sure there's a perfectly good spiritual analogy in there somewhere - ferret it out. As he got down to the nuts and bolts of building this tower, he got some wise counsel from one who had gone before and done this kind of thing in his youth. Next came the season of learning by failure, a difficult season indeed. I will not tell you how many times he kicked the whole thing and sent cards flying through the air in a glorious passion of frustration when the top cards kept toppling (is that a pun?). "Arrrgghhhh!" When the passion was spent, however, he picked them up and started again. The completed edifice is a monument to perseverance. Try it. (Perseverance, not the card tower; however you may choose to learn it the same way he did).

As to the two photos, I wanted to show the contrast between using the flash and trying to go without it. I'm torn. I don't like the artificial light of the flash, yet the photo seems too yellowish without it. I have a lot to learn about lighting. I can't help but think that a faster lens would help (an F stop of 2.8 would be nice). In the meantime, I bump up the ISO and put the F stop as low as I can and hope for the best. Persevere!

Simply Red

Of course, only one of my three followers will understand the reference to "Simply Red," so for the other two, I'll explain that this was the name that a musician in the 1980's went by. The only song I remember of his was one in which the refrain went "that's all I have to say..." It's tempting to end this blog post right now with those words, since I'm not sure I have much to add.

Which of these photos do you think is more effective? I love the brightness of the red ornament against the two different backgrounds. The first photo recalls to mind Isaiah 1:18 "Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord, Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool." It's thought provoking to consider that our sins are that vivid before the Lord.

Seeing Differently

One thing I'm learning about photography is the need to see things with a different eye, which can be through magnification, angle, perspective, lighting, etc. I had to hold the camera out underneath this item to get the photo and therefore couldn't look through the viewer. It isn't as sharp as I might have liked, but it gave me a new perspective on a lighting fixture that I wouldn't have had before.

One thing I want to do as a Christian is to see things with a different eye, to look for Jesus, to see things through His eyes. "God sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, while the Lord looks at the heart." That's it. When I went beyond convention, I saw the heart of the light fixture, the place that nobody else sees and that is surprisingly beautiful. There isn't always beauty at the heart, but the truth is revealed. Lord, help me to see differently, to look at the heart.

Eye Wonder

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. Matthew 6:22-23

A lamp illumines, brings clarity, enlarges our vision. How is the eye like the lamp of the body? How do we get a good eye? Food for thought...

Beautiful Hands

Beautiful because...
...they remind me of my sister Leslie's elegant hands (not nail biters, either one of them)
...they make such lovely items when she gets in the crafting mode,
...they are writer's hands, and...
...these are the hands that help so generously and willingly when the need arises.
Thank you, my daughter.

Seasons Pass

How we all anticipate the Christmas season...and then how short it seems. As I look at these photos of ornaments, I see the years pass by, years of Christmas celebrations. The one at the top was an ornament that belonged to my parents-in-law, no doubt placed on the Christmas tree that Kris looked upon as a child. The other ornaments tell stories as well: our first Christmas with a baby, our Christmases in New Ulm (the handpainted ball with the Glockenspiel on it was given to us by friends when we moved). Each Christmas has been different, significant in its own way and yet each has been tied to all the others by the common thread of celebrating Jesus. The seasons may pass, but Christ Jesus is the same, yesterday and today, yes and forever!

Further In...

True story: I wanted to call this blog "Stories and Pictures," but that seemed sort of blah. I'm fond of alliteration, so the next choice was "Images and Ideas." Hmm...that had possibilities. After all, I really only wanted to start a blog in order to have a place to put some of the photos I've taken and the things I wanted to say about them. I didn't get the nod of approval from the Queen of the Blog (who shall remain nameless; suffice it to say that she helped me set this up), so I cast about for other ideas. What then sprang into my mind is the title you now see: Further Up and Further In, from the C.S. Lewis book The Last Battle. That's the ticket!

I expect this to be a journey of sorts, a journey that takes me further in to the grace and beauty that God sets before me every day, but which I ordinarily do not see. I hope to journey further up as well, up into God's country where I may think and (hopefully) write with clarity. At a time in my life when words are beginning to fail me, this is no small hope indeed.

Come with me, further up and further in!