Reflections from the Journey

A picture may tell a 1,000 words but it still never tells the whole story.  I’m going to take you on a journey back through the lens and out the viewfinder to tell you the story of the making of the image.

I had a different photo that I was prepared to talk about but felt compelled to talk a bit about this one instead.   Considering that it is only a couple of weeks until Christmas I think it is appropriate.   Shooting his particular image is also fresh in my mind since I photographed it recently, this past weekend, in fact.

After finding out from the weathergirl, a.k.a. my wife Kristie, that there a chance of snow  I planned a trip to Blowing Rock for the weekend with my family.  Having bemoaned for the past few years the fact that I had very few “Christmas card worthy” images, I was determined to remedy the situation.   I had a few ideas floating around in my head and wanted to finally “see” them become reality.

I was a bit worried Friday night when we arrived at the cozy cottage at the Blowing Rock Conference Center because the snow had not started to fall yet.   All reports had predicted the snow to start falling by 9 p.m., but there wasn’t a flake in the sky.  (Though there was one standing on the cottage porch!)  I set my alarm for a little before 7 a.m. , and not letting my worries get to me, I soon fell fast asleep.

I woke to my alarm in the morning to find:  SNOW!  Glorious Snow!  Trying unsuccessfully to get myself bundled up for an excursion out into the snowy, frozen tundra without waking up my children,  I slipped out the door amidst young voices screaming and jumping in delight.  Luckily for me, all I had to do next was navigate slippery mountain roads during a heavy snowfall.  My wife had to deal with the 3 uber-excited snow monkeys!

Hoping for an interesting sunrise I drove a couple of miles to the Thunder Hill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Once I got there safely in my trusty Jeep Wrangler, I found that while extremely beautiful in its own way and a deeply spiritual experience for me, the view itself wasn’t very photogenic due to the very heavy cloud cover.   Not to be discouraged I headed back to the cottage taking a few interesting photos along the way:

I ducked into the cottage to grab a few ornaments that I had brought with me to use as props for my Christmas card images.  I had bought a few jingle bells in different colors and some crystal star shaped ornaments that I thought were both simple and timeless.  (The star shaped ones I ended up not using because they were just a bit too large and heavy.)  I hiked a short distance toward the beautiful outdoor chapel at the conference center that had a stately pine near it.  Seeing some branches that I thought would work well, I threw the bells down into the snow to let them cool down to the outdoor temperature.

I hung the bells from various branches and set about my work.  Since the bells had been all snug and warm inside the cabin during much of the snowfall, I had to improvise by flicking snow onto them to get the requisite “look.”  (Oh, stop “poo-pooing” me.  You would have done the same thing.)  Using my trusty 14-54mm Olympus lens  on my hardy, weather sealed Olympus E-3, I spent about an hour in the blowing snow photographing 3 different bells (1 red, 1 green, and 1 brown) on snowy pine branches.

Having thought I was finished for the moment, I started to fold up my tripod and turned walk back to the cottage.  Now, I had left the bells hanging after I had photographed each one thinking I would just grab them all at once.  It’s a good thing I did, because as I turned I saw the image you see preserved above.  It was an “aha!” kind of moment that turned into a “duh! why didn’t I think of that in the 1st place” kind of moment.   I knew that this was the shot I really wanted!

The 14-54mm lens would work for this image so I hurried back to the cottage to grab my 50-200mm instead.   Some of you may be asking yourself, “Why did he need to change lenses?”  The answer is simple: A telephoto lens tends to compress the distance between objects.  You see, the cross in the background is at least 30 feet from where the bell was hanging.  Had I used the wider angle lens the cross would have looked tiny and far away.  The cross is also a few feet below the branch so with the telephoto I was able to stand a bit further up the hill and shoot downward.

Here is a shot of the outdoor chapel with the cross:

The pine where the red bell photo was taken stands about 6 feet further to the right from where I stood for this shot.  The cross in this photo is the same one that appears in the red bell image.

I opened my aperture/fstop (the lens opening) to f8 which rendered the cross as the subtle shape that you see in the photo.  A smaller fstop such as f11 or f16 would have made the cross a bit more in focus and “in your face” while a larger opening such as f 5.6 would have made the cross unrecognizable.  I kind of think that the way I shot it is like the baby bears porridge, just right.

The wind had started to really pick up so I had to set my ISO (the light sensitivity of the camera’s imaging sensor) up from 100 which is what I generally use to 200.  The boost in ISO allowed my to shoot at slightly faster shutter speeds to compensate for the extra movement without adding any extra noise (think, graininess).  Even with that extra help I still had to time my shots between wind gusts.

I’m pretty pleased with how the shot turned out.

Now, it’s confession time.  I haven’t been feeling all that “Christmas-y.”  I had hoped that we would have moved out of the city (Charlotte/Pineville) up to the mountains by this Christmas.  Unfortunately, that door hasn’t been opened yet.  I’ve heard some sounds like keys turning in a lock, but so far the door to the mountains has stayed closed.  I let this fact turn me into a bit of a Grinch.

When I looked through my viewfinder and saw this image, though, I remembered why I’m here.  I remembered from where my joy should come.  I remembered that God loves me and is working in my life.  I remembered that He has a plan for me and that I am exactly where He wants me.

I, also, remembered that God has given me a gift, has given the entire world a gift.  It is a gift that he gives over and over and over,  again and again.    It is a gift that is represented in a baby born  in a lowly stable.  A baby that grew up to live a life filled with love and passion for all of Creation.   I remembered this baby whom we sing about in Christmas carols who became a man that taught that it is blessed to be one that seeks peace, that it is blessed to show mercy, that we should remember the needy and love not just those who are nice to us but, also, those who would be our enemies.  I remembered the Creator in the form of a man who taught that it is better to love one another than to judge one another.   I remembered the Messiah who came to set the captives free, who came to abolish the kingdoms of sin, hate, fear, and death and ushered in the eternal Kingdom of God.  I remembered what Christmas is really about.

Merry Christmas!