The Beginning - Amelia Moore

A Moment. In time. Creation.

Photograph Creation. Simple Assignment. I experience and interact with the world around me everyday. Flowers, squirrels, trees, clouds, grass, people. I’m used to photographing children running about or the hustle of an event. Stuff standing still, easy enough!

But as I began to look for ways to capture the Biblical account of Creation through photography, I realized that what I experience today is so unlike the raw, majestic, beauty of pure creation, untouched by man. Everywhere I looked, I saw evidence of man: Cornfields orderly growing in the sun. Horses grazing in fenced fields. Puddles by construction zones. Light from candles, flashlights and fireworks. Cut grass. Piles of fruit. Animals at the zoo. Even flowers in a flowerbed. That’s not the “creation” I wanted to photograph. Would I have to travel to the middle of a forest to find what I thought I wanted?

So I questioned “The Beginning”: Where did light come from? Were there clouds at the beginning of creation? What was the sky like? What was weather like? Creation didn’t know storms. Earth was untouched by footprints and fires; by disasters and mountains. What would it have been like to explore, stand, breathe, listen, see, and witness GOD as HE CREATED?

I was humbled. I am incapable of understanding “The Beginning.” Of capturing this profound truth that I take for granted every moment: for the miracle of life and world that sustains it.

So I put down my camera in defeat. This assignment was too big for me. I wanted to capture something that depicted the raw moments of creation. But God prompted and I tried to listen. I read and re-read, outlined and looked again at The Beginning. “God, what do you want me to learn?”

The creation story is very abstract when you really think about it: Light coming from darkness. Man created from dust. God resting. How could I represent those moments? So I had to get creative and put into practice some of photography’s technical techniques I don’t get to use often: long shutter speeds to capture the movement of light (for light around a man, fireworks and lighting). A tight depth of field to isolate a raindrop on a leaf. And a macro lens to fill the frame with colors.

What I so love about Photography is that it allows me to slow down and explore, ponder and create; to capture moments of time that are otherwise fleeting and lost. It the midst of a busy life, I have to stop and look and think before I take a photo. I have to walk somewhere; stop my car; get down on my knees or climb a hill. I have to look at details, find the right light or try again. So that’s what I set out to do: really look at my world, The Creation now, to capture moments around me that reflect the creation I know: wheat, water, eyes, color, rain.

And in those still moments, I got to witness God create.

-  Amelia Moore
www.mintandsage.com
www.ameliajmoore.com

Comments

[Gigi]

What I love about each of these entries is the sense of someone waiting to hear from God... posturing themselves to see Him... asking for a glimpse of who He is in Creation. He speaks. It is beautiful to hear from those who are listening.