The Apaches used burden baskets like the one shown above (made by Linda Couzman) to gather wild foods or crops. Larger baskets were sometimes used for food storage. Today burden baskets are used in traditional girls’ puberty ceremonies. The baskets are made by weaving together natural materials from the countryside such as willow, yucca root, and devil’s claw. Different colored plants are used to make designs. The baskets vary in size but are cone-shaped with buckskin carrying straps.6
An artist’s biography accompanied the basket my friend purchased. The bio stated that the artist went to the nearby “holy mountain” to collect grass to make her baskets. I read the information and imagined the prayers of preparation for gathering the grasses and roots of the different colors and textures needed to make the basket.
I wondered: how much prayer do I put into my photo trip preparation? The story of the seagull taught me to spend time centering in order to be present to God and my photography. However, the native artist taught me another step in the process: the spiritual practice of photography includes every piece of getting ready.
Meditation behind the camera includes physical and mental preparation. We invite God into the process from the beginning. We bring all we have—ourselves, our equipment, our supplies—and place them at God’s feet and request a blessing for the journey. The Hebrew people did this as they met God at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:9b-11). God instructed them to consecrate themselves and wash their clothes before God descended upon the mountain. Preparation for a holy event was important.
The task of getting ready becomes a holy event itself as we slow down the process and move with intention through each step. Cleaning the camera gives us an opportunity to ask God to clean our “heart’s eye” so we may truly see. Packing the equipment allows us to give thanks for the gift of the camera, lenses, and filters. Lunch preparation or filling our water bottle becomes an opportunity to ask for spiritual nourishment during the journey.
Preparation for the journey helps open our eyes to the story we will find. Whatever pictures beckon to us become the colors and textures for the story we weave, just like the grasses and roots used in the burden baskets.
Journaling
Meditation behind the camera calls for two types of journaling. We write our thoughts, questions, and concerns in a paper or computer journal before and after trips. The images, themselves are also a form of journaling. Mark Edward Harris says, “I think of my frame as a canvas.”7 I paraphrase his statement and say, “I think of the frame as my journal.” We are storytellers. As photographers, we write the story through our photographs. We see a vision before our eyes and record it on disk or film. We are touched by what we see or moved by what is going on inside our heart, so we tell the story through photographs. We continue to write the story at the computer if we edit the rough draft by changing colors, adjusting lighting, or cutting and pasting pictures together. All of these activities are part of the photo-writing process.
However, the writing begins long before we pick up the camera. A dedicated photography journal is a good tool for planning when we record thoughts, questions, and reflections. Journaling before picking up the camera is like gathering the grasses for a burden basket. The act of journaling gives us a chance to examine the various pieces that make up our day. What will give the outing color and texture?
Think of the written journal as the place to begin tapping into your spirit to discover the pictures God is calling you to write and the journey you are about to begin. The journal content varies from entry to entry. What is going on in your heart, soul, and mind? What is the state of your emotions: are you struggling, excited, or thankful? What do you hope to see tomorrow, and will you allow God to lead you? Questions such as these encourage us to begin seeing and feeling the textures and colors of the journey.
Try the following exercise:
Find a book to use as a written photography journal, or create a journal folder on your computer. The night before a planned trip spend time writing in the journal. Breathe deeply and center yourself. Think about the upcoming trip and your emotional and spiritual feelings. Use the following questions as a starting place for reflection:
• Where is God leading me tomorrow? What do I hope to see?
• How am I feeling emotionally? Am I thankful for anything in particular, excited, anxious, worried?
• What is blocking my ability to pay attention to the movement of the Spirit? How can I let it go?
• What else is on my mind at this time?
These reflections will inform your journey the next day. End in silence, asking the Spirit to be with you as you go.
Journaling is another form of breathing and letting go. The process of writing out the words opens other avenues for sensing God’s leading and God’s speaking. Journaling gives us a tool to get our thoughts out of the way in order to give space for the deeper story of the people, the landscape, and allowing our hearts to come forth.
Thus, the whole process of centering calls for silence, space, attention to texture, and breathing. Journaling through photographs and with words opens us to the awareness of God’s participation. Madeleine L’Engle recounts the words of a Hawaiian Christian, Mother Alice Kaholusuna, who challenges us to center our lives:
Before the missionaries came, my people used to sit outside their temples for a long time meditating and preparing themselves before entering. Then they would virtually creep to the altar to offer their petition and afterwards would again sit a long time outside, this time to “breathe life” into their prayers. The Christians, when they came, just got up, uttered a few sentences, said Amen, and were done. For that reason my people called them haoles, “without breath,” or those who failed to breathe life into their prayers.8
Centering is a way to enter our photography carefully with the breath of God leading us. Meditation and preparation open the pathways to join the Spirit as we breathe life into the stories of our photographs and our souls.
Reflection
Our spiritual lives inform our photography, and our photography informs our spiritual lives. The temptation is to come home from our outing and stop the process when we complete the after-trip tasks: upload pictures, process them, share the pictures with others, and study what we could have done differently. These activities are essential tasks, but they are not the end of meditation behind the camera. Reflection on the trip forms another part of the journey.
Record your thoughts in your photography journal after each trip. Reflect on questions such as these:
• What did this outing teach me about my own spiritual journey?
• What did I learn about my relationship with God?
• How did I learn to open the eyes of my heart in new ways?
Each chapter in this book includes questions to guide your reflections based on the chapter focus. Thinking over the day aids in our discovery of how photography deepens our spiritual journeys. In turn, the growth in our spiritual lives affects our photography. The process becomes a circle of spiritual growth.
We live in a world that encourages us to rush from one thing to the next. We barely finish one activity before starting another one, or we try to perfect the art of multitasking. We relegate our spiritual lives to morning or evening prayers and “sound-bite” prayers as we drive in the car. This chapter considers taking time to prepare and center to avoid the “hurry” in photography. How can this insight inform our relationship with God and the way we live? When we learn to slow down and prepare our hearts, minds, and souls before leaving the house on a photography journey, we develop patterns we can use in the rest of our lives.
After practicing the concepts in this chapter you may wish to reflect on the following questions:
• How can I practice centering at the beginning and