creation

Same Path, Different Light

Steve · May 16, 2010 · 3 Comments

daisy — Daisy fleabane. Photo by Steve GIvens

“A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange

I heard this quote about a month or so ago on NPR during a great feature on Dorothea Lange, the influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Google her and look at some of her images – they are simply amazing and you will no doubt recognize one or two of them from history textbooks and documentaries about the Depression. But her quote about “learning to see” is what stuck with me most after I finally turned the radio off (it was one of those “driveway moments” that NPR brags about).

Standing Still and Learning to be Astonished

Steve · March 28, 2010 · 7 Comments

We are all waiting patiently, but spring has not fully sprung here in eastern Missouri. It has teased us a bit, has shown us a few sprouts and given us a handful of warm days, but it’s not quite ready to fully bloom. Or if it is, it’s keeping that secret to itself.

Yesterday, despite the gloom and the threat of rain, I decided to go for a walk, camera-in-hand, through a small conservation area just a mile or so from my house. It’s a beautifully simple piece of land dedicated to the state in the name of someone’s loved one (August G. Beckemeier) that occupies a virtually untouched 54 acres that lies between a busy north-south road and the bottom lands that edge the Missouri River as it cuts between St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. As I got out of my car in the parking lot and walked toward the footpath, I remembered well the last time I was there, late last fall, when most of the flowers had ceased blooming and the green was gone from the trees and grasses. Despite my spring-filled thoughts and hopes, it didn’t look that much different yesterday. That thought, combined with the fact that the sun was hidden behind thick, menacing clouds, didn’t bode well for me as a photographer. Still, I trudged on, hopeful for moments of brightness and illumination, recalling the words of the wonderful Cape Cod poet, Mary Oliver:

In the Beginning

Steve · January 22, 2010 · 1 Comment

Sunrise in Mexico, 2009. Photo by Steve Givens

We all have our ideas of how the world came into being. I like to think God was having a good time when that first light was cast…

The idea was at once captivating and ludicrous.

And as he grew more excited
his enthusiasm made him smile.
A huge sheepish grin spread across his aged face
and somewhere deep in his gut
there began a gentle rumble.

The laughter welled up inside him
and he hissed and sputtered
like a child at church
who doesn’t want to laugh but can think of nothing else.

Finally
knowing he could postpone the moment no longer
he stood
placed his hands on his hips
took a deep breath of his good air
and then the laughter and words poured forth
like a river bursting its banks
spreading quickly over the darkness:

Let there be light.