Last night I had the immense pleasure of taking the first of four classes through RHU on Missional Photography. This intensive is awesome for a several reasons (three of which you can see in the photo above!). It's led by Dane Sanders, Mike Colon and Jessica Claire (a dream team if I ever saw it) and focuses on the storytelling aspect of photography (a style especially appropriate for missions work).
We started out by watching a brief slideshow of some of Dane's photos from a recent trip to India. I was really struck by several of the photos, but not for the reason I originally thought I might be. I was of course drawn to the emotion and the intensity of the images, but what really struck me was the duality of the eternal and the moral caught in photos.
Photography is truly amazing to me - you capture a moment in time FOREVER. You literally let that moment taste the eternal. There is something so inspiring and humbling about that to me. It's the closest thing to eternity that we can experience on earth. I can look at photos taken by Matthew Brady almost 150 years ago and those people, in that moment, still live. And there's the other side of it. The mortal side. To take at a photograph is to capture the shell of the person. To me it's a reminder that this body is just housing - there is not soul in a photo. You may glimpse a glimmer of it in their eyes, but it does not contain it. The combination of those things is amazing to me. That's part of the importance of honoring a person by telling their story in photos as well.
I'll be blogging about this weekly I'm sure - and you can expect a lot of photos over the next 28 days - we have assignments to take at least 100 photos a day between now - and we have to choose the best one each week for telling a story. Maybe I'll put up my top 5 and have you help me choose! In the meantime, here are a few more images from last night...
Dane teaching some of the basics:
Mike explaining aperture and depth of field while Jessica looks on:
That's all for now. Definitely MUCH more to come over the next several weeks though! I'm so excited!
~Brienne
4 comments:
OK - I am speechless that you blogged all this already about last night! I was there too - hope to meet you next week!
Hey Brienne! It was great to meet you. Awesome blog shots! I noticed them first as amazing pics, and then (on Dane's blog) I noticed who shot them, so I thought I'd drop a line and say hello...
Alright take care!
=Matt=
I know this may be a lot to ask and you may or may not have time to do it--but I figured I'd ask.
I live in Missouri and am not able to go to these classes. I was dying to come because that is my passion--to tell a story with my photos, especially with missions work.
I'd appreciate any info or notes that you've taken so that maybe I can follow along with the assignments as well. I would appreciate anything and completely understand if you won't have time to do this.
Thanks for your blog today!
Nice to meet you! You have some beautiful images here as well.
That class sounds so neat- such a cool opportunity! I hope you post more of what you learned. Have a great day!
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