Seeing God throught the Lens by Sr Cecilia Prest, mfic.

I suppose I’ve dabbled in photography since I was a teenager but didn’t get serious about it until I was missioned to PNG and needed to do some fundraising to keep our rural health service going. I took dozens of slides while going out on patrol to the villages up and down our mountain parish to immunize the children and do antenatal checks and also around our little hospital where we treated so many conditions you would rarely come across in Australia. Severely malnourished babies; leprosy; TB; large tropical ulcers; patients with epilepsy who had fallen into their cooking fires and been badly burnt and infected; little children covered in scabies from head to toe… I would show the slides to our benefactors and give talks on our ministries anytime I was on home leave. I quickly learnt that a good picture is more effective than a thousand words!

Many years later I was given a little video camera and shot some videos instead which was much easier than slotting individual slides into a projector cassette and getting them either up-side-down or back-to-front!

I used to use auto settings all the time as I didn’t really understand the workings of the camera. PNG was a photographer’s paradise but as film rolls and their development were quite expensive we didn’t have the luxury of taking as many photos as we can today.

When I came to Woorabinda in 2003 I was given a second-hand digital camera just days before a busload of us went on pilgrimage to Alice Springs. I was ecstatic! I spent hours on the three-day bus journey getting acquainted with the camera and “shot” everything in sight. I was fascinated by this wonderful digital technology and the images the little camera could produce. Today I wonder how I was able to see anything on the tiny LCD screen on that early digital camera!

I became very interested in the birdlife all around me at about the same time and used to photograph the birds and then identify them in my bird books when I got home. I joined Birdlife Aust. and Birdlife Capricornia so I could learn more about our birds and take part in monthly bird counts.

I did a few photography classes in Rocky but didn’t find what I needed. However, they did make me start using manual settings on my camera and I haven’t moved off them since! I wanted to be able to create images that would make viewers think about the environment around them and to see the beauty that is often hidden in plain sight. Some of the tiniest wildflowers and even the flowering “weeds” are simply magnificent when seen up close, but unless we stop and look we walk past and miss the moment.

I would rarely take a photo which turned out just the way I wanted it – not a “snapshot” but a creation; an image to take the viewer into the world I see where we are all related in the web of life. I wanted to be able to capture images which showed the beauty of God reflected all around us and in the very heart of creation; images which would raise awareness of the many “God moments” in our lives.

I love this quote from Teilhard de Chardin who had such a profound sense of the interconnectedness and scaredness of life:

“To live the cosmic life is to live dominated by the consciousness that one is an atom in the body of the mystical and cosmic Christ.” (From “Writings in the Time of War,” 70.)

I started reading articles online to learn more about the art of photography and took thousands of photos, deleting most of them, but learning from them and finding what it was I wanted to capture and gradually began to take photos which I was happy with. There is such a joy in taking a really good photo where everything comes together - the right light, most effective camera settings, a lovely subject and some plain auld good luck!

I find bird photography very rewarding. When I need some “R & R” I like to sit or stand quietly in the garden or the bush and let the birds feel safe with my presence. I set up the camera beforehand so I am ready for any quick shot. Sometimes the smaller ones fly right up to my face to check me out which always makes me laugh. They are cute and cheeky at the same time. I live in the moment at those times which are almost contemplative and sacred. I find I learn so much by observing the birds and other creatures and notice them more in my environment.

Since taking up photography more seriously I “see” photos everywhere. I like to paint, but photography is quicker for me, so now I “paint with my camera.”

For more photos see https://www.flickr.com/photos/156079728@N08/

I leave you with a lovely poem by Sr. Nellie Mclaughlin RSM  (“Out of Wonder” 233) which expresses so beautifully our oneness with creation.          

“…and as I listened I could faintly hear
the heart beat of millions of creatures, echoes of the divine,
over billions of years in tune with mine
drawing closer, closer, like violin music straining in crescendo
    edging higher and higher’
My heart quickened in awe, overwhelmed
Where have I been until now?
Shall I miss this moment too, all billions of years of it?
Perchance, I’ll wake outright to witness
solid rock masses extend soft, wide arms
in communion invitation to our multi-specied neighbourhood
and behold with ever-widening eyes, blinking in disbelief,
all manner of creature emerge
from tombs of alienation-silenced and solidified-in human hearts
slowly, reverently, embracing and joyfully proclaiming WE ARE ONE!
Hereafter, shall I nestle more securely in the lap of Mother Earth, as of
old intuitively,
now with the universe intimate way of knowing, heart beat to heart beat.”