Shedding Some Light on the Subject

I work a 9-to-5 corporate job {in addition to this blogging gig} and they both require some photography work.

At my day job, I’m part of a communications team. We stage an event every year where my assignment is to accompany the professional photographer for the evening. 

As we shoot photos and conduct interviews, I pepper him with questions about lighting and setting up shots. 

He tells me about his new camera and all the amazing things it can do.

Even after four years of shooting photos for my blog, I’m still confused about shutter speed and light settings. 

I just put my camera on AUTO and almost always turn the flash off. 

I tell him the flash gives my photos a strange yellowish cast and I don’t know how to fix it.

He’s incredulous and tells me I’ve got it all wrong. 

The flash, he says, is my friend.  

I'm not so sure about that. 

After all the time I've spent with my camera, there's still so much of it that's mystifying to me. 

And after all this time, there's still so much that's perplexing about life. 

The questions I can't quite figure out, doubts that make me wonder if the road I'm on is really taking me where I want to go, and fear that rises up that things will never change.

{Can you relate?}

Maybe you've had emotions of jealousy or anger stirred from a circumstance that didn't go as you wanted it to. Maybe you're facing a disappointment and loss of hope. 

Maybe it's sadness from a broken friendship or relationship, or maybe just a letdown from the holidays or something you'd been looking forward to.

I'm thinking that maybe I just don't know how to use these things that show up in my life -- and sometimes stay long past their welcome.

Have you ever had God illuminate your life for a few minutes? 

What I mean is, like a flash, I can suddenly see what's going on from God's perspective. 

What he's doing, how he's moving, how the pieces of my life fit together. How he's weaving the past into the present for something beautiful for the future. 

I see the hurt turned into hope, the pain made peaceful, and the loss look more like love.

Then it goes dark again. The thought isn't as clear anymore and soon I doubt what I saw in the light.

But maybe it's those illuminating flashes that we should hold onto and know that God's using all the pieces of our lives . . . for them, for us, and for him. 

You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness. - Ps. 18:28

For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see. - Ps. 36:9

So as my photographer friend advised, I'm going to try to use the flash more often with my photos {because you can see how they turned out when I tried to shoot at night last summer when I was in Italy}.

He took the photo {below} of Brittany {my blog's social media manager extraordinaire!} and me when it was nearly dark.

Thanks to the flash, you can still see us.

And who knows what kind of photos I could take when I start making friends with my camera.

A little invitation for you: Beginning Feb. 15, my friend Heather at Recollected Design and I will get together via a Facebook group to study Angie Smith’s Seamless, to see how the people and promises of the Bible fit together and what they mean for our lives. Get a copy of the book here or here and come join us on Facebook! 

I'm having coffee with my friend Holley Gerth at Coffee for your Heart and with Bonnie Gray at the Faith Barista. Click the images for more posts from my blogger friends!