Light Enhancement

I have a friend named Vlatka who takes incredible pictures with a simple point and shoot digital camera. She’s a believer, and she gets great joy out of capturing God’s handiwork upclose. The ideas she comes up with always amaze me – and always minister to me.

Maybe part of what touches me about Vlatka’s photos is that they transform the ordinary into something extraordinary. Vlatka has an eye for this.

I on the other hand, do not.

For example, recently, Vlatka and I went on a walk while I was on my lunch break. (What a friend she is, huh? She came to meet me on my lunch hour just to walk with me!) As we walked, I was focused on chatting and well… walking.

But not Vlatka. She was enthralled with potential photo opportunities that kept presenting themselves. At first, I was a little put off because I wanted to get my 2 mile walk in, but that feeling quickly dissipated as I began to see things through Vlatka’s eyes.

Take this tree branch for example:

I had passed this tree branch every day on my walking route and didn’t think much of it, except that I wondered when the people were going to have it removed and I thought it looked kinda cool.

But Vlatka looked at it and saw great potential.

Or this shot she also took on our walking route:

All I saw was a sticky tree, but Vlatka saw a visual message that could prick the hearts of others.

When Vlatka started emailing me her pictures with the scriptures on them, I was amazed. I asked her how she managed to do such incredible work with such a simple camera. “It’s not the camera so much as the light” she responded. Then she explained to me how she had taken a special photography class about the importance of proper lighting.

As we chatted about lighting and shadows and how to capture great pictures, we realized it wasn’t the camera. It wasn’t the tree, or flower or whatever, and it wasn’t even the photographer that made the difference. (I could have used her camera and taken the same pictures, but without the knowledge of the effects of light enhancement, the results would have been dramatically different.) It was the LIGHT and the KNOWLEDGE OF THE LIGHT that transformed a simple picture into a work of art.

That’s when it hit both of us, that it’s the same when Jesus Christ sheds his light on us. It is when we have the knowledge of Him as the light of the world that transformation begins. Until then, we are just ordinary balls of dirt that are not special at all. But when He shines His light on us we are transformed, illuminated, and beautiful!! Our worth, our value, our purpose are only fully realized when Jesus Christ fills us with his spirit because it is then that His light can fully shine through us.

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:3-5)

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)