How I know God guides my photography.....

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies announce what his hands have made. Day after day they tell the story; night after night they tell it again. They have no speech or words; they have no voice to be heard. But their message goes out through all the world; their words go everywhere on earth."
Psalm 19: 1 - 4 (NCV).

Every time I look through the lens of my camera I see God working. Every day He reveals His majesty. Every night He shows me how He creates beauty even in the darkness. Even if I had not known Him before I started taking photos, the moment I looked at His creation up close (or far away) I see His glory and He guides me to see His beauty in all He has created. Photography just allows me to capture an image of what He has created.

Monday, February 16, 2009

A quick look back to the dark ages of my digital photography...






Recently I’ve been thinking about going back and looking at some of the photos I took when I first started working with digital. My first digital camera was an Olympus Camedia C-4000 (4.0 Megapixel) point and shoot. It didn’t have many whistles or buttons (nothing like the DSLR that I currently use. It only had 3X optical zoom and the lens was an AF zoom 19.5-65 mm lens. It was fun going back over the photos I took (all the way back to 2004…. seems like a lifetime ago in camera innovation years). Even with only 4.0 Megapixels there were many photos that even by my standards today are very enjoyable to look at. Here are two that I took in July 2004 while on a vacation in England and Paris, France.
The first photo is a picture I took at Stonehenge. I put it in Photoshop and using a filter/plug in tool called PhotoTools (Pro-Edition) I converted what was a normal color picture into an infra-red photo, and using a layers filter I brought back the color of the stones from the original photo into the infra-red photo. Then in the crop tool I converted the photo into a “two to one” ratio photo (15 inches by 30 inches). It looks eerie with the conversion. I’ve included the original untouched photo and the conversion. As I’ve said in other photo posts, some time you should never throw away a photo just because it was taken on a low resolution camera. With all the new photographic programs and plug-in filters that are coming out, you never know when you may be able to turn an old ordinary photo into something useful in the future.
The second photo was taken at night at the base of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I was waiting in line to go to the top (height – not one of my favorite things). Even at that early stage of digital photography I was constantly looking around and trying to imagine what a specific photo might look like. Most people take photos (like the one attached) of the full Eiffel Tower and just leave it at that. I planted myself directly under the tower and directed my view directly upward. No fancy programs (PhotoShop/Light Room2 or any of the other programs), just a direct photo. I liked it then and I still like pulling out the CD I saved it on and look at it every once an awhile. Nothing fancy, but something enjoyable for me. I guess that goes along with why I take photos… the remembrance of people and places I’ve been.

The only photos I regret are those not taken... then wishing I had.




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