Seeing through the negative

Salvation Army, Christchurch City Corps.

The church was only two or three years old; it replaced one lost in the 2011 earthquakes. Last week we were attending the funeral of my Mother-in-law - Jeane Prattley. The picture above doesn't do it justice, but the cross at the front of the auditorium dominates the space as soon as one enters. 

Only it doesn't. There is no cross. What appears as a cross is simply an absence of wall, filled with glass to keep out the elements. When you look at the cross, you see mostly sky; dull and grey or, as on the day of the funeral, blue with fluffy white clouds passing by. The cross is an illusion; one that even the partially-sighted can't fail to notice.

Later, as six of us carried Jeane's casket to the hearse, we each became acutely conscious of her absence. Jeane was no longer with us. And yet it seems to me that, in embracing the fact of Jeane's absence, she comes more clearly into focus. Like that cross, there is now a Jeane shaped hole in the fabric of life; it is by looking at that absence that we can, perhaps, still perceive the presence.

Empty

Audio-visual

In a few weeks this view will be obscured by spring's new growth and an abundance of leaves. It caught my eye yesterday for the bold simplicity of the shapes set against a stormy sky. It was the work of a moment with the camera, but processing it to capture the feeling of that moment took several hours and a few aborted attempts. Why are the simple pictures the hardest?

On a related note, I have just read through "Eyes of the Heart - Photography as a Christian contemplative Practice" by Christine Valters Paintner. Her book deserves more than a quick read through (and I will give it much more than that) but she encourages a deeper 'seeing' than a photographer (me) often gives the subject; more of a 'slow gazing' designed to see beyond the mere physical form and expose something deeper. That's a huge challenge - using a device (a camera) designed to capture light to reveal something more than an image. Hmm ... work to do there me thinks.