“It’s not what we look at that matters, it’s what we see.” Henry David Thoreau.
Life is full of God, but rarely do we take the time to slow down and really see Him. I love the contemplative nature of photography – it’s a time of prayer – I ask Jesus to show me what I need to see. With my camera in hand, the world suddenly slows down. I walk gently and I even get on my knees to observe things up-close. 
This causes me to see beyond the obvious – to notice beauty in the broken, such as peeling paint on an old building or rust on cables that tie sea pilings together. There is beauty all around us that we look right past, considering it as trash, run down, or useless. When I take images of these types of things, they seem to come alive again, they regain a sense of beauty—therefore bringing more beauty into my world.
Close up photography is one of my favorites - to see everyday things in extraordinary ways invites me into a world I rarely take time to explore. Once I so
desperately wanted to capture an image of dew on a blade of grass. One morning last summer as I stood on our back porch sipping my first cup of coffee. I noticed through sleepy eyes that the grass was full of dew. I immediately put my coffee down, ran upstairs for my camera, and headed out back. Right there in the middle of our yard, in my pink fuzzy bathrobe, on my belly with camera in hand inches from wet grass blades, I peered through my close up lens and snapped the shutter release many times. That alone was an awe-some moment. But when I uploaded the photos onto my computer and looked through all the images, one caught my attention, that is the one I have been praying for! In that moment, again, I was in awe of God’s creation and simple beauty.
Photography has two parts: the contemplative nature of taking thoughtful images AND the experience of those images later. Twice you are moved to see God and His creation in new ways.
Giving ourselves permission to slow down and to be fully present in the moment, we can learn to see beauty where we least expect it. Even in everyday objects or broken scenes.
